Tantrums, Vomit, and Murder Threats...Oh my!

That was my day today. Between Jake and T, they were sent into the hall 9 times today. And I don't just send them into the hall for anything. They must really be harming others and/or disrupting my class by screaming or crying to be sent into the hall. Jake was in rare form today. My favorite tantrum was probably the one where, because he got a color change for being disrespectful, he threw himself out of his chair and onto the floor. From there, he proceeded to lay on his back with his knees bent behind him, arch his back, thrust his pelvis into the air, and screech out like a dying cow.

Then a little while later K kicked another student in the butt while walking down the hall, and then told that student that he wished he had a knife so he could kill him. What??? So of course he got a color change. He then slammed his little body as hard as he possibly could onto the rug (after punching my color chart), beat his hands on his legs, shook with anger, and stared daggers into me. Then he punched his right hand into his left repeatedly while he stared at me and said "I wish I was a MURDERER."

Oh great. Murder threats from 7 year olds - exactly what my life has been missing.

After I had ALMOST made it through the entire day, it was time to pack up. 10 minutes left in the day. I was home free, right? WRONG. While the kids were in the hall getting their backpacks one of my boys ran into the classroom yelling "A puked in the hall! A puked in the hall!!!" Wonderful. I went out and looked, squinting my eyes behind my fingers (I hate throw-up so much). Yep. Definitely large amounts of throw up right outside my doorway, between mine and Emily's students' lockers - where they were all trampling around. So we got all of that taken care of and ended up the day.

It may have been a bad day today, but I had a wonderful day on Wednesday. Now I know that my class is capable of that, and I am praying for more days like Wednesday and NO MORE like today! And plus, there are only 57 days left of school anyway :)

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After school we headed over to a teacher's house for "milkshakes" and to wind down after the long week of TAKS testing and what-not. It was really fun, and I truly enoy hanging out with the ladies from my school. They are a really special group of friends! We had to leave there shortly after 6pm because the hostess had dinner reservations, but we took the party to another friend's house. When all was said and done, happy "hour" lasted almost 5 hours. Bliss.

So the day ended on a happy note and, really, that's all I really ask for.
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I hope you all have a great weekend. My plans are to watch TV, cuddle with my husband, watch more TV, eat, and sleep in as much as possible. No more, no less. If there was ever a week that called for a lazy weekend, it's this one!

How could this NOT make my day???

Last week I had a couple of very rough days. My kids were as out-of-control as I have ever seen them. They were being disrespectful, disruptive, and downright annoying! I came into my classroom Friday morning and found this note in my basket:


(click on it to see it larger so you can read it)



Right then, it was all worth it. That made my day...my week, actually. I added this to my HABD (Had A Bad Day) folder, which another teacher from school suggested to me a while back. I have things like encouraging notes from parents and cute letters from kids in there. I have to be pretty selective so that I don't over-fill it, considering I get at least a couple of pictures a day!
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Today I had my lunch date with T. It was so much fun! We have a little pact that if he makes it through a whole week with 2's (perfect) on his behavior clipboard, then I will eat lunch with just him in my classroom the following Monday while watching a movie. Last week was the first time that he did it! I thoroughly enjoy my time with each of my students one-on-one, but especially with him. He's like a little grown up trapped in child's body, and he is so interesting to talk to. I didn't think I would enjoy my cafeteria lunch that I ate while sitting criss-cross on my rug with a 7 year old, watching Charlie Brown. I'm glad to say that I was wrong!
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Some funny stuff from today:

1)A conversation I overheard while the kids were doing their March calendars this morning:
K: What does Spring Break even mean anyway?
A: It means no school.
K: But what does it MEAN?
A: Hmmm. I know! It means that it's SPRING, and Mrs. White gets a BREAK from us!
...Amen, sista!

2) T informed me that he once found a 4-leaf clover. Apparantly he had good luck for 2 weeks, until it "shriveled up and died."

3) While working with D during tutoring this afternoon we had this conversation, during which he was completely serious:
D: I looked on your desk for very dangerous things, but there were none.
Me: What kind of dangerous things?
D: Like super dangerous bombs, or huge guns, or other explosive things.
Me: Oh....ok...well thank you for doing that.
D: And also in your purse. No guns in there.
Me: Why would you think I had guns in my purse?
D: It's a good thing to be sure.
Me: Ok....well.... thank you for keeping our classroom safe. I appreciate it....
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The Tattle Book has somewhat died out, which I guess is an indicator of a decrease in tattling, and thus a good thing. However, it is sad because I got so much personal enjoyment out of it! Here are a few new posts:

1)D was men to us to A and A. and D tuk A pesl and he tuk all of the cntrs. in math. an THAT IS A PROMISE. From A and A. (there is a large crying face drawn by their names). D has written under it: "PS: This is wrong."

2) I wen and I wus talkn and T mad a fist at me and tld me to hush.

3) O and A were ooooo! Me and A but O do this to me ooooooo!

4) By D 2/26/09 ----------> (I like the date) "G said that I was the meanest in the world. G told me not to copy her and then she looked at my own paper!"

