Wait, I did not teach that...

As written on a conservation poster that my students did to wrap up a unit on conservation and pollution:

"Obama wouldn't want you to pollute."

Sick Days

I had Bronchitis this week. Two days away from school. It was the strangest thing not to be with my kids and to know someone else was teaching them. "My kids" see how easily it slips out? I now have 46 kids, each crazy and wonderful. Each with their own needs and complications. Each at a different place in this whole learning continum. Its wild. I really can not believe I have been teaching these wonderful students for over 9 weeks. I am their teacher. I missed them for those 2 days that I did grading in bed and read children's stories. I went back and it took the last two days of the week to settle again. My little friends had to get used to me again and tell me all the horror stories of what happened and who got in a fight with who and who got suspended and who stole my candy, etc. Seriously the big event was that someone broke into my treasure chest and stole every single one of the 2 year old Dum Dums that are saved for elite prize winners. It was quite the outrage!

New Friends

On Friday, I took my students on the long awaited "good behavior" field trip. My principal is passionate about rewarding the kids who do a good job and taking them on field trips. When I asked what we should do with the other 67% of my class I was told to tell them to stay home. Oh ok, thats new. : /

Anyway after much confusion (including the destination of our trip being cancelled at 3:00 the day before and me having to completely come up with a new plan) we did go on a lovely field trip! The kids were great and everyone had a nice day. Near the end, we were hanging out a park when a girl came up to me and asked if I was Emily Drummond. Well, yeah I am...
Turns out she and I had e-mailed about possibly rooming together some months ago, she recognized the name in our school bus, and looked me up on Facebook to make sure it was me. I am so glad she did!!
We ended up getting together with another sweet friend on Saturday for some shopping, cooking (a delicious broccoli and spinach frittata with garlic roasted potatoes) and movie watching.

Have you ever hung out with a group and gone away encouraged? uplifted and refreshed? Thats what this was like. I haven't hung out with girl friends like that since I moved. I hang out with people, but no relationships like this. I didn't realize how much I missed it. Going from college where I was surrounded by like-minded girls to here where I haven't had any. It was so wonderful to have uplifting conversations that went past the surface. These were godly girls that I could actually talk to! Oh, I am so blessed!
I have 2 sweet girl friends!!
And so the journey continues...

Do ever just want to cry? Just let the tears flow? Wallow? drink tea and eat toast? pretend life doesn't go on? listen to the rain and really sad music?
Thats me right now. No particular reason...just gloomy.

Some Snapshots

So, what have we been doing these past few weeks you ask.

We've used colored counters to learn how to graph raw data.

My classroom got a "college corner" in which Erskine plays a prominent part!










 We studied clouds and made some awesome cloud projects featuring Cirrus, Stratus, and Cumulus clouds.






My fifth graders made some phenomenal Ecosystem projects. They were each assigned an ecosystem (Ocean, Estuary, Forest, Grassland, or Lakes/Ponds) and they build their own ecosystem that clearly showed the biotic and abiotic factors.

The students also put together food chains that were specific to each of the ecosystems.















We studied expanded notation by writing down expanded notation on strips of paper then folding them to show the original number. This really helps students to conceptualize the "expanding" part of expanded notation.






And now, my crowning glory!!                 The Wall of Science!!


(where everyone in the whole school gets to see what we've been doing!!

These are just some of the beautiful projects done by my students.

Insanity

Today was absolutely insane! No really...wild things just kept happening.
I can't really tell you everything because this is the internet, but ask me some day and we''ll have story time over a cup of coffee, ok?

For now, I am exhausted and drained. To bed!

A Taste of Fall

Yesterday, I helped to chaperone a field trip to Brevard, NC for the advanced chorus and theater students. Despite the fact that I had to wake up at 5:00 am on a Saturday, it was nice to get out of town for a day, relive some choir tour bus memories, get to know the high schoolers better, help critique some monologues that are really coming along, hear students sing beautiful music, hang out with other teachers, and of course enjoy weather in 50s!!

One of the moments that struck me the most was when driving up the mountains we told the students that their ears might pop from the air pressure. A good many had no idea what we were talking about. They screamed and wondered at what "ear popping" meant. They had NEVER been to the mountains before and had their ears pop. Many we found out had never been out of their small town. Such a small thing that I've taken for granted my whole life. I've grown up with a vast range of experiences that these kids have never experienced. They don't have a reference point for common things. This trip wasn't just about working on their musical/theatre skills, it was about getting them out of Lake City, taking them to a new place, broadening their view of the world, telling them about college, letting them see a beautiful concert hall and organ, pushing them outside of comfort zone, strongly critiquing their work, and in a very real way pushing them to a new level. What a day, what an opportunity.