20

This afternoon, I had twenty kids in my class.

Mr. E left at 11:30 to drop Mrs. E at the airport and I absorbed his class into mine for the afternoon.  Things were pretty hairy to start with... it was right before lunch, so everyone was going crazy having five extra people in our room.  Plus there wasn't room at the lunch table for 21 people, so some of my kids got to eat at their desk.  Since I had to wait for 20 kids to go through the lunch line, some of them finished their food before I even got in line.  And then the cook ran out of potatoes that went with the hamburger gravy that was the main meal today.  She could make some more, it would just take five minutes.  So I got all my other food and scarfed it down quick so I could let the antsy fast-eaters get out for recess.  One of the 5th graders brought me a cup of potatoes and hamburger gravy, so I didn't even have to go back through the line!  It was too chilly for outside recess; we ended up in the gym.

After recess everyone settled down for the most part and my class learned about the Electoral College and political parties in the US.  We had some very good discussions.  And the 7th graders listened in on it too.  They just had a study hall while I taught my class.  Then we did a little bit of art... Design-A-Saurus.  At the writers conference field trip we went on I got a packet that teaches how to draw dinosaurs, so I made copies for my class and turned them loose!  They made some pretty good dinosaurs.  The 7th graders had the option of joining us or working on their homework.  Most did homework... their assignment for my class for today was watching a Wishbone episode on Joan of Arc, so they grabbed headphones from their room and watched the video on computers in my room.  That kept them occupied!  My original intent was to work on Mystery Class all together, but I didn't get the email update (normally they're scheduled for Fridays, but they've been coming on Thursday).  So we watched a Wishbone episode too, the one on Don Quixote. And then recess.

And my day went kaput from there.  It all centered around two people who are always at each other.  And they always get mad because they ALWAYS get in trouble and the other guy never does.  And I never do anything about anything.  So all the people in my class kept tattling, and I kept nodding and saying "okay, Mr. E and I will handle it on Monday." And everyone got fed up with each other.  I turned my back on that group for five seconds to answer another kid's question and when I turned back around, the two boys in question were being held back by their classmates. Lovely.  So.  Now it's a matter of do I email parents and get sucked into a whole email/phone call debate over what happened? Mr. E called after school on his way back and we talked about it. He basically said I should email parents that something happened and we'll deal with it on Monday.  I've already gotten a call from one parent, which I let go to voicemail (as per Mr. E's suggestion).  Ugh. This is the side of teaching that I hate. So hopefully we can get to the bottom of things on Monday.