Say What?

Working with children is amazing. I love the moments when I get a little glimpse into their minds and wonder where my imagination and sense of wonder has gone. These are usually the same moments when I realize that the reason they have taken 4+ weeks to figure out long division is because their brains are preoccupied with matters that are wayyyy more important. For example....
Every day as we walk out to the busses, one of my girls finds her way up to the front of the line and holds my  hand. She's always cheerful and smiling, so it's the most wonderful end to every school day. Despite what kind of terrors the kids have been or how much yelling I have done, she always has a funny comment to tell me or question to ask. Her bus is always the last one we get to, so she has plenty of time to hold my hand. Well, Wednesday was no exception. She was at the front of the line when I had them line up and grabbed my hand as soon as we were out the front door. As we were walking around toward her bus, she asked if the bus was going to leave without her. I gave her a "what do you think?" look and then smiled. She realized it was a ridiculous question, smiled back and then hit me out of nowhere with the next question.
Student: "What if all of the busses were miniature busses? We could ride on top of them like we were riding on a horse!"
Me: Stared at her perplexed and confused.
Student: "Then when we were driving through traffic, we'd have to be careful not to get run over by other cars."
Me: Still staring, wondering why she had told me that morning that she couldn't think of anything to write about.
Student: "We'd also have to watch out for birds, because they might try to steal the busses........" etc.
She continued talking about this hypothetical scenario on and off for about 5 minutes. She would stop occasionally and look around or think about something and then continue with the story getting all the more absurd every time! Haha. It appeared that she had been creating this image in her brain for quite some time, but at the same time, it also seemed this was the first time she had imagined this and was really actually concerned about getting eaten by a bird while riding her miniature bus. :) Thankfully, we got to her bus quickly, I sent her on her merry way and haven't heard about the mysterious shrinking busses ever since!

All that to say, I love working with children and those are the questions and stories that keep me going from day to day! If you'd ever like to experience this wonderful phenomenon for yourself, please feel free to spend a day... or hour.. or couple minutes (that's really all it takes!) in my classroom.. it's a common occurrence!

Cloudy, with a Chance of... Shaving Cream?

I think I've mentioned before that I LOVE teaching Science. It allows for so much hands-on learning and is so full of experiments and interesting knowledge that the students really enjoy learning it... which makes it so much easier and more enjoyable! One of my favorite units that we teach is Weather. We cover clouds, storms, weather instruments, and meteorology (cold/warm fronts, high/low pressure, etc). We just started this unit last week and so far have mastered the 4 main cloud types and 3 major storms. I love this unit because it deals with topics that kids encounter every day and allows them to feel and sound so much smarter in their day-to-day conversations! Although, I don't expect my kids to go around for the rest of their lives pointing out every cirrus cloud they see, at this point in their lives, it is a big deal and some cool information to know!
Since standing in front of 23 kids and saying lots of new words like 'cumulonimbus' and 'thin and wispy' doesn't seem to have much effect on their learning, I tried to bring in as many kinesthetic activities as possible. The first day of the unit, we attempted the "make a cloud in a bottle." I stress the word 'attempted' because it didn't work. Apparently, if you put a small amount of water in a bottle and then light a match above the lid, suck the smoke into the bottle and put the cap back on, a cloud will form. We tried twice and nothing happened! Before I set off the fire alarm, I decided to stop, told the kids I would practice at home and we could try again at a later date. It still piqued their interest for starting the unit, so mission accomplished! :) From this activity, we watched a few short, educational clips about the clouds. (For some reason if a video says EXACTLY the same information as I do, the kids retain 75% more of it! Go figure!!) We then discussed the information, summarized and stressed the main points they need to know and broke out the shaving cream!
We started with 2 small puffs of cream on each student's desk. Students were not allowed to touch it until we had successfully reviewed all of the characteristics of cumulus clouds (the big, white puffy ones that look like cotton balls in the sky... associated with fair weather, if you're interested!). When they proved they knew it, I told them to make stratus clouds. Stratus clouds are the ones that bring light rain/snow and block out all sunlight, we call it the "blanket in the sky" clouds. In other words, the entire desk was covered.... along with students hands, clothing, faces, etc. What was supposed to be a fun, educational activity, rapidly declined into a loud, educational mess! Apparently shaving cream is a LOT more condensed than I remembered because those "2 small puffs" expanded and expanded and expanded! I couldn't believe the amount of shaving cream each student had! The original plan was to have them make cirrus (featherlike/thin and wispy... predictors of foul weather) and cumulonimbus (thunderstorm clouds), but that plan quickly changed into washing hands and wiping desks! (The janitor walked into the room in the middle of the activity and instead of freaking out, just smiled and said, "Aww, they're cleaning the desks for me and they don't even know it!" :) We eventually got the room free of all shaving cream and I shipped them off to Art class!
Although the activity was a major headache and extremely stressful for me, I will definitely be doing it again next year with my kids (although a modified version!!). The entire time the kids were working with the shaving cream the only things I could hear were comments such as "This is AWESOME!" and "I can't wait to tell my mom about this!" and "Ms. Wacek, you're the best teacher ever!" and "I LOVE shaving cream!" Haha. It was definitely a moment where I was so happy to be a teacher and even if they got minimal learning from the activity, it hopefully re-established a reason to come to school and love of education! Maybe that's wishful thinking, but I'm going to stick with it! :)

