Book Orders!

PE time.  I'm alone in my (for once) peaceful classroom.  What should I do?  I know, check my email!  I spy an email from Scholastic they sent when I placed the order.  Hey, there's a UPS tracking number in it.  I wonder where my order is.  Click.  What?  It says arrived!  (Scurry down to the office... spy the box on the corner of the table... do internal happy dance... scurry back to unpack the books).  PE is over, students trudge back inside.  "Hey, what's on your desk?" "GASP! THE BOOK ORDERS ARE IN!" 


And then everyone who didn't get books crowded around my desk to see the books that I got for the classroom.  And then they noticed the stack of new book orders for October and began flipping through them... and now they want me to send the book orders home tomorrow instead of waiting for October.  Sigh.  These kids.


In other news, the picking-on situation is getting worse.  Mr. E and I discussed it after school today and they're just as bad in his classroom (if not a little worse).  We both are out of ideas.  However, there is this group of high school students called SPOTS.  They will come to your school and do a scene about bullying or some other topic relevant for middle school students and then have a discussion with the class.  Can you say perfect timing? 


My voice is disappearing.  Probably from the constant "You have two choices, you can let it go or you can hang onto it and be upset about it." and the "use your inside voice!"  Plus we're at a really good part in our read-aloud book... only four chapters to go!  They always beg me to keep reading... today's compromise: stop read aloud at usual time, do English/Daily 5, read before lunch instead of Read to Someone.  That still wasn't enough (all the other classes were on a field trip today, so only the 5-8th graders were here to eat lunch= eat lunch early and extra long recess!), but we finished MN history early so we read the few extra minutes before PE.  I'm predicting we'll finish the book tomorrow, or at least get really, really close.


Oh yeah, the volleyball games yesterday.  It turns out there was a storm (it rained on and off for a good two hours).  My B squad girls won their first match!!!  Woohoo!  Lost one, won two games.  After the first game we won, the third graders were so excited they ran over and tackle-hugged me.  Day made.  They literally jumped up and down in excitement.  A squad girls... not so much.  They lost both games they played (although they should've won).  After the games, the Janesville girls were packing up their stuff when one girl realized she was missing a boot.  Just one.  We searched high and low and still it didn't appear.  We figured someone was playing a trick on her.  This morning I told my class to be on the lookout and one of the 5th graders spotted it under the foam in the closet! Definitely someone playing a trick.  Now I just need to let the people in Janesville know...