Who even knows how to spell aluminum?!?

 I mean, I do.  But that is what the PE teacher asked me at lunchtime when we were marveling about the school spelling bee.  

Two of my students were in the school wide bee.  I was so proud of them!

We went 32 rounds!  Classes peeled off when the kids got too restless, but one of my students was still in so we were there for the duration.  (I was also low-key cheering for all my former students and I had taught a lot of them.)

My little guy spelled words like aluminum and gargoyle until it was just him and a 5th grader.  (She had been the smartest girl in my class a few years ago--also, not a native English speaker if you want to be even more impressed!)

They weren't wearing watches, but my students could feel it in their bones that they were missing PE.  Miriam had left with her class so the PE teacher switched times with her class and took them outside.  (The spelling bee was in the gym.)  Much to everyone's relief, we still got PE.

At that age I probably couldn't have spelled aluminum in front of a crowd at a spelling bee and I would have been perfectly content sitting on a cold tile floor in a school gym rather than going to PE.

When we finally finished the spelling bee (the fifth grader won) and got the day a little bit back on track, I had them do iReady in the few minutes until we started writing. 

They whined.  They complained.  One told me she doesn't actually like doing iReady.  Jamie had given me back my baby picture from the contest on Valentine's Day so I held it in front of my face and said, "Do iReady."

They laughed a little and got to work.  I am going to keep it in my classroom and show it to them whenever they whine.  My pout face is bigger than your pout face.

Matt called the kindergarten and third grade teachers together after school.  He asked us if we take bribes.  We didn't know what to say.  Finally Alissa said, "Why don't you just tell us what you want?"

30 principals will be in the building today and he wanted five each to go in our classes to observe.

We told him we wanted Swig.  We passed around a sticky note and everyone wrote their order.

I actually didn't have time to stress about the five principal thing, because I went straight to School Community Council, then my math fluency class and then the ward talent show.

So I'm up early this morning to put in a little stressing about it time....

The fluency class was good.  I've already learned a lot.

I have never had five principals I don't know watching me teach, but I have a 100% survival rate so far in life, so I'm not expecting a different outcome.