Wow...it's been a few days since my last post which tells you things have been busy around here. I was minutes from having a two hour delay this morning, but since Campbellsport didn't I left it alone. It all seemed to work out. I drove the roads this morning without trouble on the major roads.

We have been busy decorating the room for Christmas. The students spent hours making the traditional "paper chain" and hanging lights. Zeb took on bulletin board creation. The picture to the right is what he came up with after I told him to change it from "Not Santa" to something more "religious". He is in the process of changing it to "Joy to the World"...his second choice.

So the big secret that everyone who reads this blog (all 2 of you) is ... Katherine(my daughter) is going to be a big sister (July 19). There you have it, now you can all rest peacefully.

I have to go cut some more paper for our monster paper chain which is becoming a holiday tradition around these parts.

Just got back from MN yesterday...traffic was bad, but we made it. I shared a secret with the students today, let's just hope Louis doesn't let the cat out of the bag.

Zeb tipped me off that they were having a sweet deal on Craftsman Drills at Sears.com. Unfortunately you can only get the doorbusters at the store. I just got back 4:15 from buying my christmas present from my in-laws. I've forgotten how cold it can be at 3:30 AM in Minnesota. At least it wasn't snowing. I cruised by Target(which opens at 5AM) to see if I wanted to try there next, but the line wrapped around the building - not worth it for a dual dvd system. Hope you all had a Happy Thanksgiving.

Ok, so I ordered a new throne to sit on in front of the classroom, and it finally came today. I was pulling it out of the box and noticed the seat was blue (I had ordered gray), but that wasn't a big deal until I pulled out the gray backrest. Needless to say I'm going to send it back, although Zeb probably thinks I should just spraypaint the whole thing so it matches. Hopefully they get the next one right.

PS Mr. Bickles was adopted and is fitting in well with his(or her) new family.

More drama from Mr. Biggs...apparently he caught a large rabbit this morning and was bent on devouring it for breakfast right outside the 3-4th grade window. That rabbit was toast until Mrs. Loehr came to the rescue. She traded the rabbit for some cat nip. Mr. Biggs is satisfied...for now.

So I come home last night to find out that Mr. Bickles has paid a visit to my house when my daughter was outside playing. When it was time for Katherine to go inside for a nap she kept crying "my kitty, my kitty". Then the first thing she said when she woke up was "where my kitty?" I'm surprised we haven't adopted Mr. Bickles yet. It did rain last night...maybe he went home.

Mr. Bickles(worth)

Well the students are in a tizzy today due to the addition of Mr. Bickles to the classroom. It all started last night after basketball practice. A male (that is currently being debated between Louis and Brittany) cat showed up at school wanting to be let in. The students instantly became infatuated with this beast and cannot stop talking about it. Mr. Bickles continues to be the bane of my existence as he constantly shows up at the windows of my classroom to distract the students. If this is your cat, please come and claim him. I'm trying to convince the students to adopt him.

Just kicking back and relaxing after the completion of play night 2009. You guys did great. Thanks to everyone who helped make it happen.

After an extremely frustrating day of trying to get our class Veterans Day slideshow online, I finally figured it out. Check it out on our school website. It is really good...for our first one.

Well, Kyle took the 49ers...and the tournament. Boy, did I get dominated. Well, I guess I should start practicing up for next year.

Big Tecmo Bowl (nes) tournament today at my house tonight. Still trying to decide what team I should be. Right now it's a toss-up between the Vikings, 49ers, and Raiders.

Some of the students are busy working on their virtual farms this morning. Ben just purchased a "green" cow for alien day and has made it to level 21 "Rock Star Farmer".

Well the Vikings got it done once again which means 15 problems off in Math for tomorrow.

So I just got back from teachers' conference yesterday, and I'm going to practice embedding a voki on my wiki. Maybe I'll start with my class homepage. Should be a good time.

Some of the students thought that they needed to get in the "pumpkin" frame of mind in order to decide what to turn it into.

The students are trying to decided what to turn our pumpkins into. We were able to cut one of them apart...what to do next...

The faculty and board of ed are exploring the possibility of using the 7-8th grade room as a "computer lab" in addition to its current function.

The first 3 guys to taste their hot lunch burned their tongues...you would think that the third one would have learned from the first two.

The students never cease to amaze me with the new things that they are learning every day. This particular student is currently working to perfect two pens in the mouth (during art class).

We have moved on from debating which tractor is #1...we are now debating which truck is #1. There seems to be two schools of thought out there Dodge, or Ford.

Well, the Vikings pulled it off yesterday. Just like Favre, I couldn't watch the last play, but when I heard the collective cheers of the student body...I knew everything would be ok.

Well, let's hope the Vikings can get it done and knock 10 problems off of math for tomorrow.

So I woke up this morning in MN to snow on the ground...awesome.

Wow the kids are tired today...maybe I'm assigning too much homework which keeps them up all night.

Did you know that cardiac arrest and heart attack are not the same thing? Apparently the former refers to the heart ceasing to pump blood and the later refers to the heart dying due to lack of blood, the result of a clot. Good question Louis

The students are spending their lunch hour debating who is the biggest "redneck" and what makes a person a "redneck". The difference between this debate and most other "redneck" debates is that the students here want to be know as the biggest "redneck"...go figure.

Dane poured spoiled milk over his lunch.

Students are getting started creating characters for their historical blogs. I bet at least one group will create a whaler.

7-8th Graders are taking a Meet Math Test so I decided to set up a blog. They will be creating one later today for a ficticious historical character...hope it goes well.