Lego Maze

Finally Friday. Whew. And only two days next week! 

We had some fun joint activities with other classrooms today. As usual, we did reading buddies with the 1-2nd graders. This afternoon we did STEM time with the kindergarteners. 

Their task was to build a maze for a marble out of Legos. Some groups got more into it than others, but everyone completed the challenge. I didn't have many Lego bases (flat for ease of building), so we had to get creative with the supplies we had. A few groups stuck smaller flat pieces together to make a bigger base. A few groups made double decker mazes or covered mazes. A bunch created towers in corners of their mazes. And a couple used arches to build tunnels for the marble to go through. The groups that finished early kept building and tweaking their mazes, or they gave up and made something else. They were all proud to show off their creations! 

Quick

My bell players are playing the endings of our songs quick. Too quick. I keep trying to slow them down, but they won't do it!

We had a highly productive morning in 5-6th grade. The boys have been making podcasts lately and go out to the coatroom to record so they don't pick up the rest of the class's noise. I'm skeptical of how much work is being done, so we had a meeting to talk about how to prove that things are accomplished. The plan is for them to make a podcast plan before getting to film each episode. 

The girls want to start a podcast too, so we had a meeting and talked about much the same. Their topic will be what's happening at school, what people are learning, favorite subjects, etc. Great plan! 

Softball

It was chilly today, but we went outside for both recesses, no fussing! Most of them are hopped up on the excitement of softball. I ate my salad at the picnic table outside next to the giant snow hill while wearing my mittens. If I hadn't left my mittens on, my hands would've frozen. 😉

Second recess I pitched wearing mittens. Well, one hand wore a mitten (the tossing hand). The other hand had a glove within a glove. I stayed decently warm that way. My pitches could've been better, but such is life. My kids were okay with me trying to stay warm. They knew I was their best option for consistent pitches, regardless of the mittens effecting pitching quality! 

The rest of the day was pretty good. No major meltdowns, no major fights. The boy who had been so rude yesterday apologized and had a quiet day. Most of the late homework kids got their names off the board... all but two. 

I sorted through a few shelves of my teacher bookshelf and have a big stack of things to go home (things I won't use anymore this year). After school I've gotten a bunch of computer things finished. Still a big pile of papers to correct... can't seem to get away from those. I get caught up and then there's a new batch of spelling to correct!

Tuesday Already?

No school yesterday because of the end of the quarter. I finished my report cards, ran errands in Mankato, and G and I spent time sorting through things in our Mankato house to prep for renovations. It was a good day off. 

My kids were back in full force today... lots of attitude, but no physical altercations thankfully.

I spent the day trying to track down their missing work. Ugh. 5th grade music. Our piano teacher teaches them and said some of them haven't handed in a single homework sheet all quarter. When I asked, all four had blank stares. "She never gave us anything!" Yes she did, I was in the room (I should've written a note to remind them to do it right away 🤦‍♀️). Two of them found their papers. The other two admitted to throwing them away last week. Ugh!!!

She reprinted them and I wouldn't let those two see their report cards until their homework was done. Now I gotta crack the whip on spelling... Their workbook page is normally due Monday, but with the day off, it was due today and they needed to do their test too. Most of them forgot to do it over the weekend and didn't have time to do both during their rounds. Sigh. And then the 5th graders forgot to do it during their math study hall time. Sigh again. 

Two highlights from today: noon recess outside. They fought me on going out until I pulled the "I'm the teacher and I decide where recess is and if you want to choose you become a teacher" card. One 8th grader asked why I wanted to go outside for recess when it was so cold, and I said, "Because it's sunny and I want fresh air." And he didn't argue! They ended up playing softball and having a blast. 

It's my day for latchkey after school, and the girl's are playing dance competition. They have music from my old purple iPad piped over the gym speakers and they're doing routines and taking turns judging each other. It's a pretty intricate game!

Mapping It Out

I had more prep time today than usual, which was pretty nice. It was Mrs. R's turn to host reading buddies, so I had a little time off in the morning. Then Mrs. E hosted game time in the kindergarten room and I got a half an hour to work! I spent it mapping out the rest of the year for science and social studies. 

