I WILL make lemonade with these artichokes...

With an attempt at being gracious and not flinging myself to the floor in a rant- the word of the day was "frustration".  An attempt to come in early and have extra time to work on my organization scheme was flubbed by an impromptu parent meeting.  It turned out fine, but wouldn't it be nice if they'd call ahead to plan these sorts of things?  My morning fell apart with a rearranged intervention meeting that I had planned for the afternoon but it got switched to the morning and I was standing in the middle of a mess that wasn't cleaned up with NO sub plans. It also turned out fine, but I do not like looking unprofessional. Any more than necessary anyway.  I am aware that my disorganization gives people hives.  But I am WORKING on it people!  I am trying to reinvent my personality.  And then let's add head lice and an attempted co-ed trip to the bathroom into the mix. Back in the day, my catch phrase of defeat would be "Where is the wine?", but I settled for three cans of Pepsi today instead.  And that is not on the weight watchers plan, I know.  But it was doggone necessary.

However, I was able to finish my PALS testing.  Woot!  Now I've got to haul butt to get 20 DRA's done next week. Chug a chug chug, I think I can I think I can I think I can.

And, we did some good work on the economics unit today.  Got in that vote for the meat source.  Fish won.  Created a town seal.  Everyone's turned out super.  And I wasn't sure what to expect because I did not have an example to show them.  I am keeping the ones that didn't win the adoption to bind together into a book though, since they all did such a great job.
 I made a quick chart of what had to be included somewhere on their seal.  Their crop, land feature, power source, and meat source, as well as their town name.  I clarified that they did not have to draw it like I did- I was only trying to help out anybody who was having trouble reading the words.  And then they just went with it.  I had made copies of a big circle on copier paper, and passed those out to start.  Told them that when they were done designing it, they could cut it out and glue it to a piece of construction paper. When they finished I taped them to the board as a gallery and put labels on the corners with letters for voting.  They came up and viewed all of the choices and took a citizen suggestion back to their district representative.  The rules were that they could not suggest their own, vote for their own, or vote for their original suggestion.Sounds petty, but it does prevent ties, and vote bribing.  After the initial district vote, we ended up with four selections up for town adoption.  Actually, choice K was voted for by two districts, but I wanted to make sure they had a decent selection, so in one of the K districts we took the runner up, which ended up being a tie between A and H.  And in the end, K won over L by four votes.  The artist was revealed- since we weren't supposed to write our names on them (although a couple did)- and we had a very pleased as punch Chris.  I will laminate it on Monday and put it in a very official spot.

the final four

THE WINNER

They made up a town motto.  This was more tricky.  One of my "districts" got the concept right away and elected for "We are Awesome!".  The other two districts came to the table with "condos" and "rollercoaster". Ummmm- no, kittens.  NO. But eventually we worked it out with a vote between "We are Awesome!", "We are Awesome as a Team!" and "We Give Warm Fuzzies".  We are Awesome came out as the winner with two more votes that We Give Warm Fuzzies.  I think I ought to have them select a factory manufactured product too- just for funsies.  We'll see though.

Alas and Alack- I did not produce the town map.  I started to this morning before the interruptions began, and then my head went all kerflubby and when I finally finished it I decided I hated it.  I will reattempt this weekend. We skipped ahead slightly and had a carpet discussion of goods and services we know we've bought or seen our parents purchase.  So I started a chart, and we're going to use that info to make our foldable open jacket people next week.  I haven't decided if I'll go ahead and do that before we do the start to finish text immersion or not.  Further meditation necessary. My goal for the weekend as well is to make a Mayor sash and District rep buttons so we can look all official during our window of inquiry time.

Also, I brought home three packed boxes of all of my loose papers that I have never managed to file correctly, and will be busting out the BINDERIZING this weekend. High hopes...Hiiiiiiiiigh hopes. And I cleaned up two HOT MESS Hot Zones in the classroom today, despite of the constant shenanigans.  So, kicking back.  Where is the Pepsi?