Second Grade Funnies

Two funny things that happened in second grade today:

1. A student came up to me during a time when the kids know it is perfectly acceptable to go to the restroom if they need it (there are lots of times they know that they should not even ask because the answer is no every time). So, this little boy comes up to me and tells me he needs to go to the restroom. I was about to say that's fine, but he apparently thought he needed to justify why he was asking as if I was going to tell him no. "Do you see these pants I am wearing? (lifts up his leg above the table and points to his khaki shorts) I have to go to the bathroom because you will be able to see the pee on these!" I laughed and told him to go. What I'm wondering is would him needing to go to the restroom have been different if he had on different pants that you would not be able to "see the pee"?!? hahaha

2. The other day I posted about a little girl who kept touching my toenail while I was teaching the kids on the carpet. Apparently my toes are extremely exciting, because today while I was reading our chapter from My Father's Dragon, I looked down and she had leaned over and was smelling my toes. um, gross! My feet don't stink or anything, but still! Why on earth would you want to smell somebody's toes?!? Too freaking funny!

Changes

I've been a little vague about my school situation this week because, well, this is a public blog and I am a public school teacher. For all I know parents of children at my school could have stumbled across this so I have to watch what I say and when I say it. Up until all the changes were made official, it wasn't my place to say anything.

Now that all is said and done it is safe to let you in on the happenings at school this week. Due to extremely low enrollment (across the board) our school had to lose 2 teachers. When this happens the teachers are chosen to leave completely based on the last one hired rule. The last one hired is a 5th grade teacher, so she has to move to a new school. However, the low numbers are not in 5th grade, but in 4th, so one of our 4th grade teachers has to move to 5th grade to take her place. That means that ALL of 4th grade has to be shuffled around into 4 classes instead of 5, and that class of 5th graders gets a new teacher. The second to last one hired is a second grade teacher. She is moving to a new school next week, and we had to divide up the kids from her class among the remaining 5 teachers. Due to this move, yesterday afternoon I received 3 new kids to my classroom. Lucky for me, I got three really awesome kids (one of which I even taught last year)! Still, going from 18 kids (oh my gosh SO nice) to 21 kids (yikes that's a lot) in one afternoon is a little rough.

As I said the other day, I am really counting my blessings right now. As far as "last one hired" goes, I was third to last. I would be the next one to have to leave. Now, stick with me for a second here, this will all come together ... Over the summer our reading specialist moved and one of our classroom teachers took over her job. The classroom job was never filled because of the low enrollment. This means that if that classroom teacher had not taken that reading specialist job, if that job had been filled with someone from outside of the building instead, I too would be moving to a new school this week. I feel like I dodged a major bullet. I must admit, it is slightly scary that we have such low enrollment that we lost 3 teaching positions this year. Apparently that has never happened in the history of the school before. And now, even though this is my third year teaching at the same school, I am back to being the last one hired! Seriously?!? Very uncommon to teach somewhere that in 3 years no one would leave and you would still be so far down on the totem pole. So, as for next year and being the last one hired, who knows. I'll cross that bridge when I come to it.

There were no small number of events leading up to this exact place. If any number of things had happened differently, I would have a new job at a new school starting next Tuesday. Everything had to happen just so in order for me to keep my job at my school this year. And I won't go into details, but timing was a very important factor. Timing of students registering, timing of the classroom teacher taking the reading specialist job, timing of when exactly I was given the okay to move to second grade ... if the timing had been off even one time the outcome would have been completely different.

So as I said, I am counting my blessings. The plans for my life are out of my hands, but I am giving thanks to Him for orchestrating the little things to prepare the path ahead of me.

In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct your paths - Proverbs 3:6

The chosen few

Today I got an email from our school secretary that this second grader (who is not in my class) had brought a cake in to the office, had requested that certain teachers receive a piece, and I was one of the select chosen few. When I went to the office to get a piece of this cake, I found paper plates next to the cake which he had labeled with certain teachers names whom he wanted to share his cake with. How freaking cute is that?!? He baked (or had his parents bake) a cake, he thought about who he wanted to give it to (there were about 7 people), and he labeled the plates to bring to school to make sure only those people got some. LOVE that kid! :)

Lots of school news to share, but it will have to wait for tomorrow. I am SO looking forward to having a 3 day weekend! It is definitely well deserved haha

Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies

After this week is over and all the changes have been made, I will blog about what has been going on at my school this week. If you have talked to me, you already know, but if you are one of those people who gathers all information about my life through my blog, you will just have to wait.

