Checked out, checked in!

Today was an early release day, which means that kids went home at 12:25 and we teachers spent the afternoon in meetings. 

My morning: quick but hectic and full of way too many tears! They were totally falling apart. 

My afternoon: incredibly boring. I was sleepy and totally checked out and daydreaming about my weekend. 

Now: I'm at the airport on my way to Seattle!!! I didn't bring a bit of work with me and won't even think about it until Tuesday morning.

Seattle here I come!!!!!! 

Wonderful!

This morning I went into my teammate's room to borrow a book, and as I was walking out one of her little girls literally yelled, "You look wonderful!" at me. With a beginning like that, how could today not be a great day?

And it sure was. While my elderly substitute teacher taught my class (how?), I pulled students out to do their math screener tests. It went fairly quickly and didn't feel as terribly repetitive as our reading test for some reason. 

At lunch time my brother Joshua came to visit me with a special birthday lunch (Snarfs!), gift, and singing Justin Beiber card. It really was so nice and thoughtful and fun!

Then, at the end of the day, Nathan came to visit me in the hallway where I was working. He said, "I have to tell you something weird. Something awkward. There was this thing in my house and it was invisible and picking up my car." We then established that it was a toy car, not his parents' car, and that a "ghost" was picking it up. I was not timid in showing my skepticism, to which Nathan replied, "Some people don't believe in ghosts because they haven't seen them. But I have seen all of them a lot of times." After we talked about this for a few minutes, he continued to go on, "Always remember that I usually do good things, but when I do a bad thing it's because a ghost was telling me to do it. Always remember." Don't worry, I don't feel concerned that he's actually schizophrenic or anything. After all of this, and many "always remember"s (to which I replied "never forget"), Nathan said, "Oh! And one more thing," and then gave me a hug. Precious angel.

Whatever

I'm honestly pretty overwhelmed right now. I had to write sub plans this afternoon for tomorrow because I'll be testing the kids again all day. Writing sub plans and still having to go to work is the worst. But here's what's not the worst - writing sub plans for Monday and getting to spend the day in Seattle! I leave for my favorite city on Friday afternoon, and I am seriously counting down the minutes. Unfortunately, I have a whole lot to do before then, followed by parent-teacher conferences next week, so I'm a little stressed. Yipes.

Today was fine, I guess. I mean they never really stopped talking. Whatever.

I wrote last week about how Kendal threw herself on the floor sobbing because her name didn't get pulled for the treasure chest at the end of the day. Well, today it didn't happen again. And luckily there were no tears, but she did just stand there angrily saying over and over, "I am the s-word." I didn't really get it, but I also didn't really want to ask what she meant. Poor baby.

Zoo Day!!

Today we took our first field trip of the year and it was delightful! After a quick morning meeting, we got on the bus and headed to the Denver Zoo. Once we arrived all of the kids quickly set off with their parent chaperones, leaving my teammates and me completely free to enjoy the day. We got some Starbucks and strolled around the zoo, saw all of the animals and the new elephant exhibit, had a leisurely and delicious lunch, headed back to school, sent the kids off to specials, and called it a day. Ahhh... If only every day were such a breeze. 

On the bus ride home, I sat next to Presley who said this: "When I was a baby, not that much stuff was invented. It was the olden days. There wasn't that much color." 

Business Partners

My little Johnny is visiting his grandparents for a couple of days, so I had high hopes that today would be a better day than usual. No such luck. Boy were these babies chatty! I'm pooped.

Some of my boys have found a new hobby of digging deep holes in the gravel on the playground to find clay. They take Ziploc bags outside and collect pretty large chunks of clay - for what purpose, I have no idea. Today Nathan told me all about how he and Everett are starting a business that revolves around what they might find buried in the playground: "clay, fossils, gold." As it stands, I get a cut. If they find gold, they'll give it to me, but not if they find a dinosaur fossil. Nathan will use that to make a dinosaur model that will then be put in the museum. Obviously.

Also, this happened last Friday and I liked it: 

Everett: "When I grow up I want to be a settler - that's what a lot of people call pioneers." 

Red Neck Monsters

I did not hate my job today. In fact, I liked it! See? Maybe there is hope for me after all.

It helped that it was a Friday, we had study buddies, and there was an assembly - leaving very little time for actual teaching. (Less teaching time = less frustration that they're not listening while I'm teaching.)

