Prince/Princess Day!

I think if I put this on facebook I might lose some facebook friends, but I really wasn't all that into the royal wedding. Sure I like myself a good wedding, but other than wanting to see a few pictures, I could really have cared less. I did not wake up in the middle of the night, I did not make any special treats, and I did not join anyone for a viewing party. However, one of my teammates was very into it, and when we got to school this morning she was so excited about it she wanted to come up with some fun activities we could incorporate into our day. Given that the royal wedding was today, and we are in the middle of our fairy tale unit, prince and princess day was born!

This morning, after getting our spelling test out of the way, the girls made glittery tiaras and the boys made glittery crowns. After they dried, I walked around stapling the band on each one and declaring "I crown you princess ____" or "I crown you prince ____" oh my gosh did the kids LOVE it! They were giggling up a storm and were so excited about it. We had a nice little discussion about how a prince or princess would need to behave since others look up to them and are always watching them, and talked about how they had to have prince and princess behavior in order to wear their crown at school today. All day, for the kids who got to wear the crowns, I referred to them as prince or princess. "Princess ___ could you please bring me the glue" etc. They totally got into it!

After lunch they wrote stories about themselves as a prince or princess and I got some of the best writing they've ever done! I was so impressed! They then got to design their own castle and glue their work to the picture. I'm telling you, some of the best work they've done all year! Great stories about princes fighting off dragons to save the princess and then whisking them away to a castle. Such great imaginations. :) Then, this afternoon we had a little geography lesson and talked about where London is etc. The kids made flags and recorded information learned about where the prince and princess live.

I taught the girls how to do the princess wave, so as they left they paraded through the hallway wearing their crowns, waving their flags, and doing their princess waves. So cute!

Turned out to be a really unexpected fun day!

Pencils

So every year the kids come to school with a million supplies. As part of their supplies they each have to bring a pack of 24 pencils. I am one of those teachers that regulates pencils. I don't just let the kids keep them in their desk and use a sharpener when they want, because let's face it, first graders feel their pencil has to be sharpened after every single word they write. So in my classroom I have two pencil cups, one for sharp pencils, and one for broken pencils. If your pencil breaks, you put it in one cup and take a new one from the other. Every couple days I use my electric sharpener to sharpen all the broken pencils. In three years I have NEVER had a problem with this system. There have always been enough pencils that when I go to sharpen them, if I notice one has no eraser, I usually would just throw it away and get a new one. At the end of the year I always end up sending home extra pencils with the kids because there is SUCH a surplus.

This year however, is a whole other story! Let this be an example of the kind of kids I'm dealing with here: EVERY day I have to sharpen pencils, and on a fairly regular basis by noon the next day I have to sharpen more because so many have been broken. If I get out new pencils, the erasers are gone on every single one by the end of the day. I have a kid who chews on pencils (and I have no idea who it is). Not just lightly, I mean flat out gnaws on the pencil until the metal part pops off and the wood is shaved down almost to the lead. One apparently likes to break pencils over their knee, and no amount of punishment seems to put an stop to it. Someone has a pencil sharpener hidden somewhere in the room (not the desk because I searched those) and often will sharpen the wrong end of the pencil so both sides have a point on it. And lord knows where half the pencils go, they just flat out disappear.

In previous years I have sent home packages of pencils at the end of the year. This year, we ran out of pencils a month ago. This is insanity! I flat out refuse to buy more pencils for them! What is it about this group?? There must be something in the water... haha

Something is wrong here ...

There is something seriously wrong with this picture:

me: yesterday we had a big problem with kids in this class climbing on the fence by the road at recess. Maybe you didn't know for SURE yesterday, but you know for sure today. There will be NO CLIMBING ON THE FENCE. none. not at all. Don't even go so close to it that a teacher thinks you might be thinking about climbing on it. Do you understand?

kids: yes ma'am

me: okay, repeat after me "I will not climb on the fence"

kids: repeat in unison 4 times in a row.

me: okay, so we are clear. There will be NO CLIMBING ON THE FENCE at recess today. If you choose to climb on the fence, then you will be written up. Is that clear?

kids: yes ma'am

me: okay, go get in line for recess, but remember DO NOT CLIMB ON THE FENCE!

kids come back inside from recess 30 minutes later:

kid: Ms. McCormack, I hurt my hand on the fence

me: YOU WHAT?!!? What were you doing by the fence????

kid: uh, climbing it

kid 2: A was climbing on the fence as well!

And it was about that moment that the last strands of hair were ripped from my head and I had a complete mental breakdown at school.

Something is seriously wrong with this picture. WHAT IS WRONG WITH THEM?!? ugh!

25 days. 25 days. I think I can. I think I can.

New Hobby

I've been pretty bad about updating this thing, sorry! So let's see, what's been going on in my life ....

