Whirlwind

This day was crazy.


Everyone was super tired after a long weekend of basketball and no school Monday.  Plus they were all super chatty which means they had trouble focusing as well. 


My classroom was in one piece after the tournament with minimal things to put back in place.  All our snowflakes are still hanging from the ceiling too!


It took a while for the day to get started... I think I was the cause... distracted checking off my list of returned permission forms/collecting money for the field trip we're doing Thursday (seeing a play put on by MSU students at Nicollet), handing out fixes, writing notes on the board, church attendance, lunch count, etc.  One of the 6th graders had a birthday Sunday, and he brought Dairy Queen ice cream cake as a treat for the class.  So we had to set that out to thaw 20 minutes ahead of time.  The boy who brought it wanted to cut it, so I started our read-aloud chapter and he hacked away at it... and the pieces didn't come out even.  So his classmates complained.  But there was enough for everyone, plus the teachers, so I count that a success.  Still, not my favorite type of birthday treat for school.


The floor hockey tournament started today.  Mexican haystacks were for lunch, and they always take FOREVER to serve, so my class had barely gotten our food by the time the tournament was supposed to start.  We started late and cut into math/7th grade social studies time.  This cut into our bell time and then into 5th/6th science time and then into afternoon recess time.  So the whole afternoon was a little off-kilter.  When we finally got around to having science, I found a note sheet in the teacher book I forgot to print off for the class, and then I couldn't find it on my flash drive.  So I took time to make a new one.  And while I was looking for it, I found a note about a website I wanted to show my students... look here! It was about a giant insect they rediscovered after 80 years of it being "extinct." There's a movie at the end of the page showing the insect hatching, and since we're learning ecology, I let the class watch it.  Which led to a discussion of how insects reproduce, which led to another discussion about how whales/sharks reproduce, which lead to the topic how spiders reproduce... yes, it was a very interesting half an hour.  I didn't know all the answers, so I promised I'd find the answers and report back tomorrow.


The day ended on a sour note... one of the 6th graders was supposed to ride the bus home.  Normally he gets picked up, but his mom emailed me twice today to remind him to ride the bus.  As we were packing up to go home, he saw someone who sometimes gives him a ride home waiting outside and asked if he could ride home with them.  No...


Well, he wasn't too happy with that answer and fussed for a bit.  Eventually he packed up his stuff and calmly/politely asked if he could quick grab something out of the coatroom.  Impressed by his politeness, I let him.  And he never came back.  We waited and waited, everyone else all dressed up in their winter gear waiting to pray and go home.  We sent someone to check the bathrooms and other classrooms... didn't find him.  Everyone was quick to accuse him of going home with those people but I didn't want to believe that.  Since we couldn't find him, we prayed and dismissed.  It turns out, yes, he did sneak home with those people. 


After everyone was gone I was still crazy busy and didn't have a chance to email his mom.  When I finally did get the chance to check my email, I saw she beat me to it, asking if something had happened at school.  She was on the phone when her son came in, and he asked her if she was talking to me on the phone.  Hmm, suspicious question for her son to be asking, hence the email.  So.  That's what I've been dealing with all afternoon.  Not the best way to end the day.


Now it's time to go home.  I have a bunch of laundry to do and a pile of papers to correct.  The 7th graders are working at Pizza Ranch in New Ulm tonight as a class fundraiser. They kept asking if I was going to go... to be honest I've had so much pizza lately I'm kind of "pizza-ed out."  And it would be nice to hole up at home for an evening.  We'll see what happens I guess.