Fossil Diggin' and Spring Schtuff

 This week we are concluding out Dinosaur study...it hasn't been near as much fun or near as interesting as I'd hoped it would be! Next year is a new year and I plan to spend all summer coming up with a way to go Dino-crazy! It really is hard to find things from a creationists view point and that are upper el-ed. We did do this fossil dig...I'm very thankful for the other two fifth grade teachers for getting this all bought and organized! We buried nails, hair clips, dice, dinosaur toys, pennies, etc...in some potting soil and they had to divide their "site" into fours, excavate, and clean the fossils. They had a lot of fun with it and made some giant messes too! They also logged a description of each fossil. The funniest moment was when one student blurted out, "Mrs. Stewart, this is just a bunch of random stuff!" I said, "Did you think you'd find real fossils?!" and he replied "well...we did dissect real owl pellets!" (Dissecting owl pellets during our ecosystem study has been one of their absolute favorites!...Mrs. Moates, this was definitely a must do again!)

Though it was a bunch of random stuff, if all that stuff were actually found then it would show proof of a living civilization.

A penny!

This group was the messiest of all!

Using her paintbrush to clean off the dice

I'm struggling with my voice this week and feel like I'm losing it! I guess it's all the blooming spring schtuff coming up! A lot of my kiddos are coughing, sneezing, blowing their nose, and sickish too! In spite of it, I was excited to find that one of the beautiful flowers I planted  3 years ago has bloomed...I can not remember what kind it is but I do know they must be top heavy flowers because I had to hold this one up to get a picture.

Isn't she purty?! I just wish she'd stand up without falling over! 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It appears that my day has been fossilized and flowery! Hope yours has too!

Happy Hump Day! 

Monday Rage & Seussy Craze

Oh my! I usually LOVE Mondays but boy howdy has this one been a MEAN, NASTY, GREEN, booger!
It started off bad when I didn't finish getting everything graded from last week to be sent home in folders today. I got to school feeling like a slacker. I was so tired last night after a busy weekend with youth group meetings, church meetings, and not to mention having my in-laws and sis-in-law spend the weekend with us...um, yes the weekend...in-laws...first time ever...I was ready to "paint the whole front of the house" -said by my hubby but we really enjoyed our time with them greatly! I felt really growny when we offered them our bed and slept on the futon! It ended up a busy but super fun weekend!

Forgetting about the nastiest, greenest, meanest boogery of day...the worst day I've had all year, I'm rewinding to last week:
I emphasized a different Dr. Seuss book in my class each day during our reading time. Monday I read The Cat in the Hat. Pretty much all we did was discuss Dr. Seuss' writing style (rhyming and repetition) and the fact that this book was his most well known. Tuesday we read Yertle the Turtle. We discussed how he wrote with themes and morals. It was my favorite from the week. Not only because, it's one of my most favorite read alouds but I was able to make it relevant to what we were studying in History. Wednesday we read Oh Say, Can You Say and simply talked about tongue twisters being a writing style of Seuss. Thursday we read Horton Hears a Who and again emphasized morals/themes. Then Friday we read If I Ran the Circus and we discussed writing with nonsensical words.

Thankfully, my door has been covered for the last several months. We have been learning about adjectives and adverbs so the cute cut-outs surrounding the door each have a sentence that describes something about them.

I wasn't able to fit in a lot of craftivity stuff but this little guy inspired me greatly! I found him on pinterest and we did something similar. The picture below links to a TPT store where you can download the pattern and lots of other great patterns. I eyeballed and did something similar that worked better for me but was definitely inspired by this adorable teacher's creation.

Here's a pic of what we did:

 

I made a Venn diagram of Hitler vs. Yertle and we compared and contrasted them. I really liked the Venn and hopefully very soon, I will take the time to figure out how to upload a freebie to the blog.. so that you wonderful upper el-ed teachers might can use this during Seuss week! I tried Scribd but it was kind of confusing. Would the best thing be to just upload it to TPT and open a seller account?!  We also wrote a sentence about the lesson we learned and a paragraph on how the dictators we have studied were Strong leaders but Wrong leaders.

 Lastly, this isn't my favorite pic...but one of the most exciting parts about my week was getting to wear a Seuss shirt each day. I forgot to take some selfies during the week so my hubs took this before work Wednesday. Wednesday is our chapel day and we have to wear a blue school polo...I made it work though :)

That's a fact, Jack!

