Friday

I am so thankful it's Friday. Everyone needs to go home, get off each others' nerves, and rest/heal up. 

The social studies test went okay. A bunch of kids only got one or two questions wrong, but because there weren't a lot of questions, they got an A-. Just a few didn't do too great. A few more kids were out sick, so they'll need to test on Monday. 

It was another rambunctious day in 5th grade. We had to finish decorating our classroom door for Mt. Olive Week festivities next week and we made Valentine's Day boxes. A parent donated all the supplies to make them, so that was our art project for the week. Nice. Our floor is now littered with glitter stickers and sticker backs and plastic sleeves from stickers. The boxes are all on top of their lockers for the time being, so at least they aren't cluttering the classroom. 

Another interesting development in the friendship saga: the girl being left out (S#1) told a different classmate (S#2) that she (S#2) couldn't be friends with the group that was picking on her (S#1). I found out because one of the group of pickers wrote me a note. And she only found out because S#2 told her. Ugh! Girls! Keep your mouths shut! I had a chance to pull S#2 aside today and talked to her about gossip, spreading information that doesn't need to be spread, and the wisdom of letting information stop at you. Hopefully it sunk in. She definitely passed on information that didn't need to be shared. S#1 has been home sick since Wednesday, so we haven't had any new developments besides this. We also haven't been able to see if any progress is being made among the girls. We shall see!

House update: There has been huge progress made at our house! I think just one more day and we will be COMPLETELY finished! The last of the tile was grouted, the plumber installed the sink faucet, and the bathroom mirror was installed. Now G and I just need to paint and hang pictures... 

In other news, this weekend we're getting together for supper with relatives from the Cities passing through on their way to Fulda. I'm celebrating February birthdays with two close college friends (their birthdays are exactly one week apart!), and G and I are hosting a Superbowl party for his high school friends. Good incentive to get the house clean. 😉

Kahoot

Social studies test Friday= Kahoot game to study. Each class had enough times to do it twice, although the second round had to be quick or we'd run out of time. It was my first experience doing a Kahoot with more than 10 people in person. Very fun and very rowdy. 

I sent a link to the Kahoot via email to their parents so they could study at home if they wanted. They did. I got a message from a parent later that night saying she couldn't get in to the Kahoot. Apparently they have a 40 person limit and we had reached it. Whoa! I sent a second link out hoping that would fix the problem.

Dropping Like Flies

Even though the weather has been absolutely glorious, sickness is still rampant. One student was absent for a second day in a row, and then two other students went home early because their stomachs hurt. Take your vitamins people! Me too.

We played with parachutes for PE, specifically the shark game. All the students sit on the floor with their legs under the parachute. Two classmates hide underneath and tug students under. When they are under, they become sharks too. Two classmates race around the circle as lifeguards trying to save their classmates when the sharks are tugging. The sharks win almost every time. Mrs. M's class was not as thrilled about playing as Mr. N's class was. In fact, there were some complainers! I remember parachute gym day was the best day ever. My how kids have changed.

It's quite interesting to analyze the dynamics between the two groups of students. Mrs. M's class are chattier, there's more of them, and they like to have free time to work or talk. Mr. N's class is usually more focused and they ask me to do extra read-aloud. In fact, tomorrow we will likely finish the book I started with them my first day at Mt. Olive. I already have a second book picked out.

Sorry

After yesterday's lunch fiasco, there were a bunch of apologies made. One girl brought me a mint tea from Starbucks and an apology note. It was very well-written:

"Dear Mrs. H, I'm so sorry for all the drama that is happening. We should not have given her a mushy banana! It wasn't the right thing to do. I'm sorry that you had to come into all of this. You have been my favorite sub ever! I love all the voices you do! Thank you so much for being an awesome sub!! I'm sorry for everything! Love, [the student]." I wrote her a note accepting her apology, forgiving her, and thanking her for the tea. (Earlier in the week she had asked me if I liked coffee. She was so surprised when I said no! Then she asked my favorite tea. I thought it was maybe for a Valentine or something. Maybe it was but the information got used sooner, haha.)

The group of four met with me at morning break (their request) so they could share their side of things. More of the same they've been saying. Also, complaining how a different teacher interacts with them. We talked through everything as best we could with our limited time. I assured them that if they weren't doing anything wrong, they wouldn't be able to get in trouble. Common sense right? Hopefully that sunk in.

Chatty Monday

Oof, the kids were pretty chatty today. In my experience, Mondays tend to be that way. But today felt a little extra. Maybe the weather is changing? Probably not. The forecast says mid-40s all week.

The girl drama continues to be a rollercoaster. I thought the day had been going fairly well, and then lunch happened. The other 5th grade teacher caught the group of four sending a male classmate to give their target a squished banana wrapped in a napkin. We can't make this up, folks! The principal had a chat with the ladies, I sent an email to parents, and hopefully things will be better after this. 

