And that's how wacky Wednesday began...

I spent most of my time before school started yesterday looking for my phone.  I knew I'd brought it to school; I'd listened to a podcast on my drive.  I thought I remembered unplugging it from the car and putting it in my bag.  It was NOT in my bag.  I looked in every nook and cranny.  I looked in my coat pockets.  I finally ventured out in the subfreezing morning to check my car.

It wasn't there.

Then I remembered that this had happened before and it had been in my lunch bag, in the fridge, in the faculty room.

I went and sure enough, there it was, chilling (literally and figuratively) in the little outside pocket of my lunch bag.  When I stuck it in my big Mary Poppins bag, that's where it had landed.

Next time I'm going to look there first.

During math, my BYU teacher was called out for about 15 minutes.  When she came back, we were doing the Mexican Hat Dance.  It had nothing to do with our lesson, but everything to do with behavior and the need to get them focused.  We did the Mexican Hat Dance, then we breathed together (using Sam, our sloth lamp friend).  

A student gave a loud and obnoxious yawn and I said, "Stop. That." and I took away one of her stars.

A few minutes later, Matt came in and said he'd seen my custodial request about a flickering light.  He said, "Riley's in a meeting, so I'll get it."  He dragged over a chair and cheerfully said, "This is an OSHA violation." 

I herded the kids out of the way who sat under the light.  He climbed up on the chair and took down 3 fluorescent light bulbs.  He handed them to students one at a time and said, "Don't drop that."

I was stressed by the whole situation.  I mean, I know these kids.  I wouldn't give them anything I seriously didn't want them dropping.

We finally got math back on track.  At least three students fell out of their chairs because they weren't sitting on them properly.  They were putting away clipboards and running and like I always do, I said, "No running!" A student who was running anyway tripped on a chair and hit her face on a desk and had a big shiner to show for it.

I think I'm going to get one of those signs:  0 Days without an Accident.

When they were at PE, my BYU teacher said, "I could tell something had happened while I was gone.  Two students' desks were switched when I returned."

I had forgotten all about that.

I explained to her why we were doing the Mexican Hat Dance and why I'd been so snappish about a yawn.  They'd all been tired and droopy and this particular student kept saying, "I'm so tired.  I'm so bored."  All the while she'd yawn in an exaggerated fashion.  

So I made everyone dance and then after taking away a star, there was no more yawning.

We are working on editing paragraphs that they are writing.  I usually have a running list they add their names to when they are ready to meet with me about editing.  Yesterday I rewrote the previous day's list on the board.  I told them we were working on editing.  I told them what they could do if they were done writing and waiting for me.

They got to work.

I called the first person on the list.  He came happily to my desk and sat across from me and smiled.  I said, "Where's your paragraph?"

His smile faltered a little.  "My paragraph?"

"Yes," I said. "What are we working on right now."

"iReady?" he guessed.

I told him we were doing writing and he had put his name on the list to meet with me.

"That is not my handwriting.  I didn't write my name."

"You did yesterday.  Where is your paragraph?"

"I turned it in. I think it's done."

"You didn't and it's not done.  Go find it."

He went back to his desk and I watched as he finally retrieved a mangled paper from his desk and got to work.

I called the next student on the list.  She was also empty handed.  "Where's your paragraph?" I asked.  She went back to her desk to get the Valentine writing worksheet they were supposed to work on while they were waiting for me.  "Your paragraph about a biome?  The one we've been working on all week?"

"Ohhhhhh."

Another student came up to me and looked beseechingly at me.  "I can't find my paper," he said.

I said, "When I was growing up, my best friend was named Marie.  I'm going to tell you the same thing Marie's mom told her kids when they couldn't find something.  'It's not on my face.'  Your paper is in your desk. Go find it."

He ambled back to his desk.

I turned to my practicum student and said, "I'm going to lose my mind."

She said, "I can see why."

We did the grade spelling bee in the afternoon.  We ran out of third grade words.  Partway through the fourth grade words, I sent Miriam to go find the fifth grade words.

The word one of the students got out on from the fifth grade list was diablo.  Diablo?  I don't know.  At least it ended the spelling bee.  We needed to declare a winner because the natives (all the rest of the third graders) were definitely getting restless and it was past recess.

It seems enough days like this would happen that they would stop surprising me, but I'm still sort of surprised.

This is my life?!?

Mother of six

 I know several women who are mothers of six children.  They're pretty much unconquerable.  I think you about have to be.

One of my students had a birthday and his mother (she's a mother of six) dropped off treats.  She brought donuts, neatly cut in two.  She brought two plastic gloves for passing out donuts and a stack of napkins. She brought a gf cookie in a ziplock bag for my student with celiac. 

I mean, I would follow this woman into battle!

After school I talked on the phone with one of my room mothers.  The other room mother can't come to the Valentine's Day party, so this room mother had talked to the mother of six about helping.  (She usually doesn't come to parties because she has a little one at home still.)  The mother of six gave my room mother an idea that she'd done before with one of her other kids.