These two tiny little cumulus clouds turned into.....

...a messy classroom full of stratus clouds!!! But totally worth the smiles and laughs!

Bake Sale = Fail.

Over Super Bowl weekend, I was cooking up a storm. My parents are both native Wisconsinites, so I had a special fondness for the newest Super Bowl champions! I was all about making every sort of green and gold food I could think of, and was very pleased with the results! (I was also overly pleased with the results of the game!!) As I was baking away for the party, I was also busy making goodies for our 1st Bake Sale at school! The SCA was hosting the sale to raise money for a special activity at field day (in June), and asked teachers to donate yummy treats.
Since it's early February, I decided I wanted to do something Valentiney. I also wanted to do something easy, and that I knew would sell! :) I found a recipe for really cute Rice Krispy hearts. I mixed them up and cut them out on Sunday afternoon. Then, when I got back from my Super Bowl party, I put the icing on them and was exhausted, so decided to package them the next day. Well, despite getting to school 45 minutes early, like usual, I didn't get around to bundling them up until as the kids were walking in. Naturally, seeing anything somewhat resembling food, they were all intrigued. I had about 35 kids ask me what I was doing and what the snacks were for (yes, I do only have 23 students.. I swear students were appearing out of nowhere just to see what was going on!!). After I continually repeated that they were for the SCA Bake Sale that would be happening at lunch, word spread like rapid fire. All of the kids were stoked and scrounging through pockets, desks and backpacks to come up with the 50 cents I told them it would cost. I quickly finished wrapping them and sent them out of the room to the SCA Sponsor. We were eventually able to get focused and had a very pleasant morning until lunch arrived!
As we were walking down the hallway toward the cafeteria, we spotted the small little desk, the SCA President, and a whole lot of treats by the door. The few of my kids who had money went and bought something sugary, while the rest were making a conscious decision to bring their life-savings tomorrow. Lunch went off without a hitch (we've been on green everyday this month, so far!!) and we enjoyed a beautiful day out at recess.
 About an hour later, in the middle of math, I heard one of my SCA reps say, "Ms. Wacek, the nurse is evil." Since I didn't know this child had ever met the nurse and I was in the middle of a thrilling lesson about long division, I was quite caught off guard. I gave him a strange look (although, come to think of it, I give that look a lot, so my children might actually think it's just my normal face...hahaha) and asked him what in the world he was talking about. He said, "She shut down our bake sale. She said the kids were going to get diseases from eating the food. She's evil. It's not like we put poison in the cookies or anything!! She's just evil. I really wanted to buy something for field day!" Hahaha. Oh, the mind of a 10-year-old!! Turns out, according to District (or state?) policy, we are not allowed to sell (or give?) any homemade treats to students out of liability's sake. If a child were to get sick or have any sort of reaction, we'd be to blame. In the eyes of a 4th grader, though, that's hard to understand!
As I found out later, the principal just ended up buying out the bake sale and putting the treats in the teacher's lounge for the staff to enjoy! Ended up being a win-win situation for the SCA and teachers, but I know quite a few students who were bummed out! In fact, today (3 days after the 20-minute bake sale), I had another student come ask me if we would having it again soon because he found 2 dollars in his coat. Haha. I simply told him all the food was gone, so he could keep his money!!
I think I'll just make them a class-set of Rice Krispy hearts and leave it at that. Spoiled children. :) I gave out the leftover Green Bay Packers cookies (low-fat, not very good) and had students beggggging for more. I've given out cupcakes and cookies last year and this year and never once had a parent complaint or child get sick. So, as long as that record keeps up, I plan on continuing my baking career. :)

