Cinco de Mayo Day at School

Yesterday was a very busy day at school. We had a HUGE agenda of items to do.

PLANTER:

We started the day out by replacing the junky old plants in our planter that is on our ramp outside of our door. One of our class jobs is to care for these plants daily by pulling out the weeds and watering it.

The kids enjoy this job and it helps to make our boring old portable building look a little bit better. This year it has also served as a home for critters. One of my students in my room is a bug lover. At the end of each recess, I have to have him empty out his pockets. 9 times out of 10, he has them loaded with insects!!! We just toss them in the planter and let them be at one with nature.

Thunder Cake:

In a previous post, I wrote about making Thunder Cake with Sabi and a friend. Yesterday, we made a Thunder Cake in our classroom. It was a lot of fun.

We all got to help in the measuring, mixing, adding of ingredients, clean up and eating! This was a different recipe though. This cake was baked in a Crock Pot.

I was quite unsure of how this would turn out. We got the cake in the Crock Pot by 9:00. By 10:00, the room smelled heavenly. People walking by wanted to know where the chocolate chip cookies were!!! THe kids went to lunch just as the cake was finishing up at 11:15.

When they came back from lunch, we had a great dessert topped off with a splash of whipped cream. IT was one of the best cakes I have ever tasted. YUM!

CINCO DE MAYO:

This year, I heard that some teachers were going to be bringing in piñatas for their classes and pan dulce for Cinco de Mayo. I was not too hip to that idea. In my opinion, I don{t need to teach my kids about cultural items from Mexico because all but two are Mexican. The other two attend a school with mostly Mexican kids so they are quite knowledgeable about these things. I also don't like the idea of making a big hoopla over Cinco de Mayo as if it were the Independence Day. I really wanted to teach about the meaning of the day. The teacher next door and I decided to teach about Benito Juárez. He created a short reading selection about B.J. and then made some reading comprehension activities to accompany it. We were able to teach on a subject outside of our curriculum but stay with in our second grade standards this way.

In addition to this, we also read several books about Benito Juárez and then discussed them. After that we discussed a quote that my mom shared with me before school. The kids wanted to write it on a piece of paper and put it up. They also added their own second grade translation to it!

BUTTERFLIES:

Yesterday, all of our caterpillars had finally formed their chrysalids. One of them we were worried about. He kept getting caught in the silk and couldn't make it to the top to hang. He took two whole days to do it but finally, he made it! I transferred the chryslids to the Butterfly Pavillion yesterday in front of the kids. Before I put them in though, I showed them the chrysalids up close and personal. They were so beautiful!

We did a lot more at school but in the rush of trying to get everything done that I wanted to, I didn't take pictures of it all! It was quite a busy day but it was also very focused and purposeful. I love days like that!

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THAT EVENING:

Sabi and I went to service last night. At the beginning of service, she told me and showed me a loose tooth. O told her to keep working on it and it would probably come out soon. Right as service was ending, she showed it to me again. I told her a few turns and it will probably come out. Guess what she did? She turned the tooth around and then threw herself forward because it came out! Everyone stared at her to see what was going on. I also jerked and pulled her up right away. Was I worried that she might swallow the tooth? No! I was worried about something else. I was afraid that her brand new dress was going to get tooth blood all over it! We rushed to the sink to rinse out her mouth. Then we stopped by the kitchen to get a baggie to store the tooth in. We walked back into service as the last song was being sung. Sabi of course walked in waving that baggie so everyone could see it. She heard lots of Mazel Tov's last night. She walked up to the Rabbi right after service and told him that she was going to put it under her pillow tonight. He of course told her that she couldn't because you can't use money on Shabbat. Read more about that here on Sabi's blog.