Bad Case of the Stripes

Last day of "I Love to Read" Month. This morning, we were about 11,000 minutes short of our goal (33,650 or so minutes). I amped up the the 7-8th graders by telling them we wouldn't have the cocoa party if we didn't make our goal. One of the 8th graders, the smarty pants, said, "I saw the cocoa and cookies on the table in the office... What are you gonna do with them if we don't make it? Eat them yourself?" I stared him right in the eyes and said, "Yep. Right in front of you." We all laughed. He said, "But that's so mean!" I said, "Then you better write down how much you read this month and turn it in to Mrs. E!"

We had a lot of sheets turned in before lunch. Enough that we actually made our goal! So, at 2:00, the kids read in the gym for a little while as they drank their cocoa and ate their cookies. Then, they trekked to Mr. E's room so he could read a book, A Bad Case of the Stripes. We teachers thought it would be funny if Mr. E read the book with his face painted to look like the main character's, all covered in stripes. Unfortunately, we didn't have enough time to get his face done. However, the rest of us put face paint on and popped into the room right as he got to the part where the main character's face changes colors. Mine was red/white/blue, Mr. D had white with purple polkadots, Mrs. L had leafy greens all over, and Mrs. E dressed up as the old lady who helps the girl get back to normal.

It was great! Mr. D was already in the room to take pictures, so I was the first teacher to make a surprise visit. I knocked on the door, Mrs. E 'screamed', and I announced, "Mr. E, I don't feel so good. I think I should go home." All the kids stared at me wide-eyed. It clicked with a couple kids, "Ohhh, Mr. D, that's why your face is like that!" A few pages later, Mrs. L did the same thing.

I had some trouble finding this face paint this morning. I knew I had a bunch left from the Fall Carnival in October. For the longest time it was under Joe's tank, but I thought I had moved it into the closet. Before school, I scoured the closet and found nothing. Thinking I had maybe sent it home with a kid, I questioned them all when they got to school. Nope. So the girls searched the closet too. Nothing.  During Reading Buddies I made one more attempt to find it. Ha! It was right where I thought it was, but shoved further against the wall and tucked back. It came off pretty well. The red kind of stained my skin a bit, but I think another wash at home will do the trick. The bathroom soap at school is not super great and it's hard to wash your face in the low sink!

I forgot all about my potentially strange-looking face when our preschool teacher called me after school and said a school in New Ulm had received a huge donation of good quality nonfiction books. Did I want to come look through them with her? Uh, yes please! So we spent a full hour digging through boxes selecting ones to add to our class libraries. I ended up with four cardboard boxes (one box is for the Fulda library). There were boxes and boxes of duplicate books; I didn't feel bad about taking so many. We barely made a dent!