Some good news: I'll be teaching at Mt. Olive for another two weeks (up until G and I leave for Arizona to visit his parents there). The teacher I'm covering for had emailed the principal saying she wasn't sure when she'd be ready to come back, so I'm continuing my teaching to buy the school a bit more time. Maybe she'll be ready by the time I need to leave. That's what we're all hoping, I think.

For PE today we did jump roping again. A fairly large proportion of the class does not enjoy the jump ropes. Well tough. We all have to do things we don't like. We did our normal 'would you rather' warmups, did individual jumping challenges... "Mrs. H, can I jump and do the 'gritty'?" (that's an endzone football victory dance, and yes, he did indeed do it while jump roping)... then group long jump rope jumping. We ended with the helicopter game... That was a big hit. One person spins around in a circle holding a jump rope close to the ground and classmates need to jump over the spinning rope. If it hits them, they're out. Last man standing wins. 

The other class of 5th graders has a new student. He seems to be fitting in well. Doesn't seem like he's a super strong student. I'm basing that off one class period; he didn't jump right in to doing his English worksheet right away. Mt. Olive uses Shurley English, which is a pretty intense curriculum in grammar and diagramming sentences. I am barely figuring it out (thankfully the teacher manual is very detailed and easy to use), so I'm not sure how to teach this kid what to do. Maybe he'll just pick up on it? We have a test tomorrow. I'll probably need to be creative in how I grade it.

House update: the closing on my house in Nicollet is in just over a week! We have it scheduled for 9am on Valentine's Day. Since I'll be teaching, I'll have to go over the day before to sign the papers. G wants to have a welcome basket left at the house for the couple buying it from us. Good thought. We can drop that off on our way to sign papers. It will be such a relief to have that process behind us!

Donut Forget It's Friday Today

We made it through the week! Whew! Today was a much better day than yesterday. The kids seemed back to normal and we caught up on a few things from yesterday. 

I squeezed in a handwriting assignment after their math tests. Two kids who go to 6th grade for math were not happy that they had to do a math assignment AND a handwriting page. One kid used a homework pass on it. Works for me!

Lots of kids requested ice packs today... I forgot to mention yesterday that in addition to all the fuss, two girls smashed heads together at recess and one got a bad bloody nose. It dripped all over her pants and shoes, so she had to wear her basketball shorts until her mom could zip home over lunch to get a replacement pair. Today, she got an ice pack a few times. Another girl has a possible wrist fracture from basketball. Another girl fell on some rocks at recess and has a sore rear end. Thank goodness it's Friday.

Plans are in the works for the Valentine's party next week. A mom is brainstorming over the weekend and she will connect with us on Monday about her ideas. Another mom volunteered to find me help to decorate the classroom door for Mt. Olive Week. The theme is "We Love Our School!" I found some ideas online and the class voted between four. We settled on making a tree with all sorts of leaves in lots of colors. The leaves can have people's names written on them, blessings, things we like about Mt. Olive, etc. Helpers are going to put the backdrop and the tree trunk up and we'll take care of the leaves and words. Nice.

Another nice thing... one of the girls brought me a donut as a thank you for yesterday. Valentine pink with lots of sprinkles. So sweet literally and figuratively. 😊

A Watery Day

Uffdah. Today was a tough one. 

Last night at about 10pm, I got an email from the Mt. Olive principal that the little baby we've been praying for (daughter to the teacher I'm subbing for) had died that morning. Not unexpected; terribly sad nonetheless. It never occurred to me to think about how the classroom would function with that news. I should've thought about that more.

The tears began at the staff devotion before school. It was a timely devotion about grief, loss, and the joy of heaven. The kleenex box got passed down the line. We talked about how to break the news to the students. Many of their parents are friends with Mrs. M, so they would've seen her post. No one wanted the kids without connections to be finding out in the hallway. The principal decided we'd have an all-school assembly to share the news at 8:20. That would give us a bit of time in our classrooms to get everyone situated for the day. Most of us left in silence, dabbing away tears.

A few people came up to me afterwards, gave me a hug, and asked how I was doing with this situation/news. They knew about Bekhor. More tears. 

A few minutes later the students arrived. One boy already had red, puffy eyes. His classmate noticed and immediately worried, "What's wrong? Are you okay?" No response from the student who just put his head on his desk. "Mrs. H, there's something wrong with [the student]!" He was genuinely worried about his friend. I told him that it was okay and I knew what he was crying about; he would find out soon. A few others asked me, "Mrs. H, do you know?" 

