My Enemy

My fourth graders like to make noises. I'd say weird animal noises are their favorite. They make noises while I am teaching, during silent reading time, and while they are taking tests. Sometimes I don't think they realize they are doing it. Anyway, the other day my kids were doing work at their desks when I heard someone making a pigeon noise. I looked around the room, but couldn't figure out who it was. So I asked them. They all looked at me innocently. Then I realized who it was.... my number one enemy in Nicaragua:

the pigeons living above my classroom. 

These birds are on a mission to ruin my life. They coo all day long. They leave their dirty feathers all over my room. They flap around, attack each other, and make distracting noises while my already distracted students are attempting to learn. The cleaning lady keeps having to mop outside my room because they leave their droppings everywhere. You can see two pigeons in the picture. I believe there are three that live in the area between my classroom ceiling and the roof.

Moving on.

This week we started a unit in Social Studies on Immigration to the U.S. We talked about heritage and family backgrounds and my kids made a "Heritage Quilt". They are going to work on family trees over the next couple of weeks.

Other 4th grade adventures:
Studying early forms of writing in the Bible. They tried out hieroglyphics and pictographs of their favorite Bible stories:

Studying money, its value, and counting back change. It turns out it is hard to do these things when most of my students have never seen or touched real U.S. bills or coins. We have been practicing, practicing, practicing.

Playing the tape game. The game works like this: Leave your classroom clean and ready for the next day. Enter classroom next day. Find all of your posters on the floor. Find tape. Realize it is the same tape that didn't work the first time. Find the sticky tac. Rush to get it on the walls before the students come. Repeat next day. Beware of stormy and windy nights that cause double the destruction.

xoxoxoxo
Laura