Braves Day

Last day of the week.  Friday.  Valentine's Day party.  Tournament Day. 


Even though we only had a half day of school today, the day was packed!  Memory went pretty well this morning, though there's still one kid who hasn't said the second half of his memory.  I told him if he didn't say it today before the end of school he'd get a zero.  He still chose to wait until Monday to say it. 


Our Valentine's party was pretty low-key.  The kids who had late/missing work had to do it, but the rest of the class got to play the games that they don't get to play during normal Daily 5.  Twister, Apples to Apples, checkers, Operation.  Earlier in the morning we had devotions, then had snack (cupcakes from the birthday boy and cookies from the school's PTL).  I read aloud and they decorated Valentine's bags.  Then we passed out treats.  CHAOS! 


Last night, I got each of my students a hand-held pencil sharpener since they always ask to sharpen their pencils during class.  Walmart had 12 on the shelves.  Short by one!  After wandering a long time, I finally found an employee who checked and said... they didn't have any more.  So I had to pick one that didn't match the others.  At first everyone was like "oh, I want that one!" But once they found out it only has one hole for sharpening, they picked the other ones first.  So the kid who was sick today gets the purple, one-hole sharpener.  I had planned to write a cutesy saying on it, but ran out of time.  So I made a heart and signed my name on the back of the packaging.  One of these days I'll get my act together!


Now everyone's getting ready for the tournament.  My classroom has been condensed; all the desks are either in the reading corner or are crammed behind my desk blockading it from the rest of the room.  The para desk is blocking the closet.  All the computers have towels or sheets covering them.  My desk is the last to go... and I'm still using it.  Joe is coming home with me for the weekend.  A whole bunch of students asked about him, worried the other schools would mess with him.  As usual this time of year, the story of poor Goldie the goldfish is on everyone's minds (even though the incident happened years and years ago). 


At the time, the first and second grade teacher (now retired) had a goldfish in a bowl.  When she came back after the tournament, the bowl was empty!  A few days later, she opened her devotion book to read a devotion to the class... and there was Goldie, pressed between the pages.  Word on the street is that she still has the book (and you can still see the outline of poor, poor Goldie).  I'm baffled how anyone could be that cruel!  But, it's been a long time since then.  And my classroom is being used as a girls' locker room (much less rowdy than the boys).  Not exactly a recipe for disaster.