Here's the idea:

You move all the desks.  You get squares of waxed paper.  The kids stand on the waxed paper and "ice skate" around the room.

She said when she did it for a class party before, they skated for 45 minutes and had a marvelous time.

I had so many questions.

"How does the wax paper attach to the shoes?"

Apparently it doesn't need to, they just stand on it.

We decided we'd be real sticklers about people staying in control so no one gets hurt and we decided to have bingo and some coloring pages in our back pockets in case the idea doesn't work.

But I think it will work.  I'll put my money on a mother of six.

Those ladies are amazing.

Ugh

 My BYU practicum student taught math yesterday.  We talked about it afterward and she said, "That was awful!"  I told her that it wasn't.  The kids were a little nuts.  I conceded it wasn't her best lesson yet, but I still maintained that the kids were part of the issue.

Then I taught all afternoon and the crazy only intensified.  I don't know what it was.  They were at once spacey, droopy and hyper.  How is that a thing?

After recess girls came in crying and I briefly tried to unravel the girl drama, but I decided I didn't have the emotional fortitude for it.

I left one girl at my desk to cry it out until she was ready to rejoin the class.

Some days are just like that.

Weekend

Friday I got a lot of the items done on my to do list during my teacher work day.  It was not such an unreasonable list after all!  That made me really happy, but I was also exhausted.

I came home and lay down on the couch for a while before rallying and packing my bag. Adam and I headed to Cedar City.

Earlier in the day he had gone to the Provo City Center temple with 22 young women and 5 young men for baptisms.  That was the only temple the young men went to, but the young women (and their leaders and Adam) continued to the Payson temple for more baptisms.

Later Friday, they went to the Cedar City temple, but Adam didn't join them there, because he was scraping me off the couch (and I had to work so we couldn't leave that early).

I was tired enough that I slept better than I usually do in a hotel.

Saturday morning we drove to St. George and joined everyone at the Red Cliffs temple.

  

It was beautiful, as temples are.  

The girls were very happy to see Adam and asked, "Are you baptizing us?"  They preferred him to a random stranger!

I sat with the leaders and loved being there together.  The temple is always a good idea.  

Our next stop was the St. George temple.  

Another gorgeous place.  An adult son of one of the YW leaders and brother of a YW, joined us so he did half of the baptizing.  The font there is the original one Brigham Young designed and I wondered how many baptisms have been performed there!

The entire activity was wonderful.  The girls were baptized and confirmed for over 550 people, who now have the choice to accept those ordinances and continue their progression.  That's pretty amazing.

(I told Adam that for him to be able to perform that many baptisms without getting super tired is a spiritual gift.)

We sat in the very pleasant St. George sunshine outside the temple and the YW president asked Adam to give some remarks.  He kept it very brief, because that kid knows how to read the room.  I think everyone was tired.  The YW president hugged me and thanked me for coming, and I thanked her for having us.  It was a blessing for me to be involved.

Adam and I left the group and went to visit his cousin Pam.  How we love her!  She lost her husband a few years ago and moved to St. George to be closer to her grandchildren (1000% understandable).  It was our first time visiting her in her new home.  Ever since I've known Pam, I've been struck by her goodness and kind heart.  She is a great example to me of grace in adversity.

I've been reading about Adam and Pam's great grandparents leaving Denmark to join the Saints in Utah.  I think they are so proud of Pam!

After a busy weekend and a busy Sunday, we only had our girl for Sunday dinner.

She looks sweet but she annihilated us at Parcheesi.

Grateful Friday

 It was a very intense and out of the ordinary and hard week.  

And I survived it!

We were all dragging around there last night and ready to be DONE.  Today is a teacher work day and it will be nice to keep my nose to the grindstone.  If I do half of my very ambitious list, I will be happy about it.

The third grade passed over 1000 lessons on iReady in the month of January, so we watched the movie Wonder yesterday afternoon.  It is rated PG, so we messaged parents to let them know and tell them we would provide an alternative if they wished.  As far as I know, every parent was OK with it.

The part that made it PG, is that the teenage sister kisses her teenage boyfriend.

The third graders died.  Picture 80 children squirming and writhing and squealing and covering their faces.  Actually the whole thing was kind of like watching a pot of boiling water.  We all spread out in Alissa's room and no one sat still.  At least ten kids were popping up at any given time.  One of my students walked over to me and handed me her tooth that she'd just pulled out.  I just took it in my hand (what else was I going to do?) and the BYU teachers died about that.

I guess when you've been a mother + a teacher of third graders for a while a random tooth isn't going to faze you.

She went and washed her hands and then came back and wanted her tooth again.  

It was another night of parent teacher conferences.  One of my English learners came with his mom.  We communicated pretty well, but not perfectly.  One thing I did understand was that she brought me an ice cream cake from Dairy Queen.  A few days earlier, my students were talking about their favorite foods and they asked me mine.

