Brackets

This week everyone is working on their brackets. At school we are working on a different kind of bracket. Since the beginning of the year the 3rd graders at our school have been working on reading 12 different books for the Battle of the Books. And this week, the students were put into teams and have been battling against each other. In my class I had 5 teams. On Tuesday we had pool play where each team got to battle 5 times. (I had 1 team who lost every single battle.)

Then all of the scores were totaled and averaged. Then the librarian seeded the teams and we started a single elimination tournament. Quickly my class was eliminated except for one team. The "Readers" made it all of the way to the championship round. Which will be held on Monday in an assembly in front of the school. This has been one of the best things for my students. They have learned team work, and have been building on their
comprehension skills.

The updated bracket and the pictures of the 2 teams. Go Readers!

After they won the semi final battle... They were SO happy. The other team was made of girls and I felt so bad when they started to cry. I know if my team had lost, I would've cried with them. (And yes, I forgot to get ready that day, so sorry for the ponytail.)

{odds and ends}

I am finding myself waking up later and later each morning.  I'll start out waking up at 5:00, and then the next day it's 5:15 and then all the sudden it is 5:30. Waking up early is so hard... but at the same time I love working out in the morning before school. 

I am happy to say that the early morning workouts are actually paying off. I can honestly say I weigh what my drivers license says. 

Yesterday I was fighting off my hunger (Fast Sunday's and 1:00 church are hard days for me) and decided to make a birthday sign for my neighbor. I go through spurts using my cricut and being crafty. It has been far too long. This was such a simple and easy thing to make, yet it made me so happy to make it. 

I am always finding things to make on blogs, but can't actually get myself into gear and start making them. My mom has always been big into crafting and I know I need to step it up and get going again. I have progressed by taking my sewing machine out of the box, but don't have any tools/fabric/thread yet. 

Last week on Dr. Seuss day during the party, the students had their faces painted. Each of the students had a colored nose and a few whiskers. It was really funny to see the kids come the following days with whiskers still on their faces. They slowly started fading. The party was on Wednesday and by Friday I had a boy in my class who still had full on whiskers drawn on his face. 

Mondays are always hard, trying to get back into the routine of work and early mornings. But all day long I look forward to hearing from my brother. His emails are so uplifting and you can tell he is just having the time of his life. He sent a few pictures this week, and I can't believe how grown up and handsome he is getting. 

Here he is with one of the members of the Stake Presidency in his area, who actually was my Uncle's trainer when he was on his mission in England. 

My mom is an avid sports fan and she keeps Dan updated with what's going on. But this week, the news came to Dan in London before my Mom had a chance to email him. 

comment of the day...

Today was the celebration of Dr. Seuss. Our school did rotations for each grade level and spent 20 minutes in the morning doing games and eating cake. The cake spiraled into a long, loud, crazy day. But that isn't what this post is about.

This morning a 2nd grade teacher forwarded me an email from a parent. It explained that my student had been calling her daughter names during recess. It got to the point where girl's brother in 5th grade was trying to protect her, and still nothing was being done.

After my class came in, I pulled my student out into the hall and asked what had been happening at recess. I got a reply about something completely different, but I realized I needed to do something about the new story later. haha. I secretly love asking vague questions to see what they will say.

I mentioned the name of the girl and my boy poked around at what had happened for a a few minutes. Finally he said he meant to say sorry but he forgot. We talked for a few minutes and I asked him what name he was calling the girl.

If you have ever watched The Middle, and you know the youngest boy Brick.... He repeats some words in a whisper with his head down. It's really weird, but kind of funny.

My student did the exact same thing and he whispered "Pregnant."

I asked him why he would call her pregnant and he said she reminded him of someone. (In my mind I hoped he wasn't going to say my name. In my teaching career I have been called pregnant a few times.... kids are so good for the self esteem.) He then said his mom, who had a baby this past summer.

I was so mad at him, and felt so bad that this poor girl, who is overweight was being called pregnant. We will be working on saying nice words and making friends instead of enemies.