There really isn't all that much time left of school... one week left of March (and no school Monday because it's the end of the quarter). April has four days off for Easter break plus a BINGO field trip at the nursing home and a field trip to see the MLC play. Then we're in May with our many activities... Talent Show, Track and Field Day, Caswell Softball Day, and the trip to the farm/Jeffers Petroglyphs combo. And hopefully a canoe trip thrown in there as well. 

Even with all those extra activities, I'm sitting very good with getting all the topics covered I want to get covered. We might even be ahead a little in MN history! I have a project in mind to do to use our possible 'extra' time: let each kid pick an era of history they want to learn more about, then do a project on it. Can be whatever project they want it to be; they just need to present their information in some way/shape/form. I hope we have a chance to do it!

Egg Car Lab

Today was a pretty good day up until the end. 

We served 61 people last night and brought in over $400! That's a record for us! Lots of people came at the middle of the serving time, so I got pretty nervous at 5:50 when we were down to just one small corner of the roaster pan. Not too many came after that, so at 6:05 I let the kids eat. A lot of them took soup. Still, we had only about one pan of egg bake scraps left at the end. The rest of our groceries were pretty spot on too. Not too much milk leftover, just a few pieces of sweet bread, one 9x13 pan of fruit (oranges and a few grapes). My kids did a great job prepping, serving, and cleaning. Everyone pitched in and found things to do. They were all willing helpers!

My students ate off the leftover fruit from our Lenten meal for snack today and we had a nice morning working on our daily tasks. The boys are still on their podcast kick. Every day they make a new episode, most of the time featuring a taste test of sorts. Then they upload it and obsess over how many views and subscribers they have. Two and one. But that doesn't faze them!

Bell practice went fantastic. We ran through the three songs we have left and even without that much practice, they sound amazing. They are all victory lap songs with lots of running notes and cords and just a whole lot of joyful ringing. It's pretty great. We have one student out with a long-term illness and we're not sure when she'll be back, so I've found 'volunteers' to play her parts for these songs if she's not back to play them. No one has fussed too much about getting an extra part and they've picked up those notes pretty quickly.

My 5-6th graders ended the day with a physics/STEM challenge: build a car that can carry an egg down a ramp with a one meter high incline. If the egg breaks, you fail. They're all pretty excited about it. Making groups was the tough part. I had some eyes closed voting to see preferences and there was one student who didn't speak up when I misread her voting. The boys had some mixups in partners too, but they worked it out without any hard feelings (that I could detect). This girl though, she blew up at me and was quite rude while I tried to calmly talk through the situation with her. 

It's exhausting, dealing with situations like those, where you need to be the calm one and figure out what to say to help the student learn how to handle future situations better and at the same time fix the one you're currently in without breaking the relationship you do have all the while hoping that you're taking care of it in a way that doesn't involve the rest of the class who are no doubt listening in to see what you will do, even if you try to have the conversation in a private way. So. That's how my day ended. School day, anyway. 

After school G and I have a meeting with the Nicollet County foster care social worker to do a home inspection and talk about next steps in becoming foster respite care givers! The rest of the night is open after that. A minor miracle! I sent out our Marriagewarming party invitations yesterday/this morning, so I feel a huge weight off my chest. Maybe after correcting, I can actually read a book!

Lenten Meal

The 7-8th graders did a lab today. I'd say it was a fun lab, but I'm not sure how much fun they had. We made a model of a kidney filtering blood. Cups with beads and water poured into a bowl with a screen over the top. Then we used spoons to move beads back into the cups to show the blood components moving back into the blood stream. It was a lot of work to prep! But it got the point across.

My students were crabby today. I tried not to join them. 

Now they're bouncing off the walls in the classroom waiting for me to finish enough stuff for tomorrow so they can go in the gym for a while. We're serving the Lenten meal tonight and spent the first 45min after school prepping things at church. 

I left two boys over there to watch the last three egg bakes in the oven (with my cell number and a lot of instructions), and the rest of us have been at school. I had to abandon them for 10 minutes halfway through when the egg bake boys had a question if the pans were cooked. Yes, they were. 

Everything looks and smells delicious! Hopefully we have a good turnout!