St. Patrick's Day, Monday, 3/17/06

Spent the day in a Kinder/1st grade combination class today. The kids know me, as do the parents, since I've subbed there multiple times. In fact I subbed in this class on Monday of this week. It's a nice class with the usual challenges.

Let's just say right off that I now hate St Patrick's Day. There's nothing really wrong with the "holiday", it's just that I think it's kind of one of those phony holidays in the United States, in the same way that Cinco de Mayo is. Maybe I'm just bitter because I don't drink beer anymore!

The kids were more excited than usual when I walked out to the line. They are usually excited to see me but today it had to do with it being St Patrick's Day. The kids were taking inventory of who forgot to wear green in anticipation of pinching those who didn't. Seeing this, I began to plan my speech to head off trouble before it began. As we walked down the hall, 2 Kinders were exchanging angry words with each other... and it had nothing to do with the "wearing of the green!" Eric was angry and ready to take action against John because John had pushed him.

Just inside the door I stopped them both to investigate and prevent an escalation of hostilities. Eric said he was pushed and John said he didn't push him. When I asked John why Eric thought he HAD pushed him, John had no answer. FINALLY John said, "I just touched his back." Oh, THAT explains it. I gave the usual verbal warnings (no yellow card was shown) and then headed to the teacher's chair in front of the "circle" where the students gather on the rug.

We discussed St Patrick's Day traditions briefly before I made my proclamation:

"There will be NO pinching in school!"

All understood and, surprisingly, we had no trouble the rest of the day.

After reading about cloud types and how they are formed, a parent came in and did a little St Patrick's Day activity. The kids went out and hunted for gold coins that the Leprechaun left in the playground equipment. This revved up the kids of course. When we got back inside they all counted their coins. Some found 12, one found 2. I managed to persuade the more generous kids to share the wealth a little. Then they each had a chance to "buy" small candy treats with their gold coins. This was their first "math lesson" for the day. The candy had no affect whatsoever on their excitement.

3 children chose to keep the gold coins they had found, viewing them as more valuable than the candy. Defending her position on the relative merits of each, one said, "Candies bad for you anyway!" A second one said, "Candy has bugs in it!" I foolishly dispelled this 2nd notion, fearing the other children might not want to finish eating their candy. Yes, I was foolish. Honesty can be a hard habit to break.

The next math lesson involved Lucky Charms cereal (They're Magically Delicious) and "Big Buddies" from 6th grade! Need I say more?! Big Buddies and Little Buddies were given a cup full of the disgusting candy, I mean cereal, and they were to count it out into piles of ten. Then they were to record how many tens and ones they had and how many they had all together. Once recorded they could eat the sugar laden cereal but they had to reserve the "marshmallows" for more math. With the marshmallows they were to sort them by shape, graph how many of each they had, and answer questions about their marshmallow data. Once that was accomplished they could eat the candy, I mean marshmallows. Of course no one washed their hands before handling the cereal so you can imagine how appetizing these Lucky Charms were! Thankfully, it was now time for recess.

During recess the Room Mom came back to the room, turned over chairs, sprinkled glittery confetti around, spilled the gold coins out of the "pot o' gold", and left a note saying that the Leprechaun had been here. As you can imagine, this did NOT lead to a general calm when the students returned from recess.

I eventually regained control and we made a booklet showing 4 different kinds of clouds--you know, cirrus, nimbus, etc., out of cottonballs. Of course, most of the kids' clouds all LOOKED the same but there really was some learning going on. After that we had an hour to dedicate to ABC Bingo (in which winners got a gold coin) and an indoor game called Silent Ball, or Silent Dynamite.

Silent Dynamite is great fun and they love to play it. Why? Because it requires 2 important things: the classroom lights are turned off and the kids sit on top of their desks. This makes whatever else happens worth the price of admission regardless of what the other rules are! The most important other rule is that you can't talk or laugh or cough on purpose while playing or you are out. This makes the game a favorite for Substitute Teachers as well! Of course, for Kinder/1st Graders the rules have to be modified so that they may signal their request to go to the bathroom. Why this game caused so many to need to do this I'm not sure, but today there was a National Record set with 9 requests made over a 20 minute time period!

Unfortunately John and Eric both got out early in the 1st game and immediately were attracted to each other. Hostilities resumed and John had to be culled from the herd. During the 2nd game both got out and hostilities continued, with Eric being caught as the instigator, leading to his separation from the group. Mark and Maria were the final 2 in both Silent Dynamite games before Mark eventually triumphed.

Lunch arrived not a moment too soon. We squirted hand sanitizer on our hands (as if it really mattered at this point!) and lined up for lunch. One line is for students who buy their lunch and the other is for those who bring their lunch from home. No surprise here but Eric and John just HAPPENED to both bring their lunches and they both just HAPPENED to end up in line together! Hostilities ensued and the warring factions were separated and made to stand 10 yards apart and wait for me while I delivered the other students to their culinary destinations. John and Eric obediently waited for me to return and, upon gaining their freedom once again, ran down the hall bumping and scrambling to be first. This certainly couldn't be tolerated and thus they were called back by their commander and ordered to behave or lose recess: their choice. I assume they complied with my order.

While questioning my own sanity, I quickly went out to my car and drove to the School District Office to submit my application for the privilege of teaching 5 weeks of Summer School. Today was the deadline.

Today was a "minimum day" at school, which meant that there were only 15 minutes left after lunch before the kids left for the day. For the benefit of all involved, both Eric and John kept their distance from each other for that final 15 minutes. I was relieved, until of course, we made it into the classroom, whereupon Maria, one of the students who had hoarded her gold coins, announced, "Someone stole all the gold out of my backpack." We did a search, including looking into Midori's backpack. (Midori is a known thief--on Monday I caught her stealing someone's stuff myself !) We never found the gold, though, once again one of the kindhearted students who still had some of her own gold gave Maria a coin. Whether it had been Maria's coin to begin with I have no way of knowing!

With that crisis taken care of, the kids cleaned up the floor, put the chairs up, and left, some of them no doubt hoping to catch some kid not wearing green!