Holiday Weight Gain

Peanut Clusters. K makes them bigger than his mom does. Um...I'm not even including everything here. Left off are photos of the happily consumed: chicken and noodles, Famous Dave's BBQ, chicken and wild rice soup, Pizza Hut Pizza, Mexican food from Pueblo Viejo, fudge, Old Chicago, jam thumb print cookies, Kobe An Japanese food, mint brownies, M&M cookies, ham dinner with mashed potatoes and corn, sloppy joe lunch with waffle fries, ETC!!!

Crispix Mix



Spritz Cookies



Sugar Cookies






Peanut Brittle. It was spot on this year. I don't think I even liked peanut brittle before I met these people. Now I am a True Believer.






Swiss Steak



Actual Almond Bark



Custard Pie. I know. It doesn't stop.



Candy Cane Cookies. This is a labor of love, let me tell you. The taste is so good because of the almond extract. Do you see how my mother-in-law totally gets the RULER out? Intense!




Cheese Ball. Sold as a fundraiser by the United Church of Christ in Melbourne, Iowa. The recipe is a total secret. Those church people are not talking.



Porcupine Meatballs. A lot of people wonder if we eat porcupine. No, we don't. When the rice cooks inside the hamburger meatball, it sticks out, which reminded someone a long time ago of a porcupine.



Apple Salad



Let's get back to the healthier foods and sane portions, shall we?

The Christmas Sing

This is our assistant principal doing his Master of Ceremonies duty. The Christmas Sing is a tradition where the whole school (1000+) gathers in the gym to sing together. We don't invite the parents, because there is no room for the parents. Each grade performs one song for the other grades and then we all sing a few songs together. It's a nice activity for that last day of school before the big winter vacation.



Some of Santa's Helpers happen to have day jobs at our school. They are sweepers, aides, and duty guards (aka "Life Guards" on the playground as they are called by the children--totally appropriate moniker if you ask me). They were decked out in Christmas gear for the sing, strolling around, eyeing the children carefully to see which list on which they should write their names.






What would the Christmas Sing be without a couple of Special Visitors stopping by to greet the children? Santa and Mrs. Claus try to get around and greet the children, but sometimes they just can't help themselves...they start dancing in the middle of things.



Mrs. Claus is my FAVORITE! I especially love the way she does her makeup and jams on the holly accessories. Mrs. Claus is the best.




At the end of the sing, our principal SANG A SOLO! He sang Blue Christmas and none of us could even believe it because he has never done anything like this before! Great job!

Baking

The hardest part about making these Christmas Hugs is unwrapping all of the candies. With K's help, this project was completed quickly and smoothly. Lots of compliments were received from the rangers at the cave party, the faculty members at my school, the rangers at the Spike, and the other people we've shared them with. Someone said, "It's the perfect combination of sweet and salt." We snagged this idea from K's relatives in the midwest!

I taught my last Old Testament lesson in the adult Sunday School on Sunday. I have a team teacher now, so he'll be teaching the next two Sundays to finish out 2010 and then it's on to the New Testament for 2011. My class (fellow ward members, neighbors, and friends--all ages!) is darling. They do such a great job of studying, preparing, making comments, sharing insights, participating when I ask them to do things like reader's theater and making bunny rabbits out of modeling clay...that I thought I would take a treat to them for Christmas. Not knowing how many will show up week to week, I hid seven dozen cookies inside the table-top podium I use. Adults members of the Sunday School are no different than a room full of fifth graders. Those cookies were GONE in less than three minutes (which is what I WANTED to happen)!

Donde Esta Santa Claus?

On Friday we had about ten minutes before lunch. Frankly, I didn't have much for the children to do for that specific ten minutes. I simply told them to stay in their seats and read or finish up anything else they needed to quietly. My plan was to hurry and finish correcting their spelling tests before lunch. I had this great idea to put on some Christmas music and told the class. Track 1...nothing. Track 2...everyone was still calm and in their seat. But Track 3 proved to be just the thing our class NEEDED for a Friday. Spontaneously (as in...we have never danced even once this year), many students arose from their seats and without asking any sort of permission, began dancing with no qualms whatsoever. I stopped correcting and snapped a few photos. Friday Joy and Christmas Morph (Christmas Morph is my term for when the fifth graders begin exhibiting signs that they are slowly turning into sixth graders)!




I know that I should be sleeping.




Out of the window I'm peeping.







We played Track 3 again.

Faking It

Last Wednesday was the Boston Tea Party in our fifth grade. Boston Harbor happened to be a box on a table located in King George's office (somewhat difficult to access). Each student received a Lipton tea bag and the goal was to dump it in the harbor without getting caught by King George (the assistant principal) or any of his British generals and soldiers (teachers and other adults in the school). Students had to get creative to first of all LEAVE the classroom and second of all to actually accomplish the task. If caught, they were either put in prison or hung for treason against the king. Well...one of my darlings made this fake hall pass. She used her best cursive. She even hole-punched it and threaded it with a long thin strip of paper towel to hang it around her neck, hoping the adults wouldn't actually examine the pass too closely (just glance and see that she had one). However, leaving nothing to chance, she further authenticated her work by putting several x's and hearts on said pass. Do these children know me, or what???

Love Notes

A student came back from his other class excited about his finished story in hand. So excited in fact, he had drawn lines on the back page for classmates to comment. Someone in the other class already had, so after reading the story, I used the second line to write, "Hilarious!" He then asked if he could share it with the class, right then and there, so I let him. It was short and the class applauded. Then with smiling confidence, he announced that he would be sending his story around the room for everyone to make comments on the back! Without batting an eyelash, everyone complied so positively and politely. We've never done anything like this. He was pleased as punch. A few minutes later, this showed up on my desk and I've been chuckling over it all day.

A Little Slice of School

So, I made pancakes the morning after Thanksgiving and tossed in some leftover pumpkin pie stuff along with a few chocolate chips. Worked beautifully! Gourmet, I tell you, GOURMET!!!

Cute hat--couldn't resist!



Ah, PAINTING! One of THE most "relaxing" things I do with thirty-one ten and eleven year olds. Here are all the Sample Santas lined up after a careful, detailed, step-by-step description of how this project should go down.


Marching to the beat of a different drummer that was obviously out of my hearing range.




Santas on parade!





One student spilled paint on the carpet. Other students jumped right in to get it cleaned up. They did such a thorough job, you can't even see where it happened. This kind of thing MELTS MY HEART!



Working, painting, concentrating...






Two little peas in a pod watching CNN Student News.




While playing the part of General Thomas Gage this morning, I taught about the Quartering Act and explained that the British Soldiers would be needing their chairs today. ALL day.


Colonists were crying, "Intolerable acts!" and protested by making signs and hanging them around school. Methinks this 'twas the favorite.