Woo hoo!! Tomorrow, then break!!

So today flew by. I was in a relatively good mood all day, mostly because tomorrow's our last day 'til winter break! After lunch, I was downright chipper- it was astounding.

We had our "official" class spelling bee today, and the results were surprising. Though I teach a 4th/5th combo, 3 of my top 4 spellers were 4th graders! A lot of the kids got all shaky and nervous, and some of my best spellers froze up a few times. It's very interesting. Just when I think they don't care about anything, they show me that they do.

Oh, speaking of which, reading was pretty cool today, too. In the series we use (Mcgraw Hill), each new story is preceded by a related photograph or painting. The idea behind that is to get the students engaged in the topic. Today it worked very well! The story was about the carving Crazy Horse:

The intro photograph was of the Sphinx:



Apparently, the Sphinx and ancient Egypt fascinate the class, as they did me at that age. We had a looong discussion about Egypt, which I didn't mind, since the class was interested and learning things.

In the afternoon (after the spelling bee), we worked with my second grade teacher-buddy's class. We made gingerbread houses (out of grahm crackers "pasted" onto milk cartons with frosting), which actually was fun to do! The teacher had a friend in the class to help out, and the school nurse joined us for the festivities. With 4 adults in the room, the 50 students were manageable.

The end of the day came quickly, and the students weren't super crazy, despite the massive amounts of sugar around them. As a reward for a good day (with no real incidents!!), I gave them the gift of no homework.

Tomorrow morning (7:30am) we have a staff potluck. Judging by the list of foods to be brought, we should be enjoying a feast! :)

Oh, and as an aside... Did you, faithful readers, ever play "Hangman"? You know, where you guess letters until a stick figure "hangs" on the scaffolding? Well, the kids were playing it today during the spelling bee, and I later looked at their games. Nowadays, they draw the noose in full detail. I didn't remember ever doing that in my day. Just an interesting little thing.

Finally, this morning, it was actually cold enough here to get a teeny little snow flurry. The kids absolutely FLIPPED out. They ran to the window, screaming, "Snow!! Snow!!" A native Clevelander, I barely raised an eyebrow. I just became upset that they were all out of their seats, yelling. When they were all back in their seats, I said, "Ok, I know there's a bit of snow. Now, onto reading..." One student replied, "But we don't see snow here much at all! To us, this is a big deal!" I stopped, and realized that she was right. In the Great Lakes states, snow is an all-too-familiar ordeal; to the kids here, it's an oddity. I loosened up on them and let them appreciate the "snow" they saw.