Life Lately

 Happy Halloween!

 Our First Plane Ride Together

 A trip to Missouri to see friends get married

 St Louis Arch

 cute visitors

 Having fun...living life!

Quotable

Me: I'm going to Missouri this weekend and won't be here Monday.
Student: Will you bring me back some soil?
Me: Why?
Him: I want to start an exotic garden.
Me: Missouri isn't exotic.
Him: Uh Huh! EVERYTHING is exotic in Missouri.

(A little later) Him: Mrs. Snyder, tell them Missouri is in Africa!
Me: Are you serious?
Him: Blank stare--Me getting out the social studies book and showing him where Missouri is
Him: Oh...so it's a state?
Me: Do you still want some soil?
Him: Yes!

Tights

Enter a brief whine session with me...

Tights...oh so cute on little bums...oh so uncomfortable on grown adults. (Am I really a grown adult now? weird.) This Monday was wacky tacky day at school for spirit week. Last year I had this atrocious outfit laid out for wacky tacky day, but it fell on our parent/teacher conference day. As a new teacher, I didn't think it would be very professional to go into a conference with a parent looking as ridiculous as I had planned. So, regular, business professional clothes it was. This year, it just fell on a faculty meeting day. So, I picked out this mismatch outfit that I was so proud of: A bright blue tank top under a yellow polka dot/flower cardigan, a black skirt, hot pink and black stripped tights, and brown Danskos. I was a hot mess...literally and figuratively.

You see, I am a sleeper and tend to push snooze for as long as possible in the morning. This usually results in me walking into school with the students right at 7am. On Monday, I had few more items of clothing to put on than normal...namely the tights. They were the last thing I put on and I did it in a rush. I hiked those suckers up and ran out the door. I barely got to the car before I thought, "I think these tights might be too small," as they had already begun to sag.

I don't know if your tights have ever sagged, but it has got to be one of the most uncomfortable feelings ever. It didn't take me long to realize my tights were in fact too small. My tights sagged about an inch lower than where they should have been all day. I may have snuck to the back of my room a few times while the kids were copying notes to re-hike them up. It annoyed me as a little girl to have my tights sag and it annoyed me a lot to have them sag as an adult...

Not to mention how hot they are to wear! I couldn't tell you the last time I wore tights, which tells you how old this pair of tights must be and clues you in to why they are too small. But, those suckers are thick and not very cool. They're even hotter when the heat is blasting like it's 10 below zero outside. I wanted to take them off so badly, but my legs were way too hairy to even consider that.

However, this story does end well. After sitting in a faculty meeting until 4:30...That's 10 hours in these sweltering, sagging tights, every teacher who dressed up for wacky tacky got a prize that made it all worth it...almost.

If anyone needs a pair of hot pink and black stripped tights, just let me know; I don't think I'll be wearing them again!

I did have a student ask me why I wasn't dressed up for wacky tacky day. I looked down at myself and then back at her with a confused expression. She said, "What? I'd wear that!" Alrighty then...

I also had a student ask if my sister (a senior in college) was my daughter.

The day before that, when I told students I went to Northern, one student asked if any of my teachers were still there. Before I could answer, another student spoke up and said, "Nooo! All of her teachers are probably dead by now!"

Apparently I'm not aging well! Anti-aging companies should use 7th graders as advertisers; they'd be great at making consumers feel really old.

Coming Up

Thursday Thoughts

A student greeted me yesterday with, "Good morning, Mrs. Snyder! You look pretty today."
Too bad 7th graders notice everything. Otherwise, I might try to wear that same outfit every week.

Today at lunch we had multiple students come up to us and show us that their milk was dated August 25th. First of all, gross. Then, they told us they drank it. And, it had chunks in it. Seriously?!?! I'm a freak about bad food/drinks anyway and a texture person. So, my mind can't begin to comprehend how they drank sour, chunky milk. One boy told me he thought the chunks were ice. After the fourth person came up to us, I went and had a chat with the lunch ladies. They graciously took care of the problem.

Then, as you can imagine, all afternoon I was worried about students puking in my class. I hate throw up. I made sure they knew that if they were feeling bad, they were to exit asap. I had one boy take advantage of that privilege. He faked gagged and everything. I'm not even ashamed to admit that I encouraged him, even rushed him, (even though I knew he was faking) to leave immediately.

I haven't run in 2 weeks because my sports bra disappeared into thin air. I can't find it anywhere! You can tell how avid of a worker outter I am considering I only own one sports bra. I bought new ones last week, but they're too small and this week has been too busy for me to exchange them. So, next week it is. I hate how a few minor things can come up and all of the sudden two weeks have passed with no working out. I know I should/could make it a higher priority, but after 12 hour workdays (which I've had 2.5 of this week) and having to get out of bed at 5:30 (which hasn't happened once this week...5:45-5:50 is more like it), I am physically zapped at the end of the day.

I'm scared Orbit might be discontinuing my favorite flavor, sweetmint. I've gone to two different stores two different times and they've both been out. Today when I went back to store 1, all gum had been re-stocked and there wasn't a place for sweetmint. They didn't even have it up front in the individual packets. I'm going to Costco this weekend and stocking up on that stuff! I hope they aren't out!

I've lost 2 sticks of chap-stick in the past week. Stuff seems to be disappearing around our house and that's not okay with me. I bought 3 today. We'll see how long I can hold onto those.

Tomorrow is Friday. I've been on autopilot all week to get to tomorrow. I can't wait to sleep in and relax this weekend and spend some time with my husband.

Happy Thursday!

done

This week we completed our first unit of the year. We've been learning about data and statistics since August 29th. We took our unit assessment on September 30th. That's one whole month on graphs and mean, median, mode, and range. I can not explain how happy I am to be done with this unit. If I had to spend one more day on mean, median, mode, and range, I might have gone insane. And, my students wouldn't have been far behind me. I heard on several occasions, "Do we have to find MMMR again?!?"

Last year we spent 17 days on this unit and with the new pacing guide, we spent over 30 days on it this year. I think the people downtown (most of whom used to be in the classroom as a teacher themselves) who make our pacing guides, or shall I say "instructional calendars" forget the reality of teaching when they leave the classroom. It's craziness.

This week we start our unit on integers. This unit is so much more fun! We have lots of fun games and activities that go with this unit. We don't have quite as long in the pacing guide with this unit as we normally spend on it. But, I'm still going to try to squeeze in some of the funness! We play integer bingo, beat me to the top, integer dominoes, "I have...Who has?", and Integer War to name a few. Talking about integers will be such a breath of fresh of air!


Welcome fall weather and a new unit!

Look what happened in Boone this weekend:

That's more craziness right there. Snow on the first day of October. I miss that place, but I'm not ready for it to be that cold yet.