We're back....

So I didn't post much (at all) during my Christmas break, mainly because I didn't have that much to post about (honestly how exciting is it to hear me talk about how my dad and I went to every place you can purchase a tool of some kind within a radius of about 20 miles? Or how I managed to assemble a Weber grill?  Or how I still woke up at 5:00 every morning but managed to take a nap?  And how many bowl games I managed to watch?).  We had a delightful time off, I did very little school work, went and saw the latest Harry Potter movie, read, knitted, napped and enjoyed my time away from the classroom.  Hanging out with Hubby, Dad and the felines was a great deal of fun.

But today, we're back.  Actually teachers came back yesterday and did in-service most of the day (which was actually interesting and informative) and Mrs. Eagle and I managed to get everything copied and prepared for the rest of our heredity and genetics unit.  Whoo-hoo!  Love to be prepared.  Considering that we couldn't even remember if we'd done lesson plans before we left for break (we did), that's a plus.

We gained (so far) a new student, a sixth grader who's being promoted into seventh who is a good student, a polite young man and an absolute delight.  What a relief.  I'm used to getting kids that no one wants.

The other good news is we lost one.  Yes, Very Mean Bully Boy, came back today to officially withdraw.  He will still be doing his 30 days in alternative school but when that's done, he'll be in another school across town.  Let's give mom credit for moving him out of that horrid gang-and-thug-infested apartment complex down the road and shifting them across town to a better neck of the woods.  However, they are both in for a rude awakening because the folks at the school across town aren't used to dealing with thugs like VMBB and and he's certainly not used to them.  He is, however, no longer my problem and I can enjoy doing hall duty without worrying about who his latest victim is going to be.

The kids, by the way, were relieved.  It was like a different atmosphere today.

And today, Mrs. Eagle, Mrs. Hummingbird and I debuted for a few of our classes the New Science Notebooks!!

The good news is we didn't fall flat on our faces.

We've been kicking around the idea of doing science notebooks for a year or so, but really didn't get too motivated until we went to the NSTA conference and hit up some workshops on them.  We decided to go ahead and "test drive" them for two of our classes, our 3rd (lots of sped kids) and our 5th (lots of bright kids) and see how they go.  The Principal found the money in the budget to buy composition books for the kids and we also got a few new pairs of scissors, as well as some liquid glue (glue sticks, we were told, don't work as well).    The idea is to work out the kinks this year, then go ahead and start the year off with them next year.

The kids seemed to like them except for a few who see a composition book and assume they'll be doing nothing but writing in them.  Oh well.  We'll see how it goes.

The other good thing?  I only had 4 kids forget their locker combinations - that's pretty darn good!