List Additions

I don't have much to post about today, so I thought I'd do a mini-pregnancy update. Here is how I announced to my class that I'm pregnant (I mostly only told them so they would stop bugging
me about eating in class all the time when they don't get to).

Let me first set the stage. I approached this as a regular writing lesson. We have weekly worksheets that always have an analogy, but the blank is always the last word. I told my class that not every analogy has the last word blank. Sometimes it's missing a word in the middle, or even at the very beginning. Today, we were going to practice analogies with the blanks in different places. We did several examples on the board as a class, then I gave them this worksheet. That was the setup my kids went into this with.

One Freebie: #2 is Wampler. Mr. Jenkins is our principal, and my class's teacher's last name, obviously, is Wampler. Since you don't know our principal, I thought I'd give you a head start on that one.

Example car : drive :: airplane : fly ("car is to drive as airplane is to fly")

Analogies

1. Mr. : man :: ______________ : woman

2. _________________ : teacher :: Jenkins : principal

3. can : can't :: ____________ : isn't

4. move : moving :: have : _________________

5. _________ : B :: Y : Z

6. puppy : dog :: _____________ : human

7. out : ___________ :: down : up

8. _________________ : Halloween :: December : Christmas

If you didn't catch on, the words that fill in the blanks make a sentence. I'll give you a moment to go back and check again.

...

...

Ok. Did you get it? My class didn't. It only took them about two minutes to figure out all the answers, but none of them caught the sentence. I heard lots of whispered comments of "That was really easy. Why was that so easy? She never gives us anything this easy!" That was amusing to me, but I wanted someone to notice or it would take away all the fun. So I walked over to one boy's desk and just pointed at the lines on his paper without saying anything. After a second, he said, "Ohhh." A few moments later, four or five more kids said, "Ohhh." Finally, a few moments after that, there was one large, collective "OHHHH" from the whole class. I was highly entertained.

Now I can eat in class and no one gets mad at me. :)

As for my list additions, I have a few things to add the reasons I don't like/reasons I like being pregnant lists.

Things I don't like:

Gaining just enough weight that my pants don't fit right, but I'm not big enough to "look pregnant". Maternity clothes are still aways off, but my regular clothes are losing their viability.

Smelling everything. I'm not throwing up so much anymore, but I can smell every little scent I get anywhere close to. Sometimes that's good, most of the time that means I can smell really really well something I didn't want to smell at all in the first place.

Things I like:

I'm not allergic to milk when I'm pregnant. I don't know how this works, but I can have as much milk as I want right now without getting sick or developing any large rashes. Hooray! There is at least one good thing while I'm pregnant!


As for life in general, things have been fairly hectic with Chris's finals coming up next week. His huge senior project is due on Thursday, and I've been helping him write his 50-page paper for it.

Jane is in the process of cutting her thirteenth tooth, so she's been ornery, feverish, and in general disagreeable with life, not to mention the contanstly-running faucet that is her nose. Ah, teething.

In my realm, I have been preparing my class for a new student that is supposed to arrive tomorrow. Let me just say from a teacher's perspective that getting a new student ONE WEEK before end-of-level testing is not the best time of year to add someone to the class. He's coming from Idaho, where the curriculum is different, and even though I haven't taught him at all, he will still take the tests with my class and his scores will count into my averages. I really hope he does better than most of the students who show up this time of year...