We’ve had another interesting month here at school. We are working on the mid-year program, studying diligently, and playing frisbee disc golf and kick ball.
Critter holding is a fun privilege when all your work is done and you’re making good grades. Some of the favorites this month have been the hedge hog,
lizards,
and the snake. She is very friendly and doesn’t bite. (She is a python so she just curls around her prey.)
The second issue of the Cotton Caboose was successfully printed and is available at a variety of local businesses including Miller’s Country Store, Falls Farm and Auto, Hensel’s Hardware, and the Highway 77 Cafe.
For one of our English classes, students did an oral “how to” presentation. One made us sandwiches, and the other waffles. All of the students in the class got samples.
I’m not exactly sure what this was, but after we switched classes one day, this was on my white board. (My husband teaches math, science, and music, while I teach English, spelling, and history.) The students did NOT want me to erase it. I was able to diagram sentences around it for one day. Then I had to go in after school and erase it. Sneaky.
We’ve been doing the science thing at morning devotions for a few years now, but the students this year are really bringing in some of the most interesting things I’ve seen in a long time.
First we have a centipede. One of our students found it and put it in a container to bring to school. His little brother wanted to “play” with it, got it out of its container, and was stung. It is really, really fast. It eats crickets.
a genuine Texas tumbleweed,
a whole stalk of corn,
and this is a most strange seed. It's non-Latin name is officially “Devil’s Claws”, and we are researching the type of plant from which it originates. What is really interesting is that the bottom one is how it begins, then it splits in half and looks like the top version. Science is fascinating. God our Creator is amazing.
Here is the story behind the duck. As we were driving to school one night for a school board meeting, I spotted what I thought was a road kill. I asked hubby to pull over and let me out. It was a taxidermied (is that a true participal?) duck, mounted on a piece of wood. The head was attached, but it spun around on a wire and was easily removed. (Boys will be boys.) This lovely piece is now decorating the wall in the attic. (It doesn’t quite fit in with our school decor. . . . )
My favorite spelling blooper for this month:
“The Black Plague helped bring an end to the Medieval ‘futile’ system.”
( I suppose the feudal system may have been futile.)
And. . . HISTORY!!!! I’ve been digging up local history articles to write about in the Cotton Caboose, a little newspaper our school publishes which includes articles on old-fashioned ways of living, gardening, farming, school happenings, and history. A local business man told me about an Indian massacre which took place about a mile outside our city limits back in 1853. After researching more about it, our family took a drive out to see the historical marker and the place close to where it all happened. I hope to have a little story on it completed soon as we are just beginning our westward expansion unit.
There are exciting, interesting educational things all around us. We as teachers can be looking for them. If we are excited about these things, then we can in turn tell our students about them and have our students looking also. This equals great results times thirty . . . or however many students you are blessed to have.