It also helped that the following things happened: 

Nathan somehow cut his gums or something, and kept complaining and needing water. While he was getting a drink out in the hall, he ran into another teacher and told her that his gums were "falling out." And he said, "If they do, I'm going to give them to the tooth fairy. She wants everything that comes out of your mouth." 

My favorite little crier Kendal seems to be losing her emotional stability more each day. I had been talking all week about how today was going to be the first day of Fall. Well, I looked it up and turns out it's tomorrow, so I informed my class of this at morning meeting. And then Kendal burst into tears and said, "I'm going to miss my birthday!" Her birthday is next Saturday (same as me!), and during the Fall, and she somehow thought that maybe fall wasn't happening and so neither was her birthday?? I honestly wasn't understanding or following at all.  

At the very end of the day she also had a full on meltdown because her name wasn't pulled out of the coupon box to win a prize from the treasure chest. She literally threw herself face-down on the floor sobbing, and stayed there for a few minutes. I can't help but find it kind of hilarious.

During our time with study buddies, Anna came up to me and asked, "Are red necks real?" I laughed, obviously, and said that they were. She said, "The boys said they're real and that they turn into monsters!" I had no response to that. 

Let's Get Real

Okay, I'm going to be real for a minute.

I'm over it. I feel like I am living in this mindset of counting down the days until I'm done with first grade. But I really don't want to try and rush my way through a year of my life - what a truly terrible way to live! And I don't want to be a complainer or a Debby Downer or an unhappy person, but I really do not love my job this year. I need a major attitude adjustment or something. I just don't know how to get there.

The new Mumford album, which was given to me today, is certainly helping.

Here's something cute, blah blah blah:

Everyday, when we do our morning meeting, we go through the alphabet practicing our sounds. At the end they go, "Z. Zebra. Zzzzzzz." The kids always buzz on that last one and I sometimes refer to them as little bees. Well, today Jake was leading our morning meeting because he is our star student of the week. Kids loooooove pretending they're the teacher and leading any part of our day. Jake is this precious blond boy with a faux hawk who is pretty cool and sure of himself. And at the end of our alphabet today, he said, "Alright my little bees, what's our word of the day?" So that was cute.

The Best and The Worst

Today was both the best day and the worst day, and it all revolves around Johnny.

Johnny wasn't here today. Which made it honestly so much better of a day, behavior wise. I feel terrible saying that, but the kids were so much quieter and more on task. We actually got through our lessons, and it felt like a really successful day. 

The reason Johnny wasn't here was because his parents were not at all happy with the note I sent home yesterday, which explained that Johnny needed to write me a letter of apology for his disruptive behavior. I really don't want to go into detail, but I spent my lunch break in a meeting with them, my principal, and our school counselor. I was absolutely blindsided by the meeting, and it wasn't the most fun. Thank God - seriously - for my school counselor and my principal who were incredibly supportive to me. Also thank God I didn't cry. Dealing with parents can often be the very worst/most difficult part of this job.

That's all I'm going to say because it's 6:21pm and I'm getting ready for bed. Yep. 

Picture Day

Isn't it a thing that baby animals are cute for an actual evolutionary reason? Like because their cuteness saves them from being eaten or abandoned by their parents or something?

Well, let's just say it was a good thing it was picture day.

The kids looked adorable - the girls all had their hair done and were wearing their favorite dresses, and the boys all wore polo shirts and button-ups. Nathan wore a vest, and Johnny wore a dress shirt, tie, and sports coat. The girls kept complimenting the boys on looking so "handsome." Too! Cute! 

Their behavior today, though - not so cute. I was seriously at my wit's end. I swear I only make it through about half of the lessons I plan because I waste so much time just trying to manage/control/re-direct them. At the end of the day, I had my students think through their behavior all day and give themselves a score - 10 being perfect, 0 being the absolute worst. Most of the kids did a pretty good and honest job on scoring themselves. I looked at Everett, though, who had already gotten into the 'red,' needs to write an apology note to me tonight, lost recess time, and had several 'talking-to's, and he was happily holding up ten fingers. This kid really isn't getting it.

Also, here is an example of just how needy these babies are: Presley brought in cutie oranges as a birthday treat, and Johnny told me at least five different times that his orange was chewy. I finally said, "Johnny! You keep telling me that. What do you want me to say to you?" Johnny: "Well, what should I do? Like suck the juice out of it? Or what?" 

