First Day Back

Whew, I was not ready to come back to school after this break, but then again, I don't know that I've ever had a 'long enough' Christmas break. The kids were pretty good today actually. They were a little chatty, but that's normal after a long weekend let alone a long break.

I completely forgot it was Wednesday today, therefore Chapel. It was almost 8:30 when Mr. E said that chapel would be over here at school since it was cold out. My first thoughts: Why are we having chapel today? Ohhhh, wait... So my kiddos had to hustle to set everything up in the gym.

Joe is glad to be back at school. He hasn't moved around a lot today, but he usually pouts for a while after having to ride in a car. I have a jug I fill with warm water to put in his 'travel' tank (a rubbermaid tub) to keep him warm without his heat lamp. But still, the cold weather might have put him in hibernation mode.

Before break I made my kids a deal that I'd finish reading their NaNos over break. If not, I owed each of them 100 tokens. I had the best of intentions! But I procrastinated reading them until New Year's Eve during the day. I had five left last night and read two more over breakfast. Then I read another two before school (miracle of miracles, no one came in to talk to me before school!). I got the last one started, but didn't have it finished by the time the morning bell rang. So at Writers Workshop time, I asked my students for an extension since I'm usually so generous with their late work. They agreed that if I could read the last one by the end of the day, I wouldn't have to give them tokens. I was lucky today was a PE day so I had time to finish it! Still, I gave them each 20 tokens since I hadn't officially met my original goal.