Deep Breaths

I have to write this post quickly because I realized I forgot my laptop charger in my classroom. ALL WEEKEND. I may suffer withdrawal symptoms later today and especially tonight. I guess I could use Rob’s desktop but I find his keyboard difficult to type on. Does anyone else have that problem? New keyboards are hard to get used to using? Agh, I’m wasting precious battery life with this ramble. Onto the school week!

Monday felt very similar to how I’m feeling right now sans laptop charger. It was just madness and confusion and I couldn’t decide whether I wanted to:

      a)    go cry in the corner; or     

      b)   put my head through a wall.

I decided to go with secret option c and run out the doors at lunch and give myself a nice break in the car with some Christmas music.

I have to get one thing straight: my kids were not being bad. Not at all. It was because I had been gone for three literacy periods last week (refer to previous post) and I was determined to finish the task that the supply teachers didn’t get around to doing. I guess it was so far beyond the point of instruction that my kids were in a panic because they didn’t know what to do or they didn’t have the confidence to do it independently, and I had 18 little children poking me, tapping me, lips quivering, panicked faces, following me around the classroom, calling my name, elongating the second syllable (Lawreeeeeeeence). It was just too much.

On my little break at lunch, I thought for a moment and asked myself, “Is it worth it?” I’m talking about the assignment, not the profession. That’s clear that up. I decided to go back after lunch and scrap the assignment and just move on. I could  get a mark out of them with something else. I think they were equally as relieved when I told them we were moving on from Little Red Riding Hood (that’s the writing task that had us all flustered) and move onto the adaptation of Beauty and the Beast. They were thrown because I didn’t read them the original, but I explained that there just wasn’t enough time. It’s okay because they loved “No Lie, I Acted Like a Beast” and did a wonderful job at writing the final point of view recount. Finally, I could breathe again.

This little situation really taught me how to roll with the punches. The teaching profession requires you to be flexible, and I totally am with a lot of things; but I’m also insanely obsessive compulsive with so many other things that I was finding it hard to let go of my plan. Sometimes, you have to wave goodbye to your control and start anew. The kids were happy, I was happy, and I got a great final writing piece to mark.

The rest of the week went uphill from there. They were pretty sad when I told them that due to the cold weather, it was time to shut down Candy Land. They booed, they pouted, they BEGGED for me to keep it open. They suggested that when I teach them Grade Two (haha, cute) we could open it once more. I gave them their final math tasks and I was so happy to see that they could do it independently. Goodbye, Candy Land. You made math fun for the month of November.

I’m going to go into detail about our Christmas plans in another post, but I’ll touch on it here. We are doing a fundraising project for those who are less fortunate, so to REALLY end off Candy Land, my Grade Ones and the other Grade One class made two gingerbread houses on Friday. We will raffle them off next week to raise money for our project. The kids loved it and we all had a lot of fun making them together.

There’s a lot more to tell from our week in Grade One, but to do that, I’d have to explain all about the big Christmas plan. Maybe I’ll make a mid-week post. I will tell you that I stayed at school until 5:00 on Friday getting ready for December. I know I’m crazy. It was Friday night! I got rid of our November stuff, put out some December materials, and hung some decorations to make the room more festive. I hope the kids love it as much as I do when they come in on Monday.

Okay. Time to get this on Blogger and upload the pictures. I’m at 51% so I think I should be good to go. Think of me as you’re on your computers today. Mine will most likely be sitting sad and unused on the coffee table, and I will be angrily hitting the backspace key on Rob’s keyboard in the other room.

Grade One creativity is so beautiful, isn't it? Don't worry. They all had to wash their hands before touching anything. 

Head over and visit my friend, Sam for her Holiday Hoopla package. I used her cards and adapted them to make a Math Match Up game. Now that the kids know how to represent numbers and skip count, this will be a great math centre activity. Print, laminate, cut, repeat. That was my Monday night.

I had some great door ideas planned from Pinterest, but I realized I was being too ambitious. Maybe next year...

19 days until Christmas break!