RIP Spike

Today had a surprising amount of trauma in it compared to most days. 


One of the triumvirate of typical troublemakers in my class stayed home today.  His ankle was swelled up and hurting, so he stayed home to rest it.  It made for a very quiet morning.  Sadly, it was quite refreshing. 


At chapel, we found out that Spike the dog (one of my 5th graders' pet dogs... his favorite... the one he wrote his NaNo story about) got run over.  One of the 6th grade boys had a birthday today (along with my mom! Happy Birthday Mom!) and he commented, "Man, my birthday is one of the saddest days of the year!  It's a horrible day!" (referring to his friend being sad about Spike).  The 5th grader and his 8th grade brother were so upset about Spike, they went home early from school.  After a couple hours calming down at home, they came back just in time for noon recess. 


But before that, my 6th grade chameleon (the girl who pretended to like everything her boyfriend liked, just because) made herself cry thinking of her dog that died last year.  It was funny seeing her classmate's reactions.  First they were all worried, "Why are you crying?!?!"  "Because I'm sad about my dog dying."  "Your dog died?" "Yeah, last year.  I just get sad thinking about it."  Moment of silence, then, "You're crying because your dog died last year?  But it was a year ago!"  And that was when they discovered she was just doing it for attention.  We outlawed the topic of pets for today so hopefully no one would be reminded of sad memories (because someone kept bringing it up and wouldn't stop talking about it). 


Anyway, the birthday boy didn't bring treats because he didn't have time to make/get any, so we didn't really do anything exciting for his birthday.  He did get to be helper of the day, and he got his picture in the paper.  Some people donated books to our school for "February I Love to Read Month" and we needed a representative from each class to accept the books. 


Mr. E took extra time in math today, so the 6th graders had time to kill after bells.  The birthday boy wanted naptime and I had nothing else for them to do, so he curled up under the rug.  He's so small it was hard to tell there was someone under the rug!  One of his classmates decided she should make a birthday card for him, but it should be a secret.  I don't think she knew he was under the rug because she was telling me her grand secret plan in her normal voice, and I was standing almost right next to the rug.  She even looked around and said, "Oh good! He's not in here.  We'll have to be quick before he comes back!"  The other 6th grade boy looked at her in amazement and spilled the beans, "But he's right under the rug!" She still didn't hear him and kept carrying out her scheme.  Only after the 5th graders came back from math did she finally figure out he had been under the rug the whole time.  She got the rest of the class to sign the card and asked, "Hey where is [birthday boy] anyway?"  The rug let out a yelp.  Her eyes got huge as she realized he'd heard her whole plan.  Oops!


My secret plan, on the other hand, went perfectly.  I got The Fourth Stall Part III from the library last night and brought it to school this morning.  I even put it so the pages were facing out on the bookshelf so no curious students would read the title on the spine before read aloud.  This morning two boys were discussing how we could get the book sooner... one boy thought his sister might be able to get it on her Kindle/Nook thing...  Oh their faces when they saw I had the book!  We're already on Chapter 3. 


The only thing I need to do to get ready for tomorrow is to test our science lab.  We're doing a titration of vinegar and ammonia.  Red cabbage juice is the indicator, which I made earlier this week.  Hopefully everything works like it's supposed to and I'll be out of here by 5:00!