PE in the heat?

So, how do 30 kiddos do PE when it is over 100 degrees here in the desert?  We go out at 9:00 in the morning.  We are required to have 200 minutes of PE every 2 weeks, so that's 20 minutes a day.  Or, in our case, we do 25 minutes every 4 days because we have early release on Wednesdays and that shortens our day anyway by 60 minutes.  So, we head out to the playground early in the mornings!

LAST DAY OF SCHOOL!  I'll be doin' the happy dance at 1:36 p.m. today!   :-)  Then, summer vacation starts! I'm all checked out except for turning in my room keys.  Walls are clean, desks are clean, cubbies are clean, and all my books are put away.

FREEDOM!

And, yes, there WERE days this year when I thought I was headed off for battle.  MANY of them.  TOO many of them.

And the countdown continues...2 half days left!

Only 2 half days left of school!  It was "only" 103 here yesterday and today is forecast to be down to 101 degrees!  A "cool down", according to the local news!   :-)  "But it's a DRY heat!"

Yesterday the kiddos were kept busy ALL MORNING making up third grade scrapbooks.  They cut.  They pasted.  They glued.  Some girls got creative and glued old pencils, erasers, and crayons to their covers and soon half the class was doing that!  The day went quickly.

Today, we're making posters of activities they can do this summer, And, they are going to finish their sunflower pastel drawing.  AND, they are going to have a LONG session of PE this morning!   :-)

One of MY sunflowers!

It's going to be cooler today!

That's right...ONLY 101 degrees!  After two days of 106+ temps, today will cool down to only 101.  WOW!  I noticed the difference already this morning, at 4:00 a.m.!  There was a coolness to the air.  Last night, it was hot & humid at 5 a.m.  Today, it is dry and much cooler (below 80 degrees in the morning).

Today we are done some art projects~one with watercolors and another one with pastels.  After two days of science experiments, I'm exhausted!  And, today is an early release day, which means the kiddos go home an hour early!  And, they will do that for the next two days as well.  I'll have to completely tear down and clean my room.

But, "SUMMER'S COMING"!  YEAH!

Exhausting day yesterday

I'm trying to keep the kiddos focused and busy, so yesterday they did a cut and paste on the 3 states of matter and I found a 20 minute Bill Nye the Science Guy video on matter, which was very entertaining!  And, they learned a lot.  They made posters of their worksheet and did a very nice job!  :-)  After lunch, they did three experiments with water and we finished exactly 5 minutes before the bell rang!  YEAH!  In one experiment, they had to predict how many drops of water would fit on a penny.  HA!  They guessed 2 or 3 and one adventurous person guessed 8!  You should have seen the surprised looks on their faces when they counted up to 30 or 40!  Some, by the 4th try, even got over 100!  That is such a great experiment!  Fortunately, I had 24 (now 19...sigh...) water droppers.  Several got "misplaced".  Anyway, they all went home happy, but I was exhausted and fell asleep at 7:45 p.m.!

Today we will take down the writing wall, do Father's Day cards, and they will have to clean out their desks and cubbies.  Backpacks aren't allowed the last 3 (minimum) days of school.

Busy week ahead...

This next week will be a busy one.  It's the last week of school and the kids know it.  We're doing some water experiments this afternoon and tomorrow, I'll be bringing in some dry ice to do some experiments for the kids.  No, they aren't allowed to touch it. They will be observing.  Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday are "minimum days", which means the kids go home an hour early.  Our party will be Friday.  We'll clean out desks and cubbies (we all have built-in cubbies in our rooms) probably Wednesday and I'm gathering up plastic bags for the kids to take all their junk home.  We'll scrub desks Friday morning and I'll let them play games, too.  Maybe even show a movie with another class...who knows?  It was 109 here this weekend, so it is too hot to take them out for PE in the afternoon, so we'll do that in the morning.

On a sad note, my neighbor's house was broken into yesterday morning (Sunday).  I went out and saw her car there about 6 a.m.   I was going to talk to her about the amount her tree trimmers were going to charge us for removing two dead trees.  They came Friday and we gone in about 15 minutes.  POOF!  Two trees gone!   :-)   I didn't want to bother her that early (she IS an early riser like me, but even I thought 6 a.m. was too early to discuss business), so I left her alone.  I wandered back over there about 8:30, but her truck was gone.  Somewhere between 8:10 and 10:00, however, somebody broke into her house, stole her TV and some cash, and her camera and some jewelry.  Her partner, another neighbor, stopped by at 10:00 and her front door was wide open, and he called the sheriff's department.

 Now, I was out puttering around in our back yard about 8:30 and I thought I heard some banging, but we have a 6' block wall between us and I can't see into her yard.  I wish I'd poked my head around the front part of the fence and maybe I would have seen something.  Apparently they loaded up the TV on her WHEELCHAIR and wheeled it around the block to their waiting car.  She is most upset about losing a necklace that her father gave her.    It's too bad these things happen.  She's been our neighbor since the kids were little (about 30 years now).  Our neighborhood is quiet and peaceful, but a few years ago, several homes WERE broken into again.  We'll all just have to keep our eyes open.

More on smoke trees

Wow!  So many of you were interested in smoke trees, I added a couple more photos I took last weekend.  I didn't get out at all this weekend.  I had to do report cards and frankly, I was just worn out from last week!

Smoke trees ONLY grow in the desert.  Additionally, their seeds MUST be scratched by the movement of water, like during a summer flood or monsoon, which we have here.  They have to be carried over sand and rocks, nicking the seed so that it can sprout.  That's why if you see a bunch of smoke trees, you know you are in an area of a wash or where water has recently run.

They are EXTREMELY difficult to transplant.  I believe the Living Desert Reserve sells them in pots.  My dad, years ago, tried to transplant one for my godmother, who lived in Cathedral City.  He finally realized, after several failures, that for every inch of the smoke tree above ground, it would have a root system of a foot under ground.  Their roots go straight down, in other words.  He finally got one for her yard and, as far as I know, it is still there today.  They don't have dangerous spikes or thorns, like the acacia or mesquite, but they do have points on them.

I often see doves resting in them here in the desert.  They are called smoke trees because of their gray color.  They only have their blossoms a few weeks every year.  The blossoms are a dark purple.

These are up in Carrizo Canyon, which is at the base of Highway 74 in Palm Desert, but you can see them at various spots throughout the desert.

Smoke tree blossoms

A while ago I promised you some photos of the smoke tree blossoms and here they are.  These trees only bloom for about 2 weeks and POOF!  The blossoms are gone.  They are also loaded with bees, so if you see one, be aware of that.   I actually heard the bees humming as I approached these, which are at the end of Carrizo Canyon, a canyon that parallels Deep Canyon.  There are several nice, big smoke trees at the base of Highway 74, too, and some across from the Bighorn development.