The Tale of Despereaux

For the past month, we have been reading the Tale of Despereaux by Kate DiCamillo. It is a wonderful chapter book about courage which was our character trait for January. As a reward for being such good listeners to our chapter book, and for being great for the substitute while I was at the dentist, we got to watch the movie and eat popcorn and have hot chocolate and spiced tea! It was a lot of fun. We even noticed that movies are often times different from the book!

My root canal

Here I am getting prepared (luckily my wonderful dentist did the shots without me even knowing it!)

This is what it looks like while they are doing a root canal. You have to wear a rubber thing over your mouth so things don't go down your throat or in the hole that they are drilling in your tooth!

After it is over and your tooth now looks like an itty bitty pebble, they have to figure out how big to make the new tooth! Then they glue it in your mouth!

At some point they put these things in the hold in your tooth. It is the same thing that golf balls are made out of!

Your tooth has 3 nerves. 2 are so small that you can't see them. This is the big one. It came out of my mouth because it was dying. Can you believe that that little thing can cause so much distress?

Unfortunately I had to leave early on our 100th day of school in order to have a root canal. While the kids had been counting down in an excited voice to our 100th day of school, I was counting down in a nervous voice. I must say though that we have a bunch of courageous kindergartners. One child told me that she would go in my place since she didn't mind shots and I was really scared of the. One child said she would go with me and hold my hand and if I got scared she would tell them to give her the shots instead. One child said that she would make a cardboard cutout of me to send instead! While I really wanted to take them up on these ideas, I knew I had to be brave too. And thanks to a wonderful dentist, It wasn't so bad. Once I got through the shots (have I mentioned that I am deathly afraid of needles?) it was a piece of cake. Now I have a new plastic tooth and no roots or nerves. I will get a new tooth to take the place of the plastic tooth in a month! The kids have examined my new tooth and have come to the conclusion that it is ok because it looks just like my other teeth!

100th Day of School

On Wednesday we celebrated the fact that we are now 100 days smarter. We had a great party! We had balloons, bubbles, party favors, cupcakes, and stickers. We also got to do fun centers where we made a necklace with 100 beads (well, we counted out 100 beads and had to finish the necklaces at home!), we got to make a snack pack with 100 treats, we got to decorate a 100's day bookmark, and we got to write what we would do with $100! I dressed up like I was 100 years old and had to walk with a cane! Most kids said that their favorite part of the day was the balloons and the bubbles. We'll have to do that again soon! The kids also got to make a 100's day project at home and bring it in to show the class. We have them hanging in our room. There are so many fabulous ones (including a SAINTS poster!) It was a great day!

The Snow Monster and other snow fun

There is a snow moster that lives on our playground and the kids often find different parts of this creature. Their goal is to actually find the whole monster and destroy him! The also love the snow hill outside of our classroom. Sometime we stop and play on the hill on our way our to recess!

The Wright Brothers

This week we learned about the Wright Brothers. Orville and Wilbur Wright made the first motorized airplane. The went to Kitty Hawk, North Carolina to test their plan that only flew for 12 seconds. The kept modifying their design though and eventually created a plan that could go long distances. They even flew over the Statue of Liberty and the Eiffel Tower. We tried to be the Wright Brother in our class and made paper airplanes. After each flying contest, we would modify our design to see if we could get it to go farther! One day we had Mrs. Laura in our class and hers went really far. We also had Mr. Shawn one day and his went really far as well. The kids got some good plane making tips from them!

When I grow up, I want to be...

A counting teacher



A football player


A Beanie Baby maker and a paleontologist



A firefighter and cake maker/decorator

A teacher for big kids, you know like 3rd graders

A make-up designer for movie stars



A football player for the SAINTS

A jewelry designer and doctor for animals



A race car driver

An artist


A picture taker

A mommy of twin boys



A veterinarian

Sushi

For cooking club on Friday we had 2 wonderful moms help us make sushi. First we made California Rolls...we had sushi mats, seaweed paper, sticky rice, avocado, and cucumbers. We got to roll the sushi then cut it. All but 2 kids tried it and all but 4 kids liked it. It was amazing and I was so proud of all the kids for being so brave! A highlight was when we introduced them to soy sauce and most of the kids were licking it off of their plates! After have "dinner sushi" we got to make dessert sushi out of rice crispy treats and fruit roll ups. It was so much fun!