Mcgilla’s Weblog

Today has been a bit of a day.  One of my beautiful, precious, little girls dropped the B bomb at lunch, and 3 other girls dropped it to tell me that it was said.  All day long the kids have been bickering and just being mean to one another.  After rest, which comes right after lunch, i had decided i had had it.  We sat on the rug together and talked about words that make us bloom and words that make us wilt.  We talked about how we should only say words that will make our friends bloom, and if we think that something we have to say might have a teeny tiny chance of making someone wilt, then we should swallow those words and not say them at all.  To practice “blooming”  I pulled out my popsicle sticks that have the kids’ names on them.  I use them to pull out a name at random and call on students.  Anyway… i gave one stick to each kid, so they had someone else’s name.  I then gave them a piece of paper and they each wrote a bloom note or a bloom picture for their person.  Many of them were very thoughtful and took time to really think about things that their person likes.  The kids glowed after hearing their blooms, so we hung them up all over the room.  

(don’t tell the kids that they’re actually practicing good writing skills…. i might put this into our weekly curriculum.)

I was really excited about this writing assignment i had for the kiddos today…. We’ve been talking about Dr. Seuss and reading his books because his birthday is coming up next week.  So today, the kids made their very own Seussical page.  I wrote a pair of rhyming words on each of 20 cards.  Then i folded up the cards and put them into a cat in the hat, hat.  The kids came up and drew a card out of the hat with their rhyming pair…. the kids then had to put their rhyming words into a silly sentence and illustrate it.  The results were AWESOME.  One of my favorites came from nick, i like to rake the cake…. his picture was priceless…. probably i enjoyed it so much because i was expecting the cake is on the rake….. anyway, you know an assignment is going over well when all the kids finish in less than 10 min and the room is pretty silent while they’re working.  The bad news is that i was hoping to have their work to put out in the hallway with the bulletin board i’m making….. but the writing went over so well that Mrs. Story decided that they were going to go into their portfolios.  which i guess is good news.  Even my kids who struggle to do more than string nonsensical letters together without any spaces were able to write nearly understandable sentences….. VERY FUN!

nope…. that’s not dandruff…. Sparkle, the toothfairy came to school.  That’s fairy dust.  It was magical.

how would you finish that sentence?  that was a writing prompt for my kinders today, and although most answers were pretty simple, some were simply too adorable not to share…..

If i were precident, i would……

“love my mom” -Mikah

“play baseball at the white house” – Marshall (kid after my own heart)

“help the usa by telling them about emergencies” – Gavin (too cute right)

“shoot all the bad armies” Camden (hoo-rah)

and my absolute favorite of the day…..

“If i were president i would…… have the president wear a yellow suit” – Wes    who i might add was the same kid who said this

i really need a life.

I often find myself making deals with the kids in my class…. If you at least get two of those 3 things done, you can go to the restroom.  You don’t play with your totally awesome ring while you’re doing work, you can keep it with you today.  If you listen really well while we do this lesson, i’ll read a little more of that book you really like…… This got me thinking, why do i make deals with my students instead of just expecting them to do what i ask?  Then i realized that i do the same thing with myself.  Just today i caught myself saying….. If you get all the dishes washed and the bathroom and “kitchen” cleaned before you turn on the tv, you can sit and have cereal and all the decaf you want for dinner.  When in all reality, i should just keep my dishes and bathroom clean (disclaimer…. i didn’t have that many dishes, and my bathroom stays pretty clean). And i can have cereal and decaf whenever i want it…… so, what deals do you make with yourself???

He’s used to be a glove…. now he’s a woodland creature….

i’m pretty much in love with him…. you can’t see it in this picture… but his tail is bendable!!!!

This week we’re talking about America and US symbols…. Today we mostly talked about Abraham Lincoln.  In passing it was mentioned that he was killed… but never really discussed, and not by me…. while reading a book one of my other boys said that his dad told him that Abraham Lincoln was shot…. but that’s all that was said.   Much later in the day the kids had a page with pictures of lots of things on it and the kids had to color the pictures that started with the letter Uu.  One of the pics was a set of stairs with an up arrow.  After about 2 min, one of my boys (not the one who made the lincoln statement earlier) came up to me to proudly show me his work. he had colored the stairs red and proudly announced in his best comic book villian voice…. “these stairs are red because they’re drenched in the blood of the 16th president!”   How is it that boys naturally know how to man up even the most mundane thing?

I’m going to try and find some more pictures of our team making fools of ourselves…. but for now these will have to tide you over.  On the midlothian isd website, LaRue Miller (my school) and our JRFH assembly is being featured….. I found this out when i took my kinders to the computer lab this morning, and as they got the internet browser up (the midlothian website is the homepage), I heard dozens of….. miss mcgill! you’re on the internet!!!!…… i turned very quickly and wide eyed, hoping it wasn’t true…. but alas… i am on the front page….. here it is….

this is after we’re done dancing…. and coach rogers (the pe teacher) is giving a speech about “kicking” bad habits, bad food, and getting Kicking, with being active and jump roping, and what not…. (we’re the kolesterol kickers) and every time he said kick we kicked and yeehawed.

here’s the rockin ropers…. they danced to some 70’s rock hit… i don’t remember what….. but it was fun.

The cardiac QT’s…. they walked back and forth to “material girls” and princess waved…. the one in the middle with the crown, glasses, dark hair, and wide open mouth is my master teacher….. this whole team theme and creation is hers. (she’s a self-proclaimed princess)

here’s a pic of some of the 5th grade jump team…. i wish i had more to show you… they did some really cool stuff…..  you can’t see them.. but there are 4 more kids to the left of this screen with the letters j-u-m-p…. they jumped into the rope one at a time and called out the letters as they jumped in…. and all 8 jumped together several times…. it was fun.

Checking blog stats to see what people type into their search engines to find me…. one because, why would people be searching that, and what are they looking for? and two, how did that bring you to me??  some of my favorties…

• the mustache helps
• woke up peeing
• boyfriend threw my shoes
• wet the bed dorm
• smell like dr pepper
• harry wong
• sister came in the bathroom peeing
• putting on a finger buddy
• meat sweats
• how to side pony
• grocery cart ideas coronation dance

apparently, all these things will bring to to mcgilla.wordpress.com….. i’m just not sure how…. or what these people were really looking for, i’m pretty confident that i’m not it.