Our Super Bowl spread (minus the pizza, quesadillas, cheesecake and chocolate pie!)! Look at the beautiful colors! :) The low-fat cookies turned out cute, but mediocre as far as taste!

My creations for the bake sale! :)

Up close.... can you taste the yumminess?

Victory at Yorktown!

As we're gearing up for our second (and final!) field trip on Friday, I realized I never posted about our first one to Yorktown! There were many times over the past few months where I intended to, but it just never happened! So, here goes....!

While I was in school, I never liked history (no offense to any of my former history teachers reading this!!) I always found it a little pointless and the battles all but thrilled me. After teaching about the Revolutionary and Civil War last year, though, all of a sudden I found myself wanting to know more and more about certain historic events. Now, I'm still definitely not a history buff (that would be my brother, History Boy!), and still find a lot of history boring and pointless, but I do have a new-found appreciation of certain time periods and events. I think the biggest reason for my change of attitude was realizing that I am currently living in the birthplace of America! I spent 5 years in college in Newport News and didn't spend any time visiting or learning about this historic area. As I learn and teach about Jamestown and Yorktown, I'm amazed at how truly privileged we are to live in this area and how much we take it for granted! Needless to say, I think it's a terrific opportunity for our students to take a field trip to Yorktown Victory Center, which is where we went on December 6, 2010.

Before I talk about the trip, the last thing I would like to point out is that, although I fully support this field trip and think teaches my kids way more information than I could ever get through to them, at the time, I was not particularly pleased with it. First of all, since our field trip was in early December, it was FREEZING! Virginia experienced an extremely cold winter this year (compared to our normal winters, I should say!) and this just happened to be one of the weeks that the average temperatures were in the 20s-30s. When I describe the trip in a minute, you'll see why this is an issue! Secondly, the timing of this trip happened to be smack dab in the middle of our unit on Jamestown. If you've ever tried to teach Virginia history to a 10-year-old... or anyone, for that matter.... you'll learn that having "town" at the end of both Jamestown and Yorktown makes them easily confuse-able and I had to make sure and emphasize at least 15 times throughout the day that Yorktown was significant during the Revolutionary War, NOT Jamestown where the Indians and colonists lived! But, aside from that, the field trip was most excellent.

After getting all the lunch counts taken care of, last minute bathroom stops, and making sure I had all the necessities (band-aids, flash cards, stickers, emergency contact list and candy), we loaded the bus and headed 20 minutes down the road to Yorktown. (Note: 20 minutes on a bus with 45 excited 4th graders feels like 20 hours.... avoid at all costs!) When we got off, we were divided into our classes and each assigned our tour guide. The guides at Yorktown are AMAZING and I was so impressed with her patience and enthusiasm with the students. Since all five 4th grade classes were on the field trip, we each had a different schedule to stagger the use of the "exhibits." My class got to do the classroom portion first, which I was pleased about because it was able to hold their interest and they hadn't gotten crazy/restless yet! In the "classroom," the kids were broken into 4 groups and each given a question and a bag of artifacts. It was their job to collectively use the artifacts to answer the question. Our guide and an assistant guide were in there to bounce around from group to group and guide the students in their discovery. Although a lot of what they learned included useless trivia (the soldiers in the Continental Army used a "tooth key" to get rid of decaying teeth), kids were also introduced to the terms "credit," "cash crop," and "barter," which were important for our unit at school. After they found an answer to their question, each group was called to the front to present their findings and artifacts to their classmates. Overall, I was VERY pleased with how well my kids did (both behaviorally and academically) at this activity... always a good feeling!