I had said ice cream, so my student had his mom bring me an ice cream cake from Dairy Queen!

It was unexpected and unnecessary to bring a gift, but also very kind.  I took it to the faculty room freezer in between conferences.

I continue to be grateful for that place and this life.  Even on my hard and long weeks, I'm grateful to be working at a cause we believe in along with my friends. I'm grateful to be the teacher who ties shoes and confiscates stuffed animals during math and gets handed a tooth every once in a while.  You never know what is going to happen and I wouldn't have it any other way.

The spelling bee

I've never had such an intense spelling bee.  

I have many competitive students and they were invested.  We had an exhaustive conversation before it started about all the procedures and hypothetical outcomes.  We were competing for the three top spots.  They had questions. 

What if there are only four people left and two people miss a word?  What if everyone misses a word?  What if no one misses a word?

One student wondered what we would do if we ran out of words and I didn't know what to say to that, so I said we would panic.

Then I said, "Actually, I will get more words, but we may need to finish later if that happens."

I offered them a piece of candy if they were brave enough to participate.

Someone suggested I give them the candy later, since they couldn't spell with their mouths full.  They were really thinking of everything!

So we began.

One student quickly said, "That's OK, good try," when her friend got out.

One student buried his head in embarrassment/disappointment after getting out but made a quick recovery.

Most of them walked back to their desks with their heads held high when they were eliminated.

One student sobbed big shaking sobs when he got out.  During recess, when I was trying to calm him down, I asked if he had studied, he hadn't.  He was so inconsolable after about 30 minutes, I took him to the office.

Three students were too afraid to try.

One student studied harder than anyone, came in second, and was gracious about it.

One student won and had zero amount of gloating, but smiled a happy/relieved smile.

There are lots of ways to be a person and lots of reactions to the class spelling bee.  Personal disappointments and the success of others abound in this life of ours.  

They taught me with their reactions:

• Prepare if it matters to you
• Ask questions
• Be brave
• Be gracious
• Be resilient
• Be kind

It's only Wednesday?!?

 I slept abysmally Monday night and yesterday was rough.  I was very tired and it was a day back after a sub, first day with my practicum student, someone's birthday and parent teacher conferences, so a twelve hour day.

I slept over nine hours last night and I'm ready to go back.

Also, Adam and Mark went for Chinese food last night while I was gone and this was on the fridge this morning:

So I'm looking forward to that....

I am liking my practicum student.  During my prep yesterday we were in the work room assembling phonics packets and talking about following the Spirit.  

Utah County is such a unique place to live!

Conferences were mostly really good.  Since I don't have any super tricky behavior situations right now, I didn't have to have any of those conversations.  I had a few conferences that explain so very much about the students.  One filled me with compassion and I think I will look at the student differently now.  I hope I will.

Matt brought Olive Garden food for us for dinner and he was pushing breadsticks on us and telling us caffeine was in the fridge.  He said, "C'mon, you've got to carb load!  You need energy!"

If we could ever bottle up his energy, we wouldn't need another source.

I ended up the night with a really good experience.  One of my little favorites who works harder than probably the rest of them combined, has lived in the United States for two years.  She struggles, but her growth has been phenomenal.  I loved showing her mom.  Her mom's eyes got a little teary and she said, "You have made me so happy."

Same!

I got an F

 It was a hectic day and I left school late and with unfinished things to do, but I got through it.

The sub didn't share hot celebrity gossip, but I do apparently make capital letter F incorrectly in cursive according to her and she "taught for 30 years," so there's that.

She is very valid in her criticism, because penmanship was hands down my worst grade on my report card in elementary school, but it cracked me up all the same.

I mean, who does that?

A sub who taught for 30 years, I guess.

Our data day was useful and productive and hard brain work.  I think my BYU teacher seems like a good one.  Parent teacher conferences are today and Thursday and I'll survive this week.

I will.

I'm going to keep reminding myself.

Weekend

Before I left school on Friday, I got out my February picture books and hung up a bunch of hearts and changed the calendar to February.

Could anything be better than hanging up a bunch of red hearts?  (I have some at home too.)

Today I have a sub because we are doing a third grade data dive and I also, coincidentally, have a BYU practicum student starting in my class.  Oh, and third grade has before school traffic duty.  What a week!

I had a dream Sunday morning right before I woke up that my BYU practicum student came in about five minutes after school started (and she is supposed to get there 30 minutes before it starts) and she had three people with her to carry all of her stuff.  They do a really brief get-to-know-you presentation for the class--usually a little slide show--but she had brought props.

She was getting set up and I was trying to figure out where the sub was.  She finally started her presentation and her multimedia presentation wasn't working and she was really floundering, but I was texting the office about the sub.  The sub finally walked in and told me she was late because of some celebrity gossip she was reading.

Finally I could go to my meeting, but my desk was gone (because the district painters decided to paint my classroom) and I couldn't find anything I needed.

I told Adam and he said, "Sounds like you're really confident about today...."

Does it sound that way?!?