This school year our school has had a third grade girl battle and beat cancer, a high school girl who continues to fight cancer, and now a middle schooler diagnosed and is battling cancer. All 3 departments of the school have been affected and our staff is overcome by it.
  The middle schooler hits much closer to home for me because his younger brother is in my class. I also have a 6th grade nephew the same age as him but can't even begin to imagine! My hubby and I visited the hospital tonight to see him and my heart just breaks for him, his precious mom and dad, and his most special brother.
We took him a Duck Dynasty devotional that our class signed and a sign that says, "We're praying for you and that's a fact, Jack!" Along with a bunch of cards...some of which I censored and secretly threw away! :)
He's only starting his journey but my heart is overwhelmed. Tonight I just want to say: Love on your students, smile at them, use kind and gentle words towards them, and hug them when you can! You never know when your year with them will be cut short!

CURRENTLY

I'm so excited to do this again! I can't believe it's been a full month since I last linked up to Farley's Currently. Let me just say, I am in love with the "O"-Buck! Definitely a signature mark for that fun and happy gal!

 

listening: My trusty Dell companion has lasted me quite a while. It is time to retire her but I just can't bring myself to investing the money on something I'm not certain of. So for now, I'll keep listening to her struggling sighs and breaths! 

loving: I bought a bunch of clearance Dr. Seuss pj t-shirts at Wal-mart last year and I wear them around the house all the time. I'm super excited to wear a different Seuss shirt everyday this week! They are comfy, stretchy, and just knowing what I'm wearing already makes getting up in the morning a lot less work. 

thinking: I stayed up pretty late last night reading, grading, and writing a February recap post so I should really make it an effort to get to bed by 10 tonight! I require lots of sleep these days. 

 wanting: to emphasis Seuss in some way this week. I'd really like to do a spin on "If I ran the Circus"...maybe the Circus MaStewarkus instead of the Circus McGurkus...still thinking...waiting to be inspired with something age appropriate and non fluffy! 

needing: to read my Bible for today and die some to myself and my prideful vanity! 

???: can you guess it?! I hope I remember this time tomorrow! Ha! 

Night Night! Again, shout out to Farley for creating this super fun linky and for a one of a kind new blog design! Love. It.

Let them be Little?!

This week, I have already experienced one of the most *precious* moments in a student's life! To introduce this wonderful moment of truth, I first have a confession.

CONFESSION:
I didn't want to teach fifth grade. Many of you already know this about me. I convinced myself that I could do it because I taught fourth grade last year. I always said, the two grades I NEVER. EVER. wanted to teach were kindergarten and fifth. Kinders are too babyish and fifth graders are too growny! Still, when given the opportunity this year to teach fifth, I knew they were really little kids at heart and that they wanted to have just as much fun as those little kiddos!!! I convinced myself that I would be the fifth grade teacher that kept those babies CHILDREN! After all, they want to grow up way too fast now-a-days!!! I knew that parents would love my take on keeping their children engaged in their childhood innocence. After all, they are still ELEMENTARY students. That was my plan, keep them children, let them enjoy their childhood!

PRECIOUS MOMENT:
While reading in Where the Red Fern Grows, my school phone rang and it was an early dismissal. I HATE GETTING INTERRUPTED WHILE I"M READING...and my class knows this very well! I told the student to go ahead and pack up and head to the office and have a great day. While he packed up, I continued reading and my students were captivated...as they always are when I read...a little sarcasm here because this is also always really close to our recess time! No one but me saw this encounter take place and even the two boys that were a part of it, have no idea the impression they made on me that day! The student who was being dismissed early left the class, but before he shut the door behind him, stepped back inside and gave me a look of hesitation and then put his hand on another student's shoulder in our class that sits very near to the door. He then said in such a soft whisper that I didn't hear him but was able to read his lips..."I hope your brother feels better soon." He turned and responded with thanks and the early dismissal left the classroom.
The one student's 6th grade brother was diagnosed with bone cancer this week and he was very worried about his brother.
This may not seem like much of a story to you, but as I sat in my director's chair in the center of the class and witnessed the care and expression of the boy being dismissed early...a boy in who I would have NEVER expected this...a boy in who had no desire for anyone to notice him or even know that he was talking..I was met with a moment of truth. The boy who took the time to come back in and express his concern changed that day in a way that he doesn't even realize, in a way that petrified me when I thought of fifth graders. In that moment, he went from being a childlike boy to being a supportive young man.
The wonderful truth about fifth grade is that they are children...but they are in the process of becoming young men and young women. I'm proud to be a fifth grade teacher this year and experience such a vital part of their "growing-up". I no longer resolve to keeping them children, but rather determine to show them how to be young men and young women.
May God help us set good examples before them each day!

Always one step behind!

I can not believe we are in March already...where has my year gone?! Where did the time go?!
February wasn't much of anything in these central Georgia schools except for one snow break after another topped with a week of Mid Winter Break! Which, don't get me wrong, I loved the days off but we pretty much accomplished nothing and my kiddos have been super hard to refocus. It seems they learn something and then go a week without learning anything so it's harder than ever to keep their attention!

