Oh yeah and that happened too

Despite the appearance of the mouse last Friday, last week was actually a pretty good week. We had a carnival on Thursday night and had a great turnout! We weren't really sure how many families would come out since it was thrown together a little last minute and I don't have previous year's experience to go by but I would say it was a success. I stood at a table behind the "Wheel of Fun" and let kids win prizes purely by the luck of the spin. It was definitely a good game to be at since I didn't have pick things up, chase a ball, or set things back up. It was probably the cheapest carnival you've ever heard of with tickets only .25 cents a piece and only 1 ticket required to play each game. I think we could have worked the system a little better on that one but no one seemed to mind. Our goal was to break even not actually make money and with the help of selling 30 pizzas we were able to do that. Maybe next year we'll work towards a profit.

We also had an SIP day where we were handed next year's schedules. It's has some interesting changes with many "required" time subjects and time allotments. We are going to test this schedule the last two weeks of school to see if it will work and I'll let you know more then. I'm not worried as much as dubious. Things never go as planned. Especially when large numbers of children are involved. However, since everyone is aware of that fact we are just planning on being flexible and working it out the best we can. Good luck to us!

An Unwanted Guest

At 3:30, I was sitting in my room trying to get all ready for next week when I heard rustling. I tried to pass it off as the rain but quickly determined that there was no way rain could sound distinctly like nibbling. It had happened. My room had acquired a mouse. They've been all over the school and everyone knows to make sure all food is left in the fridge tightly sealed away, but I thought with the coming of spring and having a room without a closet would leave me rodent free. I was wrong. BOOOOOO.

Even though I had a pet gerbil and hamster as a kid, I have to admit that I'm not a big fan of mice. It's the darting. Jumping too. I don't have a problem if they are just hanging out looking at you but when they jump out and dart across the room, it's just a little too much. I chose not to investigate but find someone a little braver out in the hallway. The technology guy came in and started pulling out tubs to find him and sure enough-out he darted. I may or may not have yelped a little and retreated out into the hallway to find the janitor and a trap. I was given a sticky trap and put a little peanut butter and a cheerios on it for him. The janitor then promised to send down Jerry (head janitor at another bldg who is helping with our building while our head janitor is out with back surgery). Jerry is an exceedingly friendly and helpful guy. He's been working in the district for 20 years and loves sweeping halls and talking to teachers. He promised to take of the problem. He set the trap in the bin with the most poop and left to sweep. I turned up the volume on my radio and hoped it would be distracting enough for me to get the rest of my work done. 20 minutes later, Jerry returns to vacuum and checks the trap. Sure enough, there it was. Stuck but very much alive. It was then placed in a garbage bag and sent to the dumpster. YEAH for Jerry the janitor extraordinaire. He even offered to clean up the mess, but I did it anyway. Thankfully, nothing of any value was ruined and we caught him before he discovered anything too tasty. I was done in 5 minutes. Yuck. Go away tiny brown mice! My kids would probably be disappointed that we couldn't keep it for a pet. I'm just hoping he doesn't have friends.

Little of This; Little of That

I had a boy poop his pants today. Don't you wish you were a teacher?

Why did we skip spring? I hate being hot. 80=hot. Too hot. Not for me.

It may surprise you that I do not know how many days of school are left. I think I'll wait until May to figure it out.

We are going to the zoo!! May 27th. Zoo and Children's Museum. BIG day. LOADS of fun.

I do not have a summer job. It is completely because of a lack of trying. I haven't tried. At all.

I do not have a living situation for next fall. I'm at least thinking about trying that. Soon. Very soon.

I won a raffle! Last night at the Illini basketball banquet, I won a reading basket. It had a blanket, 8 different newspapers, a polo, flag, umbrella, $50 in giftcards, 4 weeks free subscriptions to the News Gazette, a thermal mug, and couple of Illini books. And to top it all off, it came in a News-Gazette Newspaper Bag. Quite a haul I know! Thanks GRANDPA for buying the tickets!!!!!!

John Lock=8 letters-Jessica Lock=11 letters; therefore, I wrote John's name on 18 of the 24 raffle tickets that I filled out. But I still won. : P

I have next week planned and most of my copies made already. And it's only Wednesday! Remember when I didn't even do anything for the next week until Saturday and Sunday?!!? I do.

My kids attention is completely and totally linked to my level of energy and excitement for whatever we are doing. I've let myself be a little boring the last few days and found that I am actually more tired because I have to spend more energy keeping them in line during and after the fact. Huh.

My kids are art deprived. I don't have much of a creative flair. They want to make more stuff. I don't know what to have them make.

I need a good Mother's Day craft project idea. Any suggestions? What do you remember from your childhood? Good ideas and bad will be accepted. If you are a mother, what did you like/dislike? I'm up for almost anything.

Time for productiveness. Later gators.

