Mysteries Solved, Prayers Answered, and my first Open House out of the Way

My theme for my first Open House was "low key." I just didn't have much energy to expend on it, but it was still a huge success if I may say so myself. I met my goals of having at least 1 piece of art, 1 creative writing, and several work samples and test scores displayed for each student. The parents (and grandparents, siblings, various church members, and even some random tourists, but unfortunately no prospective students even though it was announced in the newspaper and I got a couple calls) came in and had to participate in the jelly bean estimation jar (which had been the object of curiosity and "mathematical" estimations all day) and the "Guess the Artist Game" where art was displayed gallery style on the wall, but with no names. They did HORRIBLY at guessing which name went with what piece - it was my secret pleasure that my 3rd grade boy's art was always guessed to be one of the high school girl's.

Holly reads Heidi's creative writing project: " I am a water Bottle"

                                   Bella wishes she could be in Kindergarten like her big brother Bean.

They got to look around at our current science project (making rock candy), listen to their favorite DVD teachers, and basically get a general view of what goes on every day. Then we all went into the sanctuary, the kids sang a song - my kindergartener wouldn't get up on the stage, my 3rd grader knew ALL the words and had been singing it at the top of his lungs for 3 days straight but at Open House he mouthed the words, head buried in his book. I guess that's what I get for going against my High/Scope philosophies and being "performance-based" with kids. :) Then I made all the adults take a pop quiz, asking them questions about things we had displayed in the schoolroom, and other random questions that my kids had suggested earlier in the day. The 9th graders reveled in the confirmation that none of the adults knew what a gastrocnemius was, as they suspected. We also learned that adults suck at fact retention and observation. The best quiz score was a 40%, and she won a cute gift basket. Then we ate a bunch of finger foods that I didn't even prepare myself. The End.

I found out what the "letters" stacked within my books were. Somebody thought that my Bible was Scott's, and put them in there when they should have gone to him. He entered me into Barnes' and Noble's Teacher Appreciation Contest. If I win, I get to spend $500 on my classroom! I hope I win! Even if I don't, I get to go to High Tea, and something else cool next week so that will be fun. :)

My Boy came back today! Yay! And so because of that, my 9-yr.old Princess of the World did not throw herself on the floor in full tantrum, pull her hair out, scream, bawl her eyes out, bite her pencils in half OR throw balled-up hate notes at me behind my back today! Yes, those are ALL daily occurences. Hopefully she stays starry-eyed.

I think I need to come up with code names for all my kids.

One more thing: has anyone else ever wondered why, in a container of Jelly Bellys, there are the flavors blueberry, and berry blue? This bothers me. Someone needs to take these jelly beans away from me.