And I'll close with something cute, so that I might actually be willing to wake up and go to work tomorrow. I was giving Zoe, whose great-grandmother passed away this week, some extra love and attention, and called her my little bug. Kendal (my favorite) heard me, looked concerned, and very seriously asked, "Am I still your little bug too??" 

Dry Your Tears, Honey Child

There were a lot of tears again today. My sweet little Zoe came in with puffy eyes - turns out her great-grandmother passed away over the weekend. Zoe was having a really hard time with it, poor sweetie. I gave her a big long hug this morning and let her cry into my stomach for awhile. Afterwards, Presley came up and said that her dad's grandparents died yesterday too. I honestly don't believe her, but I had to treat it as true - because what if? So I gave Presley some of the attention she was looking for too. I never really know exactly what to do with kids who lie about weird things.

Kendal also cried because she couldn't find her notebook. Twice.

Also: My ever so special Johnny asked if he could go to the bathroom - I said yes and he said, "Thanks, Honey Child!"

What am I going to do with this kid?

Field Day!

I'm not sure that I could have made it through a regular day today. With it being the day after having a sub, a Friday, and Field Day, the kids were beyond crazy. We had such a rough morning meeting that we had to spend 3 minutes with the lights off, heads down on the table, thinking about the choices we'd made that day. I really would have been happy to just leave the lights off in silence all day...

In the afternoon we went out for Field Day, which was absolute chaos at points. I put the kids into five teams before we started because we were asked to. Well the second event was only built for four teams, so they all got mixed up, and then were never able to recover after that. At each and every event, they forgot who was on their team, or where they were supposed to be. How do you forget who you were just jumping on a piece of carpet with five minutes ago?? Sometimes it is seriously like herding cats.

Good thing we got popsicles at the end.

Yeah College! No parents!

"Listen as I say all of the sounds in the word 'fan.' f-a-n. Listen as I say all of the sounds in the word 'jump.' j-u-m-p.  Now you say all of the sounds in the word 'soap.'" 

I got to say that 22 times in the span of a few hours. Lucky me.

Today I did my Dibels testing, where I test how well the kids know their letters, letter sounds, etc. I had a sub in my classroom, and I just got to work with my little buddies one-on-one for about ten minutes each. It was actually so awesome and way easier than trying to manage all of them at once. Plus I was finished by 11:30 and got to spend the rest of the day getting some planning and work done. Perf.

Because of that, I don't really have any interesting stories from the day.

So here's something that's not at all about first grade: 

A few of my small group girls from when I was a high school leader are now freshmen at CU. They are all incredibly awesome and beautiful, and it was so fun to be on campus with them. The six of us walked up to the Hill and got dinner at The Sink. Towards the end of our dinner, a preciously nervous boy came up to us and said, "Hi. I just wanted to say that I noticed that you're all very pretty, and my friends are having a party tonight, and so here's my number, and you should come and get to know me because I'd like to get to know you." Then he gave his number to Anna, and left. It was maybe the cutest thing I've ever seen. Plus, his name is Mario. Mario! (Later on, I made Anna text him. This is the best.) 

After dinner we were all freezing and went over to Innisfree - a poetry centered coffee shop - to get some warm beverages. The most adorable Johnny Depp look alike you've ever seen was reading poetry, so we stayed to listen to him. He lived in Paris and even read some poems in French, and then played some guitar. It was all so quintessentially 'college' in a way that college never was for me. I absolutely loved it. And then I tried to convince all of my girls to be inspired by Mario's bravery and give Stefan their digits. No luck. 

I have a standing Thursday night date with my girls, and I told them that I'm going to keep looking for cute college boys for them to date. (Who's the creeper now?) 

The New Kid

So, I haven't been totally honest. I've actually had 21 students this whole time, not 22. Until today. Little Philip has been on our roster, but his family was stuck in Korea, where they'd been all summer, because of some Visa complications. I wasn't exactly looking forward to his arrival - the thought of adding another wiggly little boy to my class was less than appealing. Lucky for me, Philip seems to be a tiny, quiet little angel. The poor kid just arrived from Korea late last night and was immediately bombarded by all of my kids asking him a million questions and telling him a million things. They were just trying to be helpful, I know, but I asked them to back off and give the guy some space. I'm not really sure about his English skills or how much he understands, but so far he's better at following rules and directions than most of my kids who have been practicing that for 15 days longer.

