Soon, I will be re-immersed in the universe of granting bathroom privileges and perusing "What I Did on My Summer Vacation" essays. I've kicked my preparation process off by marching down to the party store and buying a buttload of candy, plastic bugs, goofy erasers, games, and so forth, to dispense to the sixth and seventh graders. This year is the Year of the Bribe! Shut up and I'll give you candy, kid...

some things I can't wait to try out this year:

In an effort to encourage library use, I plan to hold a Weird Book Competition with the sixth graders. Everyone goes to the library and tries to find the weirdest/grossest book possible. Winner gets, I don't know, a jar of fake eyeballs. As an example, I'm bringing in my copy of "The Eat a Bug Cookbook."

To the budding Latin learners: their first translation exercise will be "semper ubi sub ubi."

I'm trying to find neat prayers written by saints to accompany each Faith and Life lesson (sixth and seventh grade). We're learning about God's creation in the first week, so I'm bringing St. Francis' Canticle of Brother Sun and Sister Moon.

Starting the pre-algebra class with math puzzles, along the lines of "If Susan is five years older than Bob, and Bob is three years younger than Sara, and Sara, much to the dismay of her parents, has decided to major in textile arts, how old is the prophet Habakkuk?"