I have a new hobby: shooting guns! Tony bought a .22 pistol a few weeks ago so we went out to his parent's house the other week so we could shoot it. One shot and I was hooked! Gene brought out his .22 rifle and I have to say I was pretty awesome with that one. We had these small targets set up to shoot at and with the rifle I was able to hit the targets (largest one is about a 4 inch circle, smallest is 1) from something like 50 yards away. I was quite impressed with myself being that this was the first time I shot a gun trying to hit something (I've shot Tony's Papa's guns once before but only like one shot each). We ended up going back out for Easter and I got to do some more shooting. So fun! One of these days I'm going to have to stop picking up new hobbies as I hardly have time for all the ones I have now: photography, baking, camping, fishing, shooting, yoga and quilting haha

My student teacher's last day was last Thursday and I'm pretty sad that she's gone. She was just awesome; I could not have asked for anyone better! On Thursday my class surprised her at the end of the day with a small party complete with cookies, juice, and presents. We made her this really cute treasure chest to use in a classroom (can't believe I didn't take a pic). Each of the kids used their fingerprints to make a bluebonnet on it. It turned out so cute! Plus, I got her a book from my class and had them all sign it (Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day - appropriate given my class this year? most def!), and I got her the book Thank You Mr. Falkner, and had all my team write a message for her in it. I think she loved it all :)

I was feeling like such a loser all day and totally wanted to give away the surprise, but I held out. See, two of my teammates brought food for us to have a nice brunch together, one of my teammates brought her a present, and she brought all of us a yummy treat AND gave me a gift card. I kept thinking she must think I'm the only one who doesn't care because I was the only one who didn't bring anything for her last day. SO many times I wanted to say "I don't suck, your gifts are coming later today" but I held my tongue to keep the surprise, and surprised she was. I'm glad I didn't give it away haha.

I do have to say though, as much as I miss having her around, I do love having my class back. They have been better behaved these past two days than they have been in MONTHS. I think it's good for them to have their normal routine back. They know exactly what to expect with me and know exactly what I expect them to do. I'm not saying this good behavior is going to keep up, but I'm hoping I can get at least a week or two out of them before they go back to being complete terrors haha

Okay, I guess I'll end this rambling for now. A cat just crawled in my lap to cuddle and it's a little difficult to type.

Kitten yawn

I was taking pictures of my kitten the other night when I snapped one mid yawn. When I pulled back the camera to look at the shot on the screen I burst out laughing. How scary does she look?!?! haha yikes!

First Grade Crazies

It's no secret that the first graders this year are a crazy group. I find more often than not I have to use my angry teacher voice with them, and because of behavior they don't get to do a lot of the fun things I normally would do with my class.

Today at the end of the day one sweet little girl who is ALWAYS good, but is unfortunately stuck with this group, said to me, "Ms. McCormack! You're using your nice voice today. We must have been good!" Poor baby, if only the good ones could hear my nice voice more often. I feel so bad for them because year after year they are going to be lumped in with all these crazies! haha

41 more days. I think I can, I think I can, I think I can ....

Lake Houston Park Backpacking

Friday I was having a bad morning at work when I sat down at my computer and saw I had a message from Tony on g chat saying he had booked a site at Lake Houston Park for the weekend. Totally boosted my mood and helped me make it through the rest of the day with my crazy kids!

This place we found was PERFECT for us! It's for backpack camping, and there are only two of the sites there so you're really in the middle of nowhere. We got there Friday evening, loaded up with our packs, and started the 2 mile trek to our site. Unfortunately, we were a little late leaving town so we didn't quite make it to the site before sundown. There was about a mile of that hike where it was getting pretty dark and hard to see on this tiny trail in the middle of the forest, but we made it haha. We set up camp, found some firewood, made a fire, and hung out a bit before calling it a night.

Saturday morning we got up, ate some breakfast, then headed out to try our luck with some fishing. No such luck, so after a bit we gave up and went back to camp.

We loaded up our day pack and went for a hike.

We hiked through these awesome trails in the middle of the woods for 4 miles until we got to Lake Isabel where we stopped and made lunch.

After a little rest, we finished our loop by treking the 2.5 miles back to camp. We gathered up a bunch of firewood, Tony started a fire, we cooked dinner, and hung out the rest of the night.

This morning we got up, packed up camp, and backpacked the 2 miles back to the car. I must say, after all the weekend hiking and sleeping on the ground, the hike back was rough. My legs were so tired and my pack felt SO heavy!

On the way back to the car we ran across two copperhead snakes sitting in the middle of the trail. I was scared, but Tony used a stick and got them to move out of the way so we could cross the path. um, yikes!

This was perfect for learning how to backpack camp though. 2 miles is not that much (though with a huge pack on your back it feels a lot longer haha) but it's far enough away that there are no people around so you really feel like you are out in the middle of nowhere.

What a fun, relaxing weekend! :)