Hose 'em Down

Fire Prevention Day.

Who knew it would be so chaotic?

It was supposed to start at 9:45, but the trucks didn't pull in until 9:50.  And the fire alarm went off at 9:47.  It only took 58 seconds for everyone to evacuate school.  The firefighters were going to come around to each classroom and give a talk about fire safety, so the 5th graders and I did read aloud and waited.  And then did Daily 5 and waited.  And listened to all the other classes having fun honking the truck horns and waited.  And just when I thought they had forgotten about us, someone came to talk to our class.  Whew!

Since our class is so small, the students got tons of prizes.  They got those plastic fire hats (I told them they could wear them until lunch, then they had to go in the backpacks), Frisbees, and a water bottle filled with an eraser, bookmark, tattoo, and two color changing pencils.  Cool!  Then we got to go outside to look at the trucks.  No one was giving us any directions, so we bopped around from truck to truck, honking horns, taking turns sitting in the driver's seat.  Then a firefighter finally appeared and let the students try on the fireman's uniform.

The coolest part was when they got the hose out for everyone to spray.  The wind blew the spray right into the faces of whoever was spraying the hose.  One of the 7th graders came running over to me, "Want a hug Miss H?"  I didn't really have a choice.  He rubbed his wet head all over my shoulder!  It was a nice day out, so pretty much all the 7th and 8th graders thought it would be fun to run through the spray... and my 5th graders followed suit.  All except one boy who apparently didn't get the memo; when everyone was back inside, he was the only dry one.  He said, "How come no one told me we were going to run through the water?"  I pointed out that his classmates were going to be wet the rest of the day, and probably uncomfortable.  One of his classmates with a shirt completely soaked through said, "Yeah, she's right.  Now I'm really cold.  Can I go get my sweatshirt?"  By the time we got inside, there was only 15 minutes until lunch.  Not enough time for English.  I decided to punt English for the day.

Our day ended with the 5th graders running the mile in PE followed by volleyball practice.  Now I'm going to pack up and head to pottery class!