My sweet Kendal was really fragile today. Apparently she had a rough morning because she wanted to change her outfit and her mom wouldn't let her, and that just sent her whole day into a tailspin. She must have cried at least six separate times throughout the day. Sometimes because she wasn't able to finish her work right then, once because she dropped some cards on the floor, and a few that just had to do with her place in line. At the end of the day I was explaining to them that I'll be doing testing with them all day tomorrow, so we'll have a substitute teacher in our classroom, and I looked over to see Kendal's eyes filled with tears. She cried that it was because she doesn't want me to not be their teacher tomorrow... life is sometimes very hard when you're five years old.

Okay, and here is the best thing that happened today, maybe all year: Johnny had to leave a little early for a doctor's appointment, and so he came into my classroom during my planning time to get his backpack. I was sitting at my desk, and as he was leaving, I gave him a side hug goodbye from my chair. And Johnny totally puckered his lips and leaned in towards my cheek! I pulled back and said, "You can't kiss me buddy." And he got really awkward and was apologized. I said, "Are you just used to hugging and kissing mom and dad goodbye?" And he mumbled "yeah" and then quickly left the room. 

Emotional Days

Today the kids said, "We can tell you're tired because you keep yawning." Yep. I was up too late chatting with my good friend Tory, which was lovely, but it was about some things in my life that are bumming me out. Puffy eyes. Heavy boots.

One of my most special buddies is having a really hard time emotionally too. Yesterday he got in trouble for throwing a rock at another kid's eye, which I am pretty sure was an accident (though not positive). He was so upset with himself that he said some pretty harsh, scary, and self deprecating things. This morning his mom came in, and I heard all about all of the seriously rough and heartbreaking things happening in their family right now. I talked more with my little buddy about it today, and he is having such a hard time that I was seriously on the brink of tears. My heart just breaks for him, and I'm not really sure what to do, but I am asking the counselor to get involved.

All of that was to say - things are a little emotional lately. 

On a happier note, I am starting to enjoy my little first graders more and more. Today I called them back in small groups to observe Spiky, our fish. It was actually really fun to interact with them in a closer setting while we observed Spiky and drew pictures of him. While we were back there, Presley decided to rat out her friends and told me, "Anna and Kelsey are talking about inappropriate things, like boyfriends and girlfriends." And sweet little innocent Johnny remarked, "Well I hope it's not about what's in between the legs!" I know that this was the worst possible way to handle that comment, but I seriously could not stop laughing. I just love that little creeper.

Spiky

We have a new member of our class. His name is Spiky, and he is a goldfish, and I love him. 

We got him for our science unit - we're observing him along with some guppies and snails that we'll get eventually. I decided that I want to keep him as our class pet, even after the science unit is over. Until he dies or until I get too lazy to take care of him - whichever comes first. Spiky was not my ideal name for him (he's not even spiky!), but I let the kids choose his name. I was really pushing for Neville.

There's a girl in my class named Zoe who is either a hypochondriac or just a major exaggerator. Either way, she ends up trying to get out of class every day to go see the school nurse for one reason or another. (I very rarely actually let her go.) Today she had a wide range of ailments - her stomach hurt, her throat hurt, her chest hurt, and so on. At one point in the day she said that her chest hurt because her brother ran into her with his scooter yesterday. But then later she said, "I'm going to gymnastics today, and I'm so happy that my chest is hurting me!" I totally know what you mean, Zoe. I really do.

And here's my Nathan quote of the day: 

Nathan: "Make sure if I bonk my head, that I don't bonk it here." (He pointed to a spot on his forehead.)

Me: "Well, maybe just don't bonk your head, buddy." 

Nathan: "Yeah... I'm not sure if I can do that." 

Real Gangster

Well, I survived another week. And I'm so delightfully happy that it's Friday! 

I've been having some real girl drama, as I've mentioned, and so today I sat down with four of my girls and we talked about how to be nice to your friends, and how to be inclusive and forgiving. Afterward, Anna (who is the most "popular" girl in our class) went up to Abbie (who is new and kind of odd) and asked if Abbie wanted to be her friend. This was totally gracious and awesome of Anna to do, especially since Abbie doesn't really have any friends in our class. But Abbie just said, "No, I have enough friends in my neighborhood. I don't really need any new friends." Oh, Abbie... you kind of blew it.

