Drip, Drip, Drop Little Pencils and Notebooks and Papers and...

I never realized how often 3rd graders drop things off their desks.  Pencils were dropping like rain, papers floating to the ground like leaves off a tree in fall.  One girl whose desk was in front of mine had trouble keeping things in her desk.  In her defense, her desk was rather small and didn't have enough room for everything.  She'd open her desk to get her ruler out and consequently shove her planner out the other side, on accident, of course.  Then she'd bend down to pick it up aaaand drop her pencil off the other side.  Her desk still open, she'd stretch for her pencil and that dratted planner would slide out the other side!  So she'd reach for it again and this time her paper fell off her desk.  Another student got that one for her.  This happened at least three times in the two minutes they had to get ready for reading.  But eventually she got everything straightened out and settled down for some learning.  Sometimes I shake my head, wondering if I was ever that uncoordinated and noisy... sigh, most likely.