~Mushrooms, revisited~

So my classes seem to have a theme of obsession with mushrooms. Field trip, shmield trip. We're looking at mushrooms!

Today was no exception. It was our annual trip to White Pine Village. It's a really cool restored historical village, with lots of activites for kids to do, and also a candy shop and an ice cream store, which, if you asked a fifth grader, are the most important stops in the village.

Except for this year.

I had my little group of seven. They stopped to see the old sawmill, which was operating today. The two boys were absolutely fascinated with the little hole in the wall where the sawdust was disappearing up a ramp. They politely asked the men running the sawmill if they could go behind the building to see the sawdust pile. Really valuable historical stuff, I'm tellin' ya! When the man said, "Sure," they turned around with the best can-we-can-we-oh-please look I've ever seen. Before my head had completed one entire nod, they were off.

We waited. And we waited. The girls, who were most definitely not interested in the sawdust pile, were about ready to mutiny and leave the boys behind because they were Hungry when the boys came roaring back, two huge white morels in their hands.

They showed their mushrooms off to everyone they could think of, ate their lunch in about twelve seconds, and then began begging to go mushroom hunting.

So we spent our last twenty minutes at the historic village mushroom hunting. Successfully. They found fifteen or twenty huge morels. They were so excited they even forgot to fight over who would take them home.

So chalk up yet another field trip in which my lovely children, when asked, would only be able to tell you about fungus. Yep...educationally valuable stuff!

~ To the Rescue! ~

Yesterday, it was Bitsy Bender. Today it's a bunch of lilacs. Saving my day, that is.

Yesterday was the first annual "NutriWalk" at our school. Kids walk about a mile, and then get healthy snacks and water as a gym activity. This involves a)riding a bus to the park, b)walking a mile and c)walking back to school, all of which are things that send my autistic one into fits of panic. Especially the bus. All I heard, all morning long, was that busses are bad, they can tip over, they're loud, they're too bouncy. And, oh, by the way, he hates busses.

We put his earplugs in, and since he's destroyed all his other little fidgety items, I frantically searched my desk for something he could fiddle with on the bus ride. And I found this:

Bitsy Bender. Given to me ages ago by a good friend. Bitsy was contorted, rocketed, magneted, and flipped all the way to the park. And not even one small, "Busses are evil," comment was heard. He was so calm when he got off the bus, he even completed the mile walk and the walk back to school without complaining. Truly, miracles do still happen.

Bitsy Bender saves the day.

And today, her superhuman counterpoint is.....a vase of lilacs. Stranger things have happened, I suppose.

It starts with what felt like a Monday morning. I didn't sleep well, I made the coffee too weak, I had to change my white shirt after a muddy dog decided to show love by jumping on me, I couldn't find my favorite jacket even after checking all the normal places, and I finally straggled into school thirty minutes later than I wanted to be.

Which is when A. showed up with a vase full of lilacs and this heart-warming statement, "Mrs. N, my mom wants me to give you these 'cause she doesn't like this vase anymore."

Ah, fifth graders. They still know how to make my day.

~Pass It Around~

I love this book.

It's a tale that starts out sounding like it's a simple childrens' story.

And then it starts hitting you right in the heart. "This is the danger of loving: No matter how powerful you are, no matter how many kingdoms you rule, you cannot stop those you love from dying."

Powerful stuff that most authors aren't brave enough to put in a childrens' novel.

Because I adore this book, I always read it aloud for my kids, and they always love it, too. We've used the book this year for lessons on quotation marks, paragraphs, plot structure, text-to-text connections, character development, and poetry writing.

Somewhere along the way it becomes clear that I've infected my kids. They start checking the book our of the school library. There's a bit of a waiting list for the copy I have in my room. They talk their parents into buying it from book orders.

This morning I had to ducktape the hardcover back on our classroom copy. The dust jacket has long since vanished. The pages are dog-eared and filled with old sticky notes marking someone's favorite passage.

Love of literature and stories is infectious.

Who have you passed the bug along to?

~Not Me! Monday~

I most certainly do not ever, under any circumstances, bribe children with suckers. And if I did, I certainly would never bribe them to run all the way down to the teacher's lounge to buy me a diet cherry pepsi because I need the caffeine. Nope, that would never happen in my classroom...