A Day in the Life

As I come closer to the time that I will be leaving my classroom, I've been trying to savor all the little moments during the day. So many things happen, and I often let them roll off my shoulder and out of mind as I try to herd my 21 kids around from day to day. I thought you might want to hear some of those little moments that have happened lately.

Last week, we had statewide achievement tests, and the kids (and ME!) feel a lot of pressure during that week. To reward my kids for working so hard, we've been reading a story about making piñatas and have started making some of our own. When we started the messy part of the work last Friday, I told the kids to wear old clothes. One of my little girls came in on Friday morning and told me her dad had told her which shirt to wear, but she had to be very careful not to get piñata glue on the picture of Jesus on the back of the shirt. I was curious about what she was wearing, and when I had her show me the shirt, I realized that "Jesus" was really Da Vinci's Vitruvian Man.

Also during the test last week, another little girl (one you've heard lots about) kept falling asleep during the test, and we would hear her head hit the desk. It's amazing, but the kids are so used to her doing this, that they never batted an eye. I would wake her up, and we would go on with the test. My proctor, however, was flipping out. She kept saying, "What's wrong with that child?!" Poor little thing is something special!

Today during our second round of tests, we were waiting on this same little girl to finish her test. She had gotten a little behind because she'd been so busy picking lice out of her hair. I kept having to tap her hand and point to her test, reminding her to keep working. Those little bugs were just too distracting for her!

Yesterday one of my children had a flip-out moment when she got something in her eye at recess. I was inside with recess detention children, and all of a sudden, I heard someone screaming my name and running through the hall. I went outside, and along came one of my students through the hallway. She was in panic mode, and I had the hardest time calming her down. I eventually got to look at her eye and told her it looked fine. I didn't see any redness or problems. She replied with, "Oh, okay," and suddenly she stopped screaming and was fine. All the drama!!

Today, about an hour into testing, one of my little girls started blowing her nose. That little blow became a giant honk, and she went on blowing like that for almost 5 minutes. The proctor and I were about to lose it! I finally went over there and told her she had to quit blowing her nose because she was going to get a headache. About 20 minutes later, she started the whole thing over again. And what do you know, another boy in the back picked up a tissue and joined in! We were like a giant honking, nose-blowing chorus. I couldn't hold in the giggles at the sound of that!

These kids are something else. I'm not sure I'll miss all the drama, but I will miss the kids. It's a little bittersweet as I think about walking away from my classroom in two weeks. What will happen to all the excitement in my life?!