Week 9

Monday

The students had another bad start to the week. I’m not sure what it is, but Mondays are awful in our classroom. Students become very loud and unruly. We did have fun in science today though. I had brought some pennies, nickels and dimes with me to give to my students. We took pennies and tried making them shinny again by using different liquids (lemon juice, milk, coke, apple juice and water). The students loved doing the experiment and were extremely excited about getting to keep the money.
Heather had let me drive to school today so that I could run to the shops after school. On Wednesday, my students and I are going to make ice cream as another science project, so I needed to pick up the ingredients. I need the ingredients for some cookies too, because I’m giving cookies as most of my thank you gifts. I am also going to cook dinner for Len and Heather on Wednesday as a thank you celebration before I go. I headed straight to Woolworths after school. I ended up coming out only $130 poorer than when I went in.
Tonight, I just stayed at home. Len, Heather, Kit, Hannah and I had a really nice dinner together. I had a wonderful evening relaxing at home and trying to get a few things in order for the trip home.

Tuesday

Today flew by. The students worked very well today, and we got a lot accomplished. We finished off the penny activity from yesterday and started our write up of our ice cream lab. We’ll hopefully be making ice cream tomorrow afternoon. Brett had a meeting until five today, so I decided to catch the bus home. When I got home, I took a walk down to Hillary’s harbor. It’s an area along the beach with shops and cafes. After a stroll down there, I walked home again.
I decided to make my pumpkin pies for tomorrow’s dinner. Well… I should have waited until tomorrow. It was a complete and utter disaster. First off, I don’t think Australia has a single can of cooked pumpkin; therefore, I had to make the pumpkin pie by first cooking down and mashing the pumpkin. This normally wouldn’t be too hard, but I decided to use the processor to mash it up. I didn’t get the lid on tight enough, so I ended up with pumpkin exploding all over the kitchen and me. After I had changed clothes and mopped the floor, counter and walls, I was able to pour the pie batter into the shells. The only shells that the store had were flan shells. Little did I know, but this must mean that the shells leak, so I ended up with mix, once again, all over the kitchen. I got two pies into the oven, but when I pushed the tray in, the pies splattered all over the tray. Now, I have burnt pie filling on the oven tray, which is going to be a blast to clean up. Let’s just say that what should have taken two hours took about four, and I ended up with pumpkin pies that look like puffy egg casseroles.

Wednesday, April 1

Today was extremely fun! Before school, I put the roast in the crock-pot and started it cooking. At school, we had a wonderful morning. The students worked great before recess. After recess, Brett and Ashleigh took the year 7s to talk to them about their NAPLAN testing (their standardized testing). I took Ashleigh’s year 6s, and we designed new covers for their class novels. After lunch, I zipped off to the store (Heather graciously let me take their car!) to the petrol station. I had to get some bags of ice, because this afternoon all of the year seven students made ice cream with me as a science project. It was wonderful! The students really enjoyed it, and after I talked about what happened, they seemed to have actually learned something from it.
Tonight was the night for my dinner. I had everything ready to go when Heather got home from work. It all turned out well, except for the potatoes, which could have used a little more cooking. They loved it. AND… my pumpkin pies actually turned out pretty good! They weren’t the best in the world, but most definitely edible. I’m just finishing ups some schoolwork and heading to bed for the night. I feel a little tired after today’s events.