Bummed

Oh I am so bummed!  I found this really cool idea for the end of the year: hang up a balloon for each day left in the school year and inside, hide a paper with a special thing/activity to do for the day.  Today there was 15 days of school left, so we listened to music during reading.  Tomorrow there are 14 days left, so students have the option to work without shoes on.

Unfortunately, in the last five minutes before school dismissed, one of the girls got into an argument over whose turn it would be to pop Friday's balloon.  (The person to pop the balloon is the Superstar Helper of the day).  This girl was positive it would be her turn, but she was forgetting one of her classmates when she counted.  The other girl was insisting that it would be her turn.  They argued about this (with their classmates jumping in) for about five minutes.  I was trying to get everyone calmed down so we could pray.  It wasn't happening.

Finally, I laid down the law, "If this is going to be a problem and we're going to argue about this every time, I'm just going to take the balloons down."  Two students said, "Fine.  Take them down.  We don't care."  Two girls really wanted to keep them up and one boy was either shrugging or was neutral (I can't recall).  As soon as those two said they didn't care, my heart sank.  Now I have to take them down or they'll think I can't follow through on my consequences.  Sigh.  There were some really cool activities in those balloons!

I asked some of the other teachers what to do and they were kind of on the fence.  One said to give them another chance.  Another said that I have to take them down (for the same reason I was thinking of taking them down).  Another thought I should put them in a bag and then they can earn them back or the students that want to do it are the only ones allowed to do the activity.  Ugh!  What to do, what to do...

Recess was even worse.  We were with the K-4th graders in the gym since it was snowing out.  People kept getting hit with balls.  Two little girls wanted me to play house with them; I was the mom and I was at work.  One girl was the baby doing math at home and the other was the babysitter who helped the baby with her math (their idea, not mine).  I could leave our house for "work" and then head back in the gym to keep an eye on everyone.

As soon as I turned around, I found a 6th grader and a 1st grader fighting over a bat.  Surprisingly, this tug of war match was pretty even.  I found out the 6th grader had walked up and grabbed the bat the 1st grader was using!  Her reasoning was, "I am up to bat so I need a bat!"  "Did you ask?"  Silence.  Then the reminder, "If you want to use something someone else is using, you need to ask first!"  No sooner than their situation was sorted out, a new one popped up.  One of the softball players got mad at everyone else.  He started biting people and whipping them with his rope necklace.  No more recess for him: lots of time in timeout.

Finally everything was calming down (or was as calm as an inside recess can be).  And then I noticed one of the 6th grade boys hunched over on the ground.  I wasn't sure if he was faking it, laughing, or seriously injured.  The bystanders didn't look freaked out, so I figured it probably wasn't life-threatening, but he wasn't getting up.  I hustled over there and discovered that he had been hit in a not-so-good place by a baseball.  Ouch.  He thought it was an accident; no one knows who threw the ball, although there have been some accusations.  The poor guy was crying his eyes out, but he didn't want to sit out or grab an ice pack and hang out in the office for a while.  So he cried for about five minutes, went and got a drink, then came back in the gym and started playing basketball.  Now the question is, do I tell mom?

All in all, today was not a good day for the 6th graders.  But, tomorrow is a new day!  Thank the Lord!