1 + 1 = 3 (How to tell your students that you are pregnant)

Yes... I'm going to have a baby!  I'm about 13 weeks along and so excited.  I've been waiting to tell people at school and my students.  It's been hard to keep the secret, especially when I wasn't feeling that great.  Feeling nauseous on a 3-hour bus ride during a field trip was not fun!

But, this week I was feeling better!  And I was ready to let my secret out of the bag.  The big question was... how do I tell my 8th graders?  I wanted something a little more special than, "Hey kids, I'm preggo."

At first I thought I would do a puzzle where students had to solve problems and then the answers would correspond with letters that would spell out my news.  I still think this is a cute idea, but I heard that one of my student's teachers did this last year.  The other problem is that students I have earlier in the day could spoil the "secret message" for students I have later in the year.

So, instead, I came up with this...

I put this on my back bulletin board:

Then, as students came in the room I handed them a sticker and told them they would need it for the first warm-up question. (warm-ups are my version of bell-ringer questions.... basically problems to work on as soon as they enter class)

The first warm-up question explained that they should go to the bulletin board and vote for the gender of Mrs. Forest's baby.  It was so cute to see the looks on my students faces as they figured out what I was trying to tell them.  They were truly excited for me and started giving name suggestions right away... Alejandro suggested "Alejandro,"  Robert suggested "Robert" etc

Here were the results from the vote:

Looks like the kids think it's a boy!

My due date is June 16th, so if everything goes as planned, I will be sharing this journey with my current students almost to the end!  It was sweet that my students were relieved to know that I will probably be able to be there the whole year.  Although, they are kind of mad that they will graduate before they get to see a picture of the baby so I promised I would email them. :)