Alexis and her classmate examine artifacts to explain how colonists took care of health needs. You can ask me why the person next to her has his shoe off, but I will not be able to answer! Oh, children! :)

After the classroom lesson, it was our turn to tour a colonial farm/lifestyle. We started in a typical one room, wood floor house where the guide explained that kids usually only had 1-2 outfits, they took a bath once a year, and their education was mainly on the farm. My students were quickly turned off from the idea of living life without video games, so we moved on. Our next stop was in the smokehouse where we saw dried, salted meat hanging from the roof, a slave's bed, the fire and a live turkey meandering around. The kids were fascinated, but the man working this station was not the most exciting or kind, so we got the heck out of there before he had a chance to experience true 9-year-old curiosity. :) We then headed to the tobacco shed. The kids learned way more than they could ever possibly want to know about the process of drying the leaves and grinding them and trading them and..... (I was dealing with an uncooperative/self-decided-non-medicated child during this stop, so missed half of the demonstration. The kids liked it though!)

Some of the kids got to act out plantation owners, bartering, supply and demand, etc.

Finally, we trekked over to the 'battlefield'! I was glad this was last because my kids had heard about it through the grapevine and were most excited, so I was able to use it as leverage! (Thankfully, their ignorance kept them from realizing that a) they would obviously get to see it because it was part of the trip we had paid for, and b) there was no way I could only take the bad kids away because I had no other chaperones!)  After our guide talked about the qualifications of being part of the Army, the living arrangements, and some more about the medical care in the field, the highlight of the trip had arrived. The students hurried over to their platoon leader and he talked to them all about the offensive styles of the Continental and British Armies, pros and cons of a musket, bayonets, etc. Then, he loaded his musket and fired! After the kids recovered from the blast and regained their composure, he led them to an open area and taught them how to march in rows and follow his orders. It was a little sloppy, but hey, they're 10. :)

Complete fascination.

"About Face!" was the hardest one for them to get, I think....

As soon as this was done, we made our way to the busses and headed back to Palmer. The bus ride home was a whole lot quieter since the kids were worn out from being in the cold! (I made the other kids play "I Spy" so that they would stop annoying me!) Back at school, we had lunch in the classroom, watched some Magic School Bus and then had Music.

For homework, I asked students to write down 5 facts that they learned on the trip. Unfortunately, hardly any of the things they wrote down were actually important (ex: they use a tooth key to pull out their tooth, kids don't take baths, the musket has very bad aim, etc..). Fortunately, I could tell by their facts that they had a really good time! :) 

Let's hope the Virginia Living Museum on Friday doesn't disappoint.... stay tuned for a post about it! (I guarantee it will be written this month!!)

Peer Pressure!!

Yes, I do regularly have the "just say no" talk with my kids. Yes, I am constantly telling my kids that they are their own boss and they make their own choices. Yes, I am SO sick of kids saying "he started it" or "she told me to!". And yes, I did just introduce a new  behavior modification system into my classroom that is almost completely dependent on peer pressure! :)

About every 4-5 weeks, I rearrange the desks in my classroom. I feel it brings a little excitement to the room, keeps it from getting boring, helps split up the talkers (although, I'm beginning to think that's impossible because there are so many of them!), and helps refocus the students a little. I start off the year with the kids facing forward so that they are positioned such that their attention most naturally is on me/the board. Then, I gradually start moving them into a U-shape, and new smaller rows, etc. My biggest move is in the middle of the year when I finally arrange their desks into groups! Given that 4th grade is the year of social-blooming, grouping the students is a little daunting! My kids are already chatty, and to place  them into perfect talking position is a little risky! The benefits outweigh the potential noise, though, since collaborative learning and group work are skills that are stressed in creating future 21st century employees!