On a totally different note...

I feel like you can tell a huge difference between the kids who have older siblings and those who don't. Just by the things they say, like calling someone a "douche-head." (I like that one enough to maybe use it myself.) Today, for example, our word of the day was ball. So I was asking kids to use ball in a sentence, just like we always do with our word of the day. And Keon said, "Well, there's the inappropriate kind of ball..." Thanks, Keon. Also, during Friday free choice time, I heard Gavin say, "That would be real gangster." But this was made way more hilarious by the fact that he has a speech impediment and actually said, "That would be weal gangstew." 

"1 2 3... Naked!"

I wonder what it would be like to have two good days in a row. I'm serious, it hasn't happened yet. Every time I think we're doing better and getting somewhere, we just move ten steps back the next day. I had so many kids off task today, it was ridiculous. Not to mention some bigger discipline problems - like pushing each other down the slide, saying shit, and stomping on each other's feet. Delightful.

Anyway, there were a couple of funny things to help get me through the day at least. If you've been reading this blog of mine, then you've noticed that Nathan is the most hilarious one because he says the most ridiculous things. Today he came up to me and said, in all seriousness, "When two moons come out, it means that the alien world is real close. And then if the sky turns real red, it means they are going to attack." 

Later in the afternoon, Nathan and Everett were reading the book No, David! By David Shannon. There's an illustration where the bad little boy, David, is running down the street naked, so you see his naked little butt. While I was trying to work one-on-one with a student, the boys were going around the room and holding up the book to other kids saying, "1...2...3..." and then they'd open the book to that picture and yell "NAKED!!"

Dragons

Today was a good day! Maybe my optimism is paying off...

We've been talking about making connections when we read, and today we talked about making text to world connections using The Lorax by Dr. Seuss. I sure do love that man and his environmentally friendly liberal ways! After I read the story, we talked about how it connects to our real world. I asked what would happen if we cut down all of our trees and didn't plant any new ones, and Johnny said, "We'd have to move to Texas!" To which Riley added, "My grandma lives in Texas!" I think they really got it. 

Also, this happened: 

Nathan: "What's that thing... where they train the lions?"
Me: "The circus?"
Nathan: "Yeah! We're going to the circus for my sister's birthday! And we're going to see a real dragon there! Because there are real dragons in Slovenia. So they're going to have him at the circus, and he'll breathe fire, and then he'll go back to Slovenia because that's where he's from.... Or, you know, from a factory where they make rubber."
Me: "Wait. So is this a real dragon? Or a fake one made out of rubber?"
Nathan: "... I'm not really sure..."

(I want him to keep believing in real dragons. Why not?) 

Optimism

As I said in my very first post, August was the pits. And outside of Mumford, it continued to be the pits. But guess what? Now it's September! And I am choosing to be optimistic that September will be better.

Going to work was hard today after having a three day weekend, and I found myself saying "I just need to make it to Thanksgiving..." which is a terrible way to live! I don't want to live that way at all, and so I am trying to be present in the present - or at least look forward to the near future. So I'm making a mental list of things that will make September the best ever. Here is that mental list made into an actual list:

Friday night - Santa Fe Art Walk (part of my personal goal of learning to love Denver more).
Saturday - I get to go to a wedding! For the first time allllll year! And dance my booty off.
Soon - My BFF Ashley is moving back here from San Fran! Can you believe it?!? Me neither.
Also - Mumford's new album!!
Also - JK Rowling's new book!! (This is both exciting and a little scary.)
Also - TV is starting back up! (Go ahead - judge me. I love television.)
Best - I'm going to Seattle for my birthday!!!! I can. not. wait!!

So there you have it, September is going to be awesome!

I went into school today with this attitude - of September marking a change and moving into the best time ever - but that didn't happen. Not one bit. Apparently the three day weekend set us back quite a bit because my kids were craaaazy today. They did not stop talking, humming, tapping, moving around, etc, etc, etc. And they are basically the biggest tattle tales ever. There is a constant stream of kids informing me of something that someone else did or said. And it's usually their own friends that they're ratting out. This afternoon, Everett came up to tell me that Gavin broke his pencil. He said, "I mean, he didn't like break it in half. It's just that the tip of it broke off." Then why are you telling me???

I'm choosing to remain optimistic that tomorrow will be better.