Tears of Hysteria.

Well, I didn't think I'd have the chance to update this weekend since Miss K was supposed to visit. Unfortunately her car died 60 miles into her trip down here... so she's had to postpone her visit. :( Thankfully she got her car towed and everything's okay.

This week was too much of a week. K put on his moaning cow attitude THREE MAJOR TIMES.

Imagine this. It is Picture Day and all the children are lined up, tallest to shortest. The children start to get antsy as they await to be placed on the risers. One little boy decides to start touching another student, even after his teacher told him not to put his hands on another student. The teacher chastised his behavior. The boy starts crying. The crying escalates into wailing. You would think you were in a preschool classroom. The wailing worsens into sobbing-moaning. Finally, the class is corralled onto the risers and the boy falls behind, still crying. The photographer gives a look to the teacher like, "Oh geez. How could you be so mean!?" The "cruel" teacher then tells the boy to get into his spot in the picture because there are four classes waiting to be photographed. The boy still sobs his eyes out and continues to do so through the entire photographic process. The class only has two tries for a good picture, and so you will see a tear-ridden, "My world has ended" boy in the third row to the right. Watch for him. He will be forever known as the Boy Who Cried in Miss F's Class Picture, 2008.

So the third time this hysterical sobbing happened, I told him VERY FIRMLY that it was NOT acceptable second grade behavior, and that I would expect it from a preschooler. What? What were those magical words? Yes. Apparently being compared to a preschooler could halt all waterworks and sour faces. That's all it took!?!?!?! Needless to say, I called his Dad and told him about these incidents. I'm not surprised; the same behavior happens at home as well.

T also decided to rear her bully-head. She put glue all over her chair and tried to blame it on K (the reason of his third hysterical episode of the week). Three other students AND I saw her do it. Well, add another kid to the list of bawling hysterically because she was at it. When I called T's mom to report the incident, I got her voicemail... and normally I really don't like leaving those kinds of messages, but it was necessary. It was Friday. And I wanted to go home.

Summarily to say, I am glad this week is over. I can't believe it's May next week. It's CRAZY! Less than one-and-a-half months of school left. Yikes!

- Miss Chelsea :)

A bit o' quote.

It's getting to be a pretty busy month. May will be busier once it starts the "end of year" bustle.

GREAT NEWS!!
Since we never used our two snow days, the School Board approved a four-day Memorial Day weekend ANDDDDDD the last day of school will now be Friday, June 13th (instead of Monday, the 16th). YAYAY! We were pretty stoked.

Now here are some quotes for your reading pleasure...

T: Miss F, you're pretty.
Me: Thank you.
J: OF COURSE, Miss F is pretty. She's a lady.

****

V: M is being shellfish! She is being shellfish!
[V has a bit of a speech problem, and this one really amused me. I didn't know that I had sea creatures in my classroom.]

****

G: [This rose] is for you, Miss F! It was over the fence so we had to work together to get it.
[I love it when my "life lessons" make it into their everyday play. :) :) Working together has been a theme all year for us. :)]

****

Mrs. M sends me Snapple Caps via TXT message a few times a week (which, by the way, I want to get on a license plate as soon as I can figure out my titling number on my car registration: SNPLCAP). The best one this past week was "A goldfish has the attention span of 3 seconds." Her attached message was, "That's probably longer than your students!" ... it's funny because it's truuuuuuuuuue.

We've started growing our flower seeds inside the classroom now... we should be able to go outside to plant them in a few weeks.

- Miss Chelsea :)

The Good, the Bad, and the Ridiculous.

Wow, definitely time for an update. A lot has happened in the past month. Some good, some bad... some ridiculous.

I'll start with the bad as to end on a more positive note.

The Bad
Over Spring Break, one of our second graders passed away due to a fatal asthma attack. Our school has unfortunately seen a lot of death this year. It's eerie. First, a teacher passed, then parents, and now a student. He was such a sweet little boy who always listened and paid attention when he came to my class on Fridays. Mrs. A, Ms. T, and I went to his funeral this past Tuesday. It was the first funeral I've ever been to. The thought that kept going through my head was that "he's never going to wake up." I wanted to avoid seeing his body, but it was an open casket when we first walked in and there he was. Thankfully, the initial shock is now over. I didn't know him well... so the shock didn't last for too long. It's just heartbreaking that a young child was taken back home so early in his life. I'm praying that his family is doing all right.

The Good
We made a huge purchase order right before Spring Break. Second grade is FINALLY going to get magnets, liquid measurement matierals, life cycle tools, butterfly kits, and etc... I made my case to the principal, and she gave us an extra $500 to get science supplies. How cool is that? I'm ALSO getting maps. Like real maps on a roll. To hang up. I can adequately teach these subjects now!

I've been dubbed the "science person" in second grade for some reason. Every time I talk to the principal, she mentions science in relation to me. She was in a VERY good mood this past week. I am bummed that I couldn't go to the Science Conference in July since I'm working at SIG again this year. Mrs. P said I was the one she wanted to send.

I just found out my Perkins loan could get forgiven in 5 years. 100%. BUT. I have to stay in a low-income school for that long. I'm getting 15% forgiven just for this year... and another 15% next year. As much as I have complained about CPI, I'm questioning whether I should stay next year.

However, I do not want to be one of those people who complains... AND had the chance to change the situation... and decided not to do anything about it. So as of now, I'm divided.

The Ridiculous
Here are some quotes to really remember.

IK: "Did you go to college, Miss F?!"
Me: "I had to... AND I went to another school after college, too."
IK: "Did you go to Mom school?!"
Me: "No, but if they had one I'd love to go! Did you go to Mom school, IK?"
IK: "I went to Mom AND Dad school."

Me: "Can you find a musical instrument at a grocery store?"
K: "Yeah!"
Me: "Umm, not really, sweetie..."
K: "Yeah huh, you can buy a flute there! And a flute is a musical instrument!"

DS was given a writing assignment about something "you and a friend do... and how you help each other."
Well, I went around looking at papers... and I saw DS'. It is as follows:

"DS and Miss F like to wickle are [sic] fingers.
DS and Miss F like to go on a picnic."

This was accompanied by a picture of DS and me wiggling our fingers (we do this when we find a vocab word in our reading). My face was clearly colored over with a white crayon. The picture of DS and me on a picnic apparently happens during the summer because my face was clearly colored in with a brown crayon. So apparently, I've gone on a picnic with DS before. haha I somehow missed that invitation.

T: "Miss F, I looove you. [hug] You're my best friend."
[Why don't these kids have best friends their own age?!?! haha]

My kids are on this kick of recycling right now. I couldn't be more proud since that's one little glimpse at being socially aware. We now have a recycling box for paper and everything that was initiated by A. So proud!

G: "I'm recycling this spoon into a shovel!"
S: "Someone's mouth was on that!"
G: "[peeved] I'm not using the mouth!!"

Well, there was probably more, but it's all blurry. Maybe I'll do an addendum when I find the paper I wrote stuff down on...

- Miss Chelsea :)