To counteract the possible chit chat, I adopted a teamwork/peer pressure system, that the kids simply know as "group clips!" :) Hanging from the ceiling  above each group of desks is a laminated sign with a number on it. Throughout the day, whenever I need them all seated or packed up or attentive, I simply pull a clothespin out of my basket and stand up front quietly. Instantly there's a flutter of activity and then silence! Whichever  group was first to follow directions (or has the least clips, if one group is pulling too far ahead!!) earns a clip on their number. Occasionally I'll give a clip to every group at the same time which is clearly counterproductive, but thankfully the majority of my kids haven't figured out the rationale behind it, yet! At the end of every week, whichever group has the most clips will get a prize! (So far, the only thing I could come up w/ is candy... but I'm open to suggestions and might even give the kids some buy in.. we'll see!) So far, the system is working out perfectly and hopefully that'll continue!

My favorite experience regarding these clips so far has been the trash talking happening because of it. Just as peer pressure can be positive or negative, so can trash talk! Our last unit in social studies was the Revolutionary War, if my students learned nothing else about it (which they did, they actually rocked this unit!), it was that the Patriots won, Loyalists lost. I bring this up now because, starting yesterday, by their own doing, I had a classroom full of Patriots and Loyalists! Haha. Whichever group has the most clips will repeatedly refer to themselves as the Patriots and the rest of their peers as Loyalists! If another group takes the lead, all I hear is, "Now we're the Patriots!!"

With these 8 clips, I believe the members of group 2 were the "Patriots" at this moment in time.

It's Time to Celebrate!!

Often when I hear the word "celebrate," the old school jingle "T-C-B-Y treats, this calls for a celebration! T-C-B-Y treats, it's time to celebrate!" pops into my head. I think that ad campaign lasted maybe 6 months tops, so a lot of you may have no idea what I'm talking about, but at least my family should get the reference! Anyway, today was a day of major celebrating, so that song was on repeat in my mind.... unfortunately. :)

To begin with, today was the halfway mark for the 2010-2011 school year!! We have officially completed 18 weeks of school and have 18 left to go! Sounds SUPER crazy when I put it that way because we still have a looooot to learn... including long division, fractions, Civil War, Meteorology, etc. (and they say it's easy being an elementary school teacher...!). Thankfully my kids are smart and I know they can master it all! :)

With the end of the quarter came more Benchmark Assessments. Although these tests can be a pain and take up a lot of instructional time, I find them to be a wonderful tool for giving the students practice at taking long, comprehensive tests and to give us feedback on how well they're doing. To give my kids a little motivation to study, I told them that anyone who got an 85% or higher on any of the tests would get to have a pizza party. As the scores came back, it was evident that pizza clearly motivates some and has no effect on the others! Overall, they did decently, but some students still have lots of room for improvement! 12 kids ended up earning the pizza party, so we had that celebration today during lunch. (For kids who got 85% on two tests, they also got lemonade, and for the few that got 85% on three tests, they got Doritos, too!)

Right before lunch, we spent some time in the gym for our 1st EVER Schoolwide Positive Discipline Celebration. Back at the beginning of the 2nd quarter, our Effective Schoolwide Discipline (ESD) Committee, announced that they would be holding this Time for Celebration on Jan. 26. In order to attend, a student had to earn 27 'good behavior' or 'green' days (out of a total of the 36 days left in the quarter). Any student who got suspended or sent to the office was disqualified. We had a sticker chart up in our classroom so students could track their progress. Since this was the 1st ever event like this, a lot of students were skeptical about what all it would entail. Most of them thought this day would never come! But, it finally did and it was AMAZING! At 11:00, all of the 4th graders who had earned enough stickers got a Green Ticket/VIP Pass hung on ribbons around their necks (in my class there were 15/23 students who got to attend!). We then marched down to the library and gym where every kids fantasies existed... ok, maybe not, but from the looks on their faces, that's what you would've thought! In the library was a Board Games/Musical Chairs station, as well as the cookie station. After students attended each station, they got a stamp on their ticket (we told them it was so they could show their parents/siblings everything they had done, but really it was so they didn't get more than 2 cookies each!!) So, the library was for the sweet tooths and calm kids, and the gym was for everyone else! In one corner of the gym was a dancing station. The music teacher had a Wii hooked up to a TV and had the kids join her in dancing along to "Just Dance: Michael Jackson." It was hilarious to watch, and no, I did not participate! :) In the middle of the gym, a volleyball net was set up and the kids were playing volleyball with a beach ball. Along the side of the gym, they had opened up the rock wall and were letting students climb across that. (During the planning of this event, the ESD Committee allowed for student input and the ONE thing that all the kids unanimously wanted was the rock wall!) Finally, in the back corner of the gym was my station... pie in the face! We figured, what better way to motivate kids to be good than to give them a chance to get revenge on their teachers?!