Because I'm always one step behind, I'll recap my February with 5 photo collages...(I'm so excited to have actually taken the time to download a collage app and play around with it on my phone...so yes, I will be posting 5 collage pics!)


1. The first thing we finished up in February was our "Kindred Spirits" Bible study on friendship for the fifth grade girls. The idea came because of all the girl drama that I've noticed this year. The other fifth grade teachers agreed that lessons on friendship could help teach our girls how to get along with others. I had just finished reading the first book in the "Anne of Green Gables" series around Christmas time and got the DVD's at Barnes and Noble on a giftcard that one of my students gave me! (Would that we had time to read them the books...my!my!my!...they are so...good!)  We ended up showing the first DVD in two parts on a couple of Friday afternoons. Each time we met, we had a short devotional on friendship. The girls got to bring in a pillow and change into jammies! We had some winter themed refreshments and gave all the girls a bookmark at the conclusion of our meetings. It had a quote from the book on one side..."Kindred Spirits are not as scarce as I used to think. It's splendid to find out there are so many of them in the world." and the other side had a Bible verse.

 

2. In this same week we concluded and tested on RoCkS! One of our coworkers embroiders and she made these adorable shirts for our team! They were only 12 bucks and that included a custom design and the price of the t-shirt! I love the cutesy rock graphic but... it does happen to land on my left unmentionable! Something I didn't notice until looking at photos! The bottom left pic was an intentional photo bomb by two fifth graders while at recess.

3. We worked on verbs and tenses and mangaged to get a little "Love.Is.Tense." activity in and posted in the hallway for the love month. Unfortunately, it is the ONLY heartsy valentinesy thing that I did during February. I'm blaming upper elementary and the fact that we were out most of this month! I gave them 5 heart die cut- outs and they had to write a heart linked letter to someone expressing their love for them in past, present, and future tense. My example is in the center...so let me explain the past tense heart... I did realize I loved Michael after I broke up with him. I guess when they say you never realize what you have until it's gone, they mean it! The bottom left was a boy student who chose his Mom! It was a precious one to read! The one on the bottom right chose her best friend and I loved her spin on it!

4. We celebrated V-Day on Valentine's Day! We missed nearly the whole week but surprisingly went to school the Friday of our parties...which no one expected! My plans were to have a Berry Special Valentine's Mustache Bash...we kind of did but had very little time due to missing so much of that week! I found these bright colored mustache valentines online...sorry, I can not remember who I downloaded these from because I was so last minute printing them! I made a run to Walmart at 6:00 that night for just about everything as I didn't think we'd be at school. I had wanted to make cute fruit labels like...I'm Bananas for you! You're berry special! You're such a cutie! Etc...that.didn't. happen. Thankfully the sweet teen girl that I've been using as my class baker was still able to make and bring in the very tasty mustache cake!

The cute little fella to the right is one of my staff kiddos! He's a goof ball but one of the sweetest ever! His mom is also an avid blog reader and Pre-K teacher at our school! Shout-Outs to you two Widby's!

5. Last but certainly not least....My hubs took me to the Circus for Valentines!We had an Amazing Night at the Greatest Show on Earth! He did buy me the precious stuffed elephants but all 32 of the clown noses were free from the pre-show! They will definitely be gifts for my students at some point before our 5th Grade Circus ends this year! Oh, and for those of you who are wondering...the gift I got my hubs for V-Day....was a "mag"...a man-bag...and a very nice one that he has been using a lot lately! I knew he'd love it when he realized his need for one :)

That's really all of the exciting parts of my February. There was very little Black History emphasis and absolutely NO President's Day emphasis...but March is a new month!

Now...to go find my Cat in the Hat shirt and catch some shut eye! 

Night or rather..Mornin'!

Monday Monday...

Monday...Monday...ahah...ahahahahah...

Is that a Beatles Song?! I'm really not sure and those are the only lyrics I know but that's exactly how I feel right now! I am so...glad to be home and have my feet propped up on Buddy, my electric heater!
Nothing elaborate that we did today except get back into the swing of things!

 We did crack into our "rock candy" after lunch and they literally had to CRACK into those suckers! There was absolutely NOTHING on the skewer but a lot of hardened candy on the top and bottom. Most of the students didn't like it but I had about 5 giggly girls that loved it! I had to make them throw it in the trash!

The pics below are what it looked like after sitting for 3 weeks with the skewers inside. Not sure where we experimentally went wrong but somewhere we did!

Whelp...a bowl of cereal is calling my name so I'm gonna go answer it!