Enjoying Fall

                               

"I cannot endure to waste anything as precious as autumn sunshine by staying in the house.
So I spend almost all the daylight hours in the open air.       -  Nathaniel Hawthorne




Last Saturday I enjoy a wonderful day hike in NC. A good 4 1/2 miles, deep conversations, an expansive view from the top and 2 giant honey crisp apples made for a perfect day!

Practically Perfect!

A huge benefit of teaching is I get to have an audience whenever I want one! I also get to dress up for Halloween!! I've always been a fan of Halloween solely because it gives me an excuse to break from the ordinary and dress up! I had so much fun as Mary Poppins on Monday!

(Thankfully most of my kids got it, though a few thought I was nanny Mcphee)

I made the hat using a 79 cent doll hat from Hobby Lobby that I spray painted and glued flowers to. The skirt was curticy of J.B. who made it for her role in the crucible. The lace "top" was actually a dress that I wore underneath the skirt. The red bow-tie was just a scrap of red ribbon tied in a bow and pinned to my shirt.

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.