It's only Wednesday???

Wow this week seems to go by slowly!  We had another late start yesterday, and it was Crazy Day, so everyone was dressed crazily.  As you might have guessed, our day was very crazy.  Last night after the basketball games we moved tables and chairs over from church.  I helped set them up and then helped decorate the tables.  Whew! What a job!  At least we had some parents stick around to help.  After that was lesson planning for the next day of school.

Today was Sunday-best Day, so everyone wore church clothes to church.  We had chapel right before lunch in the gym and everyone's parents/grandparents came to eat lunch at school.  Following lunch, the BLC drum-line came and played.  Everyone seemed to enjoy hearing them.  After their program was finished, we dismissed the parents and then our students got the chance to try out the drums.  We divided up by ages and rotated to each drum (or cymbal).  They had a blast!  For the rest of the day, students were practicing their drumming on the table tops.  One of the 8th graders asked, "Miss H, do you think I should be a drummer?"  I said yes, he should, but not now during our class.

I had a Board of Education member/parent sit in on our science class today.  He stayed after drum-line and plopped himself in a desk to watch.  We were playing a game that helped us review pulley systems, so I'm sure it was interesting for him to watch!  The boys took a while to settle down and then one of them got a bloody nose, so he was out for most of the game.  I think overall it went well.  Hopefully he liked what he saw.

After school, I had to deal with one of my 6th graders.  I walked into our classroom after lunch to find a bunch of yardsticks lying on the floor and this student poised in the act of throwing another one across the room.  He knows there is a "no throwing policy" in our classroom.  So I told him I'd think about what consequences he'd have to face and let him know later on.  I decided that he'd have to miss our afternoon recess to write a list of all the reasons why he shouldn't throw things in the classroom.

Well, he ended up only having about 5-10 minutes to write the list, not like the 30 minutes I was expecting.  So I told him to stay after basketball practice to continue writing the list.  He was having trouble coming up with the last one.  Then, one of the 8th graders gave him an idea, so I had him write down two more ideas.  Of course, he pitched a fit, so I gave him the choice: he could either write down two more reasons not to throw things, or he could come into our classroom and throw yardsticks for 10 minutes without stopping.  When he heard that last one, his eyes lit up and he said, "for real?"  It was so hard to keep a straight face.  But I think I did it.  And I told him I was serious.  Then he tried to bargain, "Can I just do it tomorrow morning?"  No.  "How about for just five minutes?"  Nope, 10.  "Okay, I'll just come up with two more ideas."  So that was that. 

Here are the ideas he came up with:

1. it is a rule
2. it will hurt people
3. it is bad to
4. the ruler could break
5. it can make people cry
6. it causes bad influence
7. you will get in trouble for it

Ugh.  I hate this kind of stuff.  Anyway, I sent a note home to his parents.  Hopefully tomorrow will go better.  But it's Clown Day, so anything can happen.