For the 4th grade celebration, Mrs. Bozung and I were the two teachers who volunteered to get pied. When we signed up, we assumed the pies would be made out of whipped cream... during the final planning meeting yesterday morning, we found out they would be shaving cream (for cost effectiveness)!! We were good sports about it, though, and just made sure to keep our mouths closed! Mrs. Bozung was already hard at work when I got there, so I let her stick with it for about 10 minutes and then took my turn. I made sure my shower cap and goggles were extra tight and the trash bag was all covering and then the kids started pie-ing! There was a masking tape line a short distance away that they were supposed to throw from, but Mrs. Bozung gave them permission to cross that and smash the "pie" straight into my face! It was clear that pie-ing teachers was not something they did often, because none of them really knew how to react.. They all just threw the pie, sort of smiled and walked away. Haha. (All except for one of my favorite kids who continued to taunt me about it the rest of the afternoon!!) Deep down, I know they loved it, though! :)

Mrs. Bozung after her pie in the face experience!

At 11:35, we each rounded up our kids and headed back to our classrooms to meet up with the rest of the kids. Any student who had been suspended, sent to the office, or didn't have enough stickers had to attend a "Booster Session" with the Guidance Counselor and one or two classroom teachers. (As if missing the event wasn't enough, they had to sit through that to rub salt in the wounds!!) On the way back to class, I told my VIPs to be sure to talk up the event, but not to brag about it! I told them we wanted to let the other kids know what they missed out on, so that they'd try extra hard to show respect next quarter!

So, besides a little math and some reading, our morning consisted of celebration and pizza party! Unfortunately, the day wasn't over yet! After the pizza party, we walked down and picked up the rest of the class from the cafeteria and headed back to the classroom for our 25 Panda Paw celebration! We actually earned the 25 Paws last week and I let them vote on what reward they wanted (the other few times, I have just decided on something quick or easy or that fit in our schedule... and it usually involved ice cream or popsicles!). We did it very democratically with nominations and secret ballots. They had some really cool ideas (drawing contest, gum-chewing day, chicken party, etc) and some typical 9-year-old ideas (extra recess, no homework, game day, etc). The winning reward ended up being Ice Cream Sundaes. Haha. Clearly I've trained them well. :) So, after I had them all in their seats and watching The Magic School Bus Stirs up a Storm, I started calling them over for their ice cream sundaes. It was plain vanilla ice cream, gummy bears, sprinkles, chocolate and caramel syrup and mini marshmallows, but you would have thought it was $100 bills with the way their eyes were lighting up! One girl came over to get hers and with begging eyes said "Ms. Wacek, can I please have the recipe? I want to make it for my sleepover!" I just laughed and went on scooping, but apparently she was serious because she came back 10 minutes later with a paper and pencil and wrote down all of the "ingredients"! When one of my boys was mid-bite he said, "This is the BEST day of my life!" Another boy said that he hadn't been able to sleep last night because he was too excited about today! Haha.

All of the evidence in this picture points to one busy, memorable day! Green ticket around her neck, pizza box on table, scrumptious sundae being prepared.

I think MY favorite part of the day came at 1:10 when I put them on the busses and sent them home for a 4-day weekend! Tomorrow is a teacher workday (it's going to be SO nice to work in the classrooms/write report cards without them running around!) and then Friday is a district-wide Professional Development day... Based on some of their sundaes, though, I'm pretty sure some of the sugar may still be in their systems on Monday when they come back!

