The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

Christmas seemed to come and go really quickly this year. I think part of that was due to the fact we stayed in school literally until Christmas Eve! We decided that we would NOT travel this year for the holidays. Over the summer, we found that we really enjoyed visiting the South when it was just a normal, every-day, time of the year. We could see the people who were our first priority, and we didn't have to worry about seeing third cousin so-and-so at the thirty Christmas "events" we were required to be at. Daniel LOVES all of these holiday get-togethers because he is 100% extrovert; I, however, was so excited to be able to start our own little family traditions. After spending a Christmas alone without fighting traffic for ten hours, he may have been converted to my line of thinking.

 We always get a real tree, and this year, Sawyer got to help decorate. He would take an ornament from the bin, walk over to the tree, and throw it on. Some stuck, and some are still falling down a month later :)

 During the kitchen floor remodel, Sawyer broke out in a rash :( He sometimes acted like he felt bad, but other times he acted like he felt fine. He looked awful though! The doctor said that it was an allergic reaction, and he'd be fine with a little benadryl!

 During the first snow of the year, Daddy brought a snowball in for Sawyer to play with (in the bathtub, so it would be little mess!) He LOVED it!

 Chappell Family Christmas=
1. Open stocking presents!

 2. Eat a "big Southern breakfast"

 3. Read the Christmas story.
4. Open all other presents!!

 Mamaw and Papaw brought this rideable train from South Carolina. Sawyer thinks he's pretty cool!

 Playing PS3 with Uncle Aaron

November Re-cap

I realize that the last post I wrote was over 9 weeks ago, but what can I say? That second quarter is an intensely busy one, complete with holidays and Christmas shopping at home. I am just now feeling like I get to breathe for a few minutes.

This is how he prefers to watch Curious George- in his chair, with his "friends", and he must have his pacifier.

Daniel and my Dad replaced Sawyer's window. All of our windows need replaced, but Sawyer's was the worst. They decided to replace his before the snow flies, and we'll finish the rest (yay!) this spring or summer. Sawyer LOVED watching the men work. He adores anything construction-oriented (maybe because he's seen that since the day he was born?). He sat in his crib with his tool set and watched their work.

We attended the Festival of Trees as something fun to do to kick off the Holiday season. Some of the trees were beautiful! Daniel liked this one- it had woodsy characters and pheasant feathers.

Sawyer slept through most of it, but he did wake up to see one final pass through all of the trees.

This is a 25-foot tall tree made of stuffed animals collected in Vermilion County for Toys for Tots. :)

Making the Curious George Goes Camping episode come to life... in our living room! :)

Sawyer and Lincoln LOVED being eating partners for all of Thanksgiving weekend. This is the age I think the benefits of twins would start out-weighing the negatives. They entertained each other and played well together all weekend.

Sawyer with Uncle Neal

Southern Boy and his sweet potato pie

I took Princess Kate out for an adventure for her Christmas gift. We went to Covington and painted pottery. She was really good the entire time, and she seemed to enjoy her activity!

Meanwhile, the boys were content to eat chips with Uncle Aaron.

I was trying to take a picture with the birthday boy, but he was much more interested in playing!

Cute monkeys in the bathtub! Great pic for the wedding slideshow in 20 years :)

The babies had matching turkey shirts for Thanksgiving... one of those embarrassing "Mom, what were you thinking?" picture to display when his high school girlfriend arrives at our house.

Start of the Second Nine Weeks...

 

Second nine weeks (for some reason, CHS calls them "nine weeks" instead of quarters?) starts with parent-teacher conferences for two days. I usually have between 2-5, but this year, I had NINETEEN. All of them went pretty well! I made these little pinterest-inspired treats for all of the parents. :)

 In English 9, we finished up the fiction/non-fiction units with some writing. We talked about getting rid of boring words in papers- I mean, I'm reading 53 papers at once. Your goal is NOT to be the most boring paper. ;) After some peer-editing, kids had to pick a boring word from their paper and learn how to use a thesaurus (that was a culture shock- "You mean this isn't a dictionary?" "That sounds like a dinosaur.") and find some replacement words. Then, they wrote the boring word on the lightest color of the paint chip and increasingly chose better words. Thanks to Walmart for educational paint chips!

Sorry this is upside-down... I didn't care enough to change it. Test your reading skills!

 We then moved into reading The Odyssey in English 9. It's one of my all-time favorites! Their second nine weeks is only The Odyssey and Romeo and Juliet. I much prefer teaching longer units rather than short stories, so this is a GREAT teaching quarter for me! :)

 In English 10 we're still working on Grammar. We talked about misplaced and dangling modifiers, and how they make your writing unclear. Kids had to each choose a sentence that contained a misplaced or dangling modifier, illustrate what it was saying, correct the sentence, and illustrate the corrected sentence. Then I covered up another ugly green chalkboard with their magnificent work (just in time for parents to see at the P/T conferences of course).

 Hopping briskly through the vegetable garden, I saw a toad. As it's written, "hopping briskly through the vegetable garden" modifies "I". Obviously, the author meant that the toad was hopping through the garden. Here's one of my kids' fantastic renditions...

 My cousin when on and on discussing the details of her wedding in the elevator. Was the wedding in the elevator or did the discussion take place in the elevator? :)

 He went to the library wearing a leather jacket. Who exactly was wearing the leather jacket?

 As far as seating arrangements go, in my classroom I try really hard to treat my kids like the adults they *almost* are. So on day 1, you can sit wherever you please. That privilege remains until a class does something to lose that privilege. Once it's lost, I assign seats. They stay in those seats until the next nine weeks, when I will change around the desks, and the process will start all over again. This does a few things- first, it gives students some responsibility in the way the classroom functions. Second, it gives me a chance to get to know kids and consequently know who shouldn't really be next to each other if we want a chance at some education happening in my room. :) Third, it gives me some leverage over behavioral issues, because every kid would rather sit next to friends than have an assigned seat. So this is what my desks look like the second nine weeks- the best circle I can get with 26 desks crammed in!