We had about twenty minutes of religion. I debated telling the class before we went in to church, but decided not to. I did tell them they might want to grab a kleenex because we were about to hear some sad news. I think a lot of them figured it out then. A few were still in the dark. The chapel/devotion service was nice. We sang two hymns: one that was very comforting but almost made me cry, the other was "Jesus Loves Me" but with more verses than I'm familiar with. The principal gave a devotion. 

After my class got back to our room, we just kind of sat there. Some of them stunned. Some of them bawling. Some of them feeling normal, but weirded out by their classmates having such strong reactions. I admitted I didn't feel like finishing the religion lesson. They said they didn't either. We decided to sit in our sadness for a while. I read a psalm and then let everyone congregate and cry or talk. One girl requested that one of their pastors come talk with her/us. Another started to sing a hymn. I saw a few open up their bibles to read some more. A few flipped through their hymnals. 

It was very interesting to watch each of them experience their grief. One boy was mad. He was so mad, he hit himself in the forehead with his bible over and over again. Later, he tried to pull his hair out in his anger and frustration. Why did she have to die? He also was hit by the fact that he hadn't gotten baptized until he was four. What if she hadn't been baptized? Thankfully, I could answer that question. She had definitely been baptized. That seemed to help a bit.

Another student tried to make jokes (I sensed he was uncomfortable). A few others seemed normal and wanted to get back to doing our regular schedule. A bunch of them didn't have any reaction besides being quiet. A whole bunch couldn't stop sobbing. Thankfully the pastor arrived soon (actually a guy I went to BLC with back in the day). It was his day off (the pastor on duty hadn't made it back to town yet), but he was happy to come in and counsel. We all sat on the floor in the tiny reading corner, even pastor. He was there for about 45 minutes. 

During that time we made a giant pile of kleenex on the floor, they cried until tears wouldn't come anymore (thankfully I thought to make them drink some water), and they asked if they could go home. Uhhhh... no? The principal answered that firmly. "What are you going to be doing at home? Crying? By yourself? It's much better to be here where you can be surrounded by friends." He and I agreed a light academic day might be best. I think if they were forced to take their math test, they'd all probably bomb it. 

I could not keep them in the room with me. They kept needing to go to the bathroom or fill their water bottles. Really, I wondered if they were trying to congregate out in the hall where they could speak privately or to kids in other classrooms. Two boys came up to me concerned where their friend had gone. They were sure he hadn't been in the classroom for at least a half an hour. Two others had gone to look for him without telling me. I was a bit concerned until someone mentioned that kid had a band lesson on Thursday. They didn't believe me that that was probably where he was. The missing kids came back with a report that this one was actually at his band lesson.

Finally it was time for mid-morning break. I let them get their snack early (eating seemed to calm them) and go out to break early as well. Hopefully recess would be a good reset. Mr. N (the other 5th grade teacher who was having a much calmer, drier day) convened with me to make a plan for our class swapping schedule. 

Class with his kids was so much calmer. I didn't want them to get ahead of the other class, so we shared the stories we had written last week and I did some extra read-aloud time. Jump roping was our PE theme today. I wore my hair in a braid again since my bun didn't stay in last time. The braid didn't stay in very well today either.

Finally lunchtime and noon recess. Again, I didn't get much of a break because Mr. N and I discussed how the morning went and the plan for the afternoon. He said my class had calmed down a lot when they came back in, and they might be able to do some academic work in the afternoon. Hmm, I had already promised them a movie and I knew I'd have a revolt on my hands if I didn't deliver. 

Unfortunately, the movie I told them we would watch (a suggestion made by the principal, Inside Out, a movie they were all excited to watch) was not accessible. I had hoped Mrs. M had her login saved on her laptop. Nope. The principal's login was the backup. No response from him right away, so I got the kids started on making sympathy cards for Mrs. M while we waited. We listened to some Christian music, looked up bible verses on grief, and drew some really great pictures in the cards. Very calm worktime, aside from a few students clambering for the movie to be put on. 

I tried really hard to find the movie on youtube. No luck. Or an alternative movie. They complained about everything and I threatened to shut the movie off completely. On a last resort I texted my sister for her login... she got it to me and I was able to get the movie started! Whew! ...with only 45 minutes until we needed to switch classes again. Oh well. 

The end of the day I made cards with the other class and then we all went out for a little more extra recess. It was 48 degrees outside on February 1st! Who can argue with a bit more outside time on days like that?

And finally it was time to send everyone home. We were all wiped out and exhausted. I stayed at school the latest yet so I could draft a message to parents about the day and prep the Sunday newsletter note Mrs. M always sent out. Whew. When I got home, G and I went for a nice long walk around the pond, which helped to settle my thoughts. 

Tough day. Glad I could be there for those kids. I know tomorrow will be better.