Have you ever noticed how a perfectly flowing stream of ants can instantly turn chaotic if just a single grain of sand interrupts their path? In my mind I would think "Eh - a grain of sand. Go around it and all will be well." But ants don't think that way. They just begin running amuck as if the world has come to a screeching halt! Kids are freakishly similar to ants. They are small, all over the place, eating my snacks, and I'm pretty sure some of them have exoskeletons. Outside of those striking similarities, kids are very set in their routine and will erupt into chaos if anything breaks their routine. Lets just say that today a grain of MOUNTAIN broke their routine.
I walked into work all excited that the clocks were fixed (which meant the bells were back to ringing at the regularly scheduled times). For once, I was ENTIRELY prepared for my day (copies, centers, lesson plans, etc - the whole 9 yards). I remembered to pack a lunch so I didn't have to eat school lunch for the 10th day in a row. Then just a hair before 10:50 the fire drill startles the crud out of me. In a well-rehearsed manner my students and I exit the building. We are outside until 11:25. Thirty-five minutes isn't too bad except for the fact that it was half my prep and it threw the lunch schedule off by an hour and my kids took it as sign of sweet freedom. In their minds it was a party for the rest of the day. My little ants that once walked in such an orderly fashion are now cartwheeling and roundhouse kicking down the hall.
When 12:00 rolled around - our normal lunch time - the complaints came pouring in. "I'm hungry!", "My stomach hurts!", "When can we go to recess?", "Are we going to eat today?". Thank heavens I had a cereal stash. I divided and passed out the rations and took my one moment of peace for the day. We finally made it to lunch at 12:45 ... which turned out to be outside dining only adding to the chaos of the day.
Right when I thought there cannot be any more surprises the destroy this day the SKITTLE FIASCO reared its ugly head.
Since I wasn't going to be able to teach them anything the last 20 minutes of the day I opted for a much needed desk clean out. Reward for properly cleaning out a desk - ONE SKITTLE! Might as well be a million bucks. I set one girl's Skittle on her desk and within seconds it was GONE. MISSING..... dare I say it ............................. STOLEN! After dramatically rolling the bag closed and shoving it back on the shelf I declared that not another single Skittle will be seen in the classroom unless the culprit turned themselves in. FINALLY the little klepto confessed and I shipped their tushies home for a 4-day, stress-free (hopefully), No Child Left Behind (haha - I'm so funny) weekend.
Here's to next week ... a better grouping of days then this week!"
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