Dilemma

How do you tell the parent who is a Math professor at Purdue that she's made an error and calculated her daughter's field trip money wrong and still owes you money??

If I Hadn't Seen It....

.... with my own eyes, I don't think I would have believed it.

Yesterday, the Pet Keepers were feeding Pigita and the hermit crabs. They have permission to get in my fridge and pull out the fruit or veggie I have in there for the animals' dinner around 3:20 each day. (This is when Pigita whistles like crazy, trying to hurry the week's Pet Keepers along.)

I have several students who are waaaaaay up there academically, but when it comes to common sense and being able to do things for themselves, they flounder. One of these kids is currently a Pet Keeper.

I looked over to check on how the Pet Keepers were coming along, and could not believe what I was seeing. Not finding a bag of veggies, this boy has OPENED my leftover dinner (saved for lunch the next day), dumped out the knife and fork, and is YANKING on the steak, trying to pull pieces off!! 

"I didn't see anything else to feed them," he said when asked why he was handling my food. 

I am blown away by the fact that a child in 4th or 5th grade could not tell the difference between a fruit/veggie and meat, or that he would think a guinea pig would eat steak. Even the clues of a knife and fork did not register that this was my dinner and not for the animals.

Classroom Jeopardy!

After a tough fight (and being behind the entire game) Team Jeopards won Classroom Jeopardy! during our inaugural playing of the game yesterday. They bet it all on the Final Jeopardy game question: How well do you know Mrs. Isenbarger? The clue was, "Mrs. I can play this musical instrument with her feet. Chopsticks never had it so good!" Of course, the answer was, "player piano."

Channel 18 and the Journal and Courier covered us. It was a super day, and I am exhausted still, but we had a blast. Enjoy the photos!

What Zeus is All About

Take a close look at this picture. Some of my students were trick-or-treating at our house and  lined up for a picture. See Zeus? That little girl patting him has a rare chromosomal disease (there are only 17 known cases in the world). She followed him around as best she could, awkwardly patting him, grabbing him a bit too hard once, trying to be next to him....

Zeus never got impatient, never barked or snapped, and allowed her to love him (which is what she was trying to do; she just has little control over her muscles.) He even came over on his own initiative for the picture, and sat by her!

This picture reminds me of what I like best about Zeus - his patience and love of people. He made that girl's night. 

I Won, I Won, I Won!!

I NEVER win ANYTHING. Ever. Nope, nada, not me.  Curt is the family winning guy - he wins just about anything he enters! But I don't.

So, when Vickie Peal (Director of Gifted Ed) emailed all the teachers asking them to enter WLFI's contest to win a Classroom Jeopardy! game, I didn't enter. I knew I wouldn't win, so why waste the time?

It took being home for a sick day and sorting through old email for me to enter. I came across Vickie's email, decided that maybe I ought to check it out since she had asked me to enter, and went to the web site to see what entering entailed. Name, school, and contact info by email? I could do that. And I did.

The next day I got an email from Sony's rep telling me I had won the game! And that they were coming out to set it up and play it with my kids! And that Channel 18 would be on hand to film it! The emails and phone calls started rolling in as people from Sony and WLFI worked to make arrangements, gathered info, etc.

My students practically turned cartwheels when I told them the news! (No longer a cartwheel girl, I settled for a few jumps in place.) Of course, at this point, I really didn't know what I had won. The principal and other teachers were congratulating me, emails from other GT teachers were coming in (Vickie Pearl sent the word out that a TSC teacher had won) and I thought maybe I'd better check it out.

I went to www.classroomjeapardy.com and found that it is an interactive game/educational tool that hooks up to a TV and has games I can customize to what I am teaching. It costs about $550! Not bad for entering on a whim!

November 10 is the BIG DAY when we receive the game and are filmed for Channel 18. Can't wait!