How Many Are There?!

I spent my eight years of elementary and middle school life attending international schools in Indonesia. From there, I went to high school in Fairfax, VA (right outside of Washington, D.C.... huge military population). As a result, I have experienced much transiency in classmates and friends. People were always moving into my area/school and people were always leaving. Until I became a teacher at a Title 1 school, though, I had no idea what transiency really meant!
I started off my year with 23 students on my roster. Two and a half months later, I was down to 22 because one girl's family moved and her new apartment was in a different school's zone. Between my personal experience last year and talking to all my teacher friends, this is all too common with our population...
A few weeks after that girl moved, I went temporarily down to 21 students. One girl's parents had both lost their jobs and they were all living at her aunt's house 30 minutes away. I didn't find all of this out until she came back, though, so as far as I knew at the time, she was gone for good. She ended up coming back the day they were going to remove her from my roll (after the 15th consecutive day absent... aka 3 weeks, or a complete unit in every subject's worth, of school). I stayed after school a few nights catching her up on what she missed, and thankfully had lots of help and support from her parents doing so.
A few weeks after she came back was winter break and I left with 22 students. It was a manageable number (a little bigger than ideal, but no where near the 26 in the 5th grade class next to me!!), and I was happy with the way things were going.
Upon arriving back at school in January, I was taking my attendance and noticed a name on my roster with which I was unfamiliar. I quickly emailed the secretary to inquire about this. (The normal protocol for new students is either them being escorted to our classroom by the secretary (if they show up the same day they enroll), or we get a little (dreaded) yellow card in our mailbox telling us he or she will be starting on whichever day.) A few minutes later, she called down so we could figure it all out. Turns out, I was getting a student moved into my classroom from a 5th grade classroom across the hall, per parent request. Apparently someone was supposed to have relayed this information to me prior to the day she was being moved, but I guess everyone thought everyone else was going to take care of that. She was absent the day I got the news, so thankfully I was prepared for her the next day (or at least as much as I could be!... Everyone who heard this news thought it was the CRAZIEST idea ever and in no way beneficial to the child! As it's playing out, though, it seems the parents may have known best, because she's fitting in beautifully with my class and is right on grade level with everything we're doing!) Once again, I was at 23 students and had some more catching up to do!
Life was all well and good until Friday when one of my little sweethearts told me she was moving this weekend. Having been told this many times in the past, I was not quick to believe her, so I just nodded and said "ok" (and she's still on my roster 3 days later, so, as I tell my kids, she's still part of my class!). I should have known she was serious, since, as we were walking toward her bus, she asked "Can I have a hug before I leave?" But, again, she's a sweetie and hugs from her are not uncommon, so didn't think too much of it. We'll see how this one plays out, but all the kids are convinced that she's moved (and since they live in a pretty tight knit community downtown, I should probably take their word for it!).. If that's the case, I'm back down to 22, except..............
Today I got called into the Principal's office (still JUST as scary as an adult!! haha) to find out that I was getting ANOTHER "new" student... from a 4th grade classroom across the hall. Apparently my class is the place to be if you are a misfit in your current classroom!! She was also moved per parent request, and although the principal is not keen on a) succumbing to parents or b) moving students around, in this situation, she thought it best. Just before mom marched into school, though, the girl got into an incident with another student, resulting in a 1-day suspension, meaning she won't be starting in room 21 until Friday....
My grandma is turning 80 on Sunday, so I'll be heading to Wisconsin tomorrow evening and took the day off from school on Friday. How am I supposed to leave a roster/sub plans when I can hardly keep track of who my students are or how many I have?! Haha.
While it can be stressful to have 23 or 24 students, I came to find out quickly that it does have its perks... the main one being that the other classes with fewer students will get any new kids that transfer into our school (aka... less work for me catching them up on everything they've missed so far!!). So, hopefully, this "new" girl will adapt quickly to my class and we can go about the rest of the year with minimal movement in and out of the room!