Because of what is going on at school this week, we are having a "we're going to miss you party" after school tomorrow, and I volunteered to make the cookies. I had this oatmeal chocolate chip m&m cookie recipe I had been wanting to try, and when a certain person mentioned they love oatmeal chocolate chip cookies I knew this would be the perfect occasion to bake them.

The recipe is really simple, which is why I thought they would be so good to make. However, this turned into a baking disaster. In retrospect, I should have used my brain and I probably could have avoided this. I'm definitely no pro baker though, so I pretty much always stick with the recipe. So, I mixed up all the dry ingredients and then started to add the wet ones. The recipe said to add "half a cup of butter, melted" so I did just that. As soon as I put the melted butter in I thought "this can't be right!" because it made the batter way to goopy, plus, it was melting all the chocolate chips. I figured I would try it anyway. This was the result:

They aren't burned like they look; they are so dark because of the chocolate melting as I mentioned before. They couldn't even come off the cookie sheet without breaking into like 5 pieces though. (they actually tasted okay ... not amazing, but okay, despite how they look).

Obviously, these were NOT going to cut it for tomorrow. And I obviously had to have something to bring, so I whipped up another batch really quickly. This time, I defrosted the butter until it could be mixed by spoon, but was NOT melted. This worked MUCH better! haha Here is the result:

These are delicious! Exactly what I was hoping for! Seriously, how much better do they look?!? haha!

And then, just to do something nice for someone, I made a gift to go along with them:

For when they need something to brighten up their day :)

Could you pass the test?

As a teacher, this had me laughing so hard!

Emails from Crazy People

Sadly, I have to admit that the part about the teacher thinking the parent can't follow directions is SO right on! The part about the glue stick rings especially true. I get so annoyed when kids come in with the wrong size glue stick! It makes a difference!!! I can't even tell you how many times I have said, "why in the world would they send this in? Can't they read what we asked for? what were they thinking?!?" love it! haha

My favorite is the hand sanitizer. They are supposed to bring in a bottle of hand sanitizer as one of their supplies. Every year I have had at least one bring in one of those tiny individual purse size bottles of hand sanitizer. Not exactly going to work lol! OH, and 2 years ago one of the items on the list was baby wipes. One child brought in facial wipes. Now what in the world are we going to use facial wipes for in kindergarten?!?

Second Grade Funny

Random second grade amusement for the day:

Today I was reading Goldilocks and the Three Bears to my class and discussing "just right" books. When I looked up I saw this scene in front of me: a little boy, sitting with his legs crossed, bent over, biting his sock, and using his teeth to lift his leg up off the ground.

Seriously?!?

I couldn't even control the laughter!

Some people never learn

Today one of my students didn't close up their water bottle (again!!) and knocked over their water onto their desk, thus spilling it all over their work (again!!!), for something like the 5th time in a week. I wasn't really upset about it, it was easy to clean up, but my first reaction was still to say, "how many times have I told you .... when are you going to learn?!?".

And then it hit me like a ton of bricks. I swear, sometimes God must be ripping out His hair screaming at me, "how many times have I told you ... when are you going to learn?!?" I am JUST like that child that has been told something over and over, refuses to listen, doesn't believe that I know what I'm talking about, and doesn't do what I have asked. Apparently it's a lesson that I need to have beat into me over and over before I will get it. Apparently I have to fall on my face and fail a million times before I will understand; just like this poor kid in my class that can't remember to put the lid on their water bottle.

How many times have I told you:

...I will be with you; I will never leave you nor forsake you - Joshua 1:5

When are you going to learn:

"For I know the plans I have for you" declares the Lord, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future." - Jeremiah 29:11

In other words, "How many times have I told you that it will be okay and I will be here to help you through it? When are you going to learn that I know what I am doing?"

I am counting my blessings this week. Things are far from perfect, and far from what I wanted, but as it turns out (which should hardly be shocking, but of course still is), what I thought was the worst thing that could ever happen to me, has become the exact thing that has kept me from something that would have been far worse (vague, I know, but this is a public blog and I'm a teacher so we deal). Patty pointed out to me that God must have been looking out for me, and she was right. While moving to second grade wasn't the best thing in the world (and honestly, still isn't the greatest), it turns out that being moved before school started was really a blessing in disguise.

Now, if I could only learn to listen in the first place ....

... chances are about as good as my 7 year old remembering to put the lid on her water bottle tomorrow. haha