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!

Halloween!!

The week of Halloween was a really busy one for us! We finally finished painting the deck and staining all of the deck furniture, so we were ready to put it to use! I invited a couple friends over to carve pumpkins... Daniel invited the rest of the church. :) We ended up with about 12 people and 2 babies carving pumpkins on the back deck. It was a blast! 

These are our finished products :)

 Daniel made the cool deer, and I made the Trick or Treat!

I've always been a big fan of crafty things. I *almost* majored in elementary education so that I could do fun crafts with my kids and have a cutely decorated classroom. Then, I did 20 hours of observation in an elementary school my first semester of college... and I hated it. So I switched my major, made Daniel and teenagers do crafts with me, and consistently decorate my classroom. :) 

So, now that Sawyer's getting a little bigger, I get to start doing crafts with him! We did this craft the Monday of Halloween week.

 Unfortunately, I do not have any pictures of us actually *doing* the craft, because it was a little sketchy to have paint all over a toddler's feet and leave him to move however he wanted for the moment it would take to take pictures. We cut his candy corn feet out and made Halloween cards for all of the grandparents, aunts, and uncles.

Then, even though I had the PERFECT costume to wear to school on Halloween, my body insisted on getting the stomach flu (or the Plague as our family calls it) on Halloween. So if you're waiting for your Halloween card, they'll be there at some point. And if you're wondering what my awesome costume was, stay tuned for next year. 

After puking awhile (and no, I'm not pregnant), I felt better enough to sit in the car in my pjs while Daniel took Sawyer trick-or-treating. 

Since Sawyer has a love for Curious George, and we already had a banana costume for Maggie, obviously we decided to make him a monkey for Halloween. 

 He didn't seem to care that he had a costume on. I'm pretty sure he didn't think it was any different than having regular clothes on. He was, however, quite interested in Maggie's costume.

Enough pictures, Mom! Let's go trick-or-treating!

 Daniel took him to our neighbors' houses (who loaded him up!), and then we went to Grandma Pollitt's and Grandma Brinegar's for some treats.

 Once he figured out that he was getting treats, he was very interested in the process. He stood like this waiting for Daddy to open a treat for him!

 He was also more interested when he found out that he was a monkey!

Sweet chocolate-faced monkey boy!