There's a Hole in My Roof

Err, ceiling. It's the truth! I wouldn't spoof. It was knocked there for a man with diseases and they lowered him down to Jesus . . . Oh wait, that's not quite right. Maybe it was an electrician and the only thing they did was lower down non-working electrical outlets. : ) (This was an old puppets song from high school. Great memories but completely confusing if you weren't there.)




This is what I found upon getting to school on Monday. Large holes, some dust, and 2 outlet boxes that don't work. Not too bad and they didn't move that much of my stuff so I was lucky. Others weren't so fortunate. This is only the beginning of our construction adventure but I think there will be a reprieve before anything else happens inside. I don't really know much about geothermal but this week and last they dug 16 wells outside and one of the students announced that it was a new water park! Everyone is very excited. I'll let you know how that turns out. The other funny thing about the holes in the ceiling is that now the sound travels from classroom to classroom better. So, when I'm sitting in my room alone during plan time, I can here the teacher and class across the hall like they are IN my room. Took me 4 days to figure out why they were suddenly so much louder but it's definitely because the sound is traveling up through ceiling and down into my room. Makes me wonder about what others are hearing coming from my room . . .

Everyone came back from break healthy and raring to go. It's was a good week getting back in the saddle and settled down for the home stretch. Not much exciting or eventful but that is probably a good thing. One crazy thing was said to me though. Are you ready? Probably not. Let's all for a minute remember that I am a kindergarten teacher and my students are 5-6-7. Okay? Go.

Student: I'm going to go to my baby daddy's house tonight.
Me: Do I even want to know if you know who that is?
Student: It's my boyfriend. My baby daddy. Hehehe.

And then on and on about her baby daddy. She thought it was a pretty funny thing to say so I'm not so sure that there was truth in it as much as there was silliness for her, but still. Take advantage of the innocent children in your lives. You are fortunate to know them .

Next Years To Do and Not to Do A-M

I've been making a mental list the past few weeks of all the things that I want to change about next year. Things that I didn't see coming until they were flying up my nose with no way out. Just to make sure my lazy brain doesn't forget them over the summer, I've decided to keep the list here. Or at least start one. A-M to get me started and N-Z coming after I make it through the last day because I'm sure there will be more.

A. Limit and/or ban the use of markers: They only cause fights and have everyone trading away their crayons and no one ever having the right color when they need it.
B. Make students repeat back rules that they are breaking in an effort to make sure they know what they did wrong and how to fix it: I was good at this in the beginning but not so much anymore.
C. Make sure everyone is picking up after themselves. All the time. Every scrap of paper. Every napkin. Every snack wrapper. It's just polite and civilized.
D. On the same note, PUSH IN CHAIRS. Do you know how hard it is to walk through a classroom with 20 chairs blocking your every path?!? Fire hazard.
E. Do not tolerate it when kids pick on each other. I don't remember this being an issue when I was little, but I have 5 year old bullies telling each other their mothers, dads, and siblings are ugly. I don't even really know how it started but it's a lot harder to fix than prevent.
F. Keep scissors and glue in a separate location that is accessible but not readily accessible. This is something I've already done for this year but it will continue.
G. Don't let even one student do ANYTHING you don't want your entire class to be doing all at the same time.
H. Start working on "quiet, inside, working voices" on day 1. My class is LOUD. All the time. Being productive, but yelling. Whoops. The first grade teachers are going to hate me.
I. Repeat the expectations more. Lots more. Make them say them to me. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.
J. Use transitions.
K. Watch out for table desecrators. Do you know how many of my tables are scratched? All of them. Sad face.
L. Make them take work papers home. Every day. No more shoving three weeks of finished work into a drawer the size of a notebook.
M. A tutorial and demonstration on "How to Clean Free Choice." Otherwise, it's an hour of my weekend. Boo.

Spring Has Sprung!

This bulletin board now brightens up our hallway and is a great reminder that more warm days are headed our way. Thanks Mom for the cute froggy border. It's hard to notice in a picture but it's 3-D! Very fun but maybe not worth the effort and extra time it took to put up. The third quarter is over and there are only 9 weeks left this year. Wow. Spring break is this week, but I don't really have any plans. I spent yesterday spending my tax refund on spring clothes and will try to do grades this afternoon. Then, it's back to school later this week to pack some things up and ready myself for the home stretch. Looks to be a relaxing and enjoyable spring break. 70 degree weather will probably help a little bit too.

Ag Expo

On Wednesday, we took the students to the HS FFA Ag Expo. Since I recently had a student look at a picture, point, and then ask, "Is that a cow?" you might say that I was looking forward to it and the chance for my students to experience a little of what I love. Of course, they thought it smelled bad and the tractors were boring but they quickly warmed up to the idea when they saw the animals. We learned about dirt and made some dirt cake, rode pedal tractors, and petted horses, chicks, piglets, goats, sheet, and a bull. They probably could have stayed to pet the animals all day if we had let them but we only stayed an hour.