Five for Fraturday

PEOPLE!!

I’m on Thanksgiving Break!!!!!!!  I have NINE DAYS OFF.

NINE.

DAYS.

OFF.

I’m already sad that it’s midmorning on Saturday.

I have issues.

So I meant to blog at least one time this week and then I didn’t.  But I meant to.  I did.  And then life got in the way and the next thing I knew, it was today.

I am obsessed.

I am a huge fan of International Delight coffee creamers.  I don’t really have anything specific against the Coffee-mate creamers except that they’re not my favorite and, if you ask me, tend to taste all the same, regardless of the actual flavor being portrayed on the bottle.  I tried really really really hard to only drink the Coffee-Mate Natural Bliss creamers for awhile in a I am so healthy, I might as well be gluten-free type of way, but it didn’t last.

Because I missed my International Delight Cinnabon creamer, goshdarnit.  So I went back to it.

BUT THEN.

International Delight *FINALLY* came out with a Peppermint Mocha creamer.  I say *FINALLY* because it took them long enough.  Usually, I would just suck it up and buy the Coffee-Mate Peppermint Creamer every winter, but I was always unsatisfied and never had more than a mug or two.

Well.

I bought that big ole bottle of International Delight Peppermint Mocha creamer last weekend and then proceeded to have a coffee every morning AND every afternoon when I got home from school.  Even on Monday and Tuesday when it was in the 90s.

It’s almost gone now.

I have practically drank that entire bottle of creamer in one week.

Which means . . . I’m super sweet on the inside.

And you should go get you some.

😉

So remember how I was trying to do Guided Math?

Well, I still am, but the key word is trying and if we have time and if I remember and if I’m prepared and if my kids beg me.

We’re getting there.

I’m trying.

This week, when I was at the teacher table, Activity A was Uno.  I had taught my kids how to play earlier this year and they ARE ALL ABOUT IT.  And it’s math, right?  Take Four.  Uno.  Dos.  Tres.

Sure.

Activity B was Pattern Blocks (we’re studying Geometry so BONUS) and, as you can see, I’ve been diligent on trading out the pattern block cards seasonally.  I mean, I AM ON TOP OF IT.

Nothing wrong with ocean animals in November, if you ask me.  You can get this set of cards from Christy at Crayons and Whimsy, by the way.

Doesn’t matter that I have Katie’s November Pattern Block cards already prepped and ready to go FROM LAST YEAR even though when we get back from break, there are only three days left in November.

IT DOESN’T MATTER, I said.

It’s fine, I said.

It’s guided math rotations and that’s all that matters.

 

In the interest of it doesn’t matter and it’s fine, our All About Me books are finally prepped and in our class library.

I have never ever, in all my teaching career, been this late in prepping them.  I usually have them ready to go by mid-September and we enjoy reading them for the rest of the year.

I have no idea what’s happening this year with my timing on things, but I’m going to chalk it up to global warming and move on.

And, in the interest of being completely honest and truthful, I didn’t prep these books at all.  A couple of different parents did.  One glued all of the pages onto construction paper for me.  Then I sent them off to our IRC to be laminated.  Then my teaching partner picked up the laminate for me (I KNOW!!!  SO SWEET!) and then I sent the laminate home to be cut out.

Then several weeks went by and I finally remembered that the only step left in this process (which I was not involved in AT ALL) was to have them bound.

For years and years, I used the spiral binding machine at my school, but then the pages would fall out here and there, and my kids would bring me falling apart All About Me books, and I would say put them on my desk and then I’d have a pile, and I would want to accidentally lose them because putting them back together again was just too much work and not on my priority list of things to be doing, obviously.

So this year, I said NO MORE.  NO MORE SPIRAL BINDING.

And I sent home our fancy-schmancy three hole punch machine (it’s automatic) with a parent to hole punch and use binder rings for binding.

Here’s a little funny story about that three hole punch machine:

It’s from our lounge.  And it’s supposed to stay in the lounge.

I’ve taken it out of the lounge several times.  I write a note on the lounge whiteboard that says Three Hole Punch Machine is in room 29.

I’ve taken it home once.  On the weekend.  Late on a Friday night when no one was looking and then I returned it first thing on Monday morning and no one was the wiser.

Well, this time, I sent it home with a parent, but it’s not like I could write on the lounge whiteboard Three Hole Punch Machine is at Such and Such Address, Use Google Maps to Go Get It If You Need It.

So I just said it was in my room.

But it wasn’t.

It was a risk, let me tell you.

After school that day, a sixth grader stopped by my room.  He had a pile of papers in his hands and he said I’m hole-punching papers for Mr. So and So.

I was like . . . goodie for you.  I’m grading writing, and cutting construction paper, and looking for googly eyes, and trying to find my November Pattern Block cards that I prepped last year.

Instead, I said Okaaaaay.

And he repeated himself.  I’m hole punching papers for Mr. So and So.

That’s great, I said.  How nice.

Then he said you have the hole punch machine??  This is room 29??

Why do kids always talk in question marks?

OH.

Well.

Um.

Hmmm.

So let’s see here.

I can’t even remember what I told this poor boy helping out his teacher AFTER SCHOOL, but I don’t think I’ll be sending home that hole punch machine with a parent ever again.  She brought it back the very next day but not before I had a message on my classroom phone from a third grade teacher asking for the hole punch machine.  NO JOKE.  For real.

I think I know what I want for Christmas now . . .

 

This is gross and disgusting, but a whole bunch of us watched this hawk eat a bird on the roof of our staff lounge this week after school.  We were horrified.  But we couldn’t look away.  And we said things like noooooooo and grossssssss and poor poor birdie!  And some of us might have sung the Circle of Life song.

At one point, it spit out all of the feathers of the poor birdie.

It was fascinating and disgusting and sad and weird all at the same time.

I mean.

I don’t know what it is about our school and birds.  But it’s a thing.

 

 

We got together with our Big Buddies this week and made good ole fashioned hand turkeys.  They made two sets so each person could take one home.

I can’t believe how much they loved this.

And I can’t believe how long it took!!!

My buddy teacher warned me they needed a lot of time, and I was all I think thirty minutes should be plenty of time.

Uh.  No.

Nope.

Some finished.  Some didn’t.

It didn’t matter.  These first graders and sixth graders LOVE LOVE LOVE being together.  It is seriously the cutest thing ever and I’m so happy I’m doing it.

And that’s all I’ve got.

That was my week.

How was yours???

It’s time for some Peppermint Mocha Coffee . . .

Enjoy your day!