Unfortunately, that is it for the Tattle Book.

I am currently watching The Bachelor finale with one of my good friends, and I love it!!!!

A hot but funny day

I am actually writing this post from school, because my kids are entertained in the computer lab! This is the first time I have ever found time to post at school, so it's pretty nice.

School is soooo hot today. The air conditioning is not turned on, so all of the classrooms are smoldering hot. And then once the kids come in from recess the rooms also stink. I have all of my windows open, and the wind is blowing so hard that it's ripping things off of my walls and my ceiling, but it's worth it.

A couple of funny things happened today. First of all, this morning I was reading a book about Ruby Bridges (in the book she is 6 years old, and is the first African American child to attend a school in New Orleans). 'Jake' kept yelling out that he thought Ruby was a grown up, and I was ignoring him because he is not supposed to be yelling out in the first place. Finally he yelled one more time: "Mrs. White, did Ruby Bridges USED to be a grown up before this book?" Sarcastically I replied "Yes, 'Jake.' Ruby was a grown up and then she got shrunk down to a little girl just to be in this book." Then I laughed, and so did he. From across the room, a boy yelled out "Maybe someone put her in the dryer too long!" Then he just went back to work.

Also, there was dog poop on the playground today. If you have never had the opportunity to watch 65 first graders react to poop on the playground, I highly reccommend it. What am I talking about? I don't reccomend it at all. First there was about 5 minutes of giggling from the interested parties. Then it transitioned into speculation about where the poop came from. After agreeing on the consensus that it was, in fact, dog poop (which I had told them ten minutes prior), the conversation turned to how big of a dog. It was agreed upon that it was a very large dog - I'll leave that to your imagination :) Then came the nasty part - the observation stage. Someone observed that it looked like it had algea on it, but once she was reminded by another student that algae only grow near water, she switched to the idea that maybe the dog ate peas for dinner. From there, it went pretty much downhill. I'll spare you the disgusting details.

I hope to get home early enough to take my dogs on a walk in this beautiful weather. Whoever heard of 83 degrees in February? You won't hear me complaining! :)

Talk to you soon,
Meagan

PS: A tattle-tale entry is in the near future, and I have some good ones!

Pedi-Paws test-run

My parents recently gave us the Pedi-Paws nail buffer that they had purchased to use on their 129 pound yellow lab. It wasn't strong enough to file his tree-trunk like nails, so now my dad just uses his Dremmel on him, no joke.

So anyway, we tried it for the first time today. It worked beautifully on Tex, which is nice because he has dark black nails and sometimes we accidentally clip too close and make him bleed, since we can't see through his nails.

Then it was Bella's turn. In case you didn't know, Bella is extrememly dificult when it comes to nail care. Just take our your clippers and watch my sweet-mannered, cuddly, adorable chihuahua turn into a teeth-showing, biting, growling, snarling beast. I thought the Pedi-Paws would work well since I think what scares her the most is the sound of the clippers well, clipping.

It was even worse with the mechanical sound that the machine makes! She was absolutely terrified. I could tell because when she gets scared her whole body gets really warm and limp. Once I realized that it obviously was not going to work, I got out the regular clippers and attempted to do it the old-fashioned way. GREAT NEWS! Bella was so relieved that I put the Pedi-Paws away that she didn't even fuss about the nail clippers! It was the quickest, easiest nail clipping she has ever had!

So, in conclusion, I salute the Pedi-Paws. It made clipping one dog's nails faster and safer, as advertised. And it scared our other dog senseless, making her appreciate the quieter, smaller clippers that we will continue using on her. Either way you look at it, the Pedi-Paws helped us out today.

My new Acadia!!!

I finally had time to take pics of my Acadia! We call it my "fancy car," lol. It's not all that fancy, really, but it's fancy for us!

Side View


From the Front


Plenty of cargo space, even with the third row


The dash






My favorite features so far:

1. Tri-climate control. Right now we only use the driver and passenger, but it's nice since we are never able to agree on temperature!

2. OnStar wth navigation

3. Hands free calling with bluetooth through my phone - I can have a conversation through my car speakers!

4. The "magic" back-up camera that appears in my rear-view mirror when I put the car in reverse, and the lights and beeps that go along with the sensor.

We'll see what else I discover as I play around with it.

I hope you're having a great weekend!

Funny stuff and an update

Some funny stuff from today:

Jake: "Mrs. White, you look handsome today."
D: "Handsome is for boys. Beautiful is for girls. Handsome boys, beautiful girls."
Jake: 'Yes, girls are beautiful. They are beautiful girls. Except for not when they go to high school. Then they're not beautiful girls; they're HOT CHICKS."

Later in the day I was trying to calm a little girl down whose feelings were hurt by a boy in my class. Nothing was working, so finally I explained to her that sometimes boys were just stinky and mean. I told her that even Mr. Kevin was stinky and mean sometimes, but that I still loved him - just like she is still friends with the boy. That seemed to work and finally I got her back in the class. Less than an hour later she came back to me and said "Mrs. White, you know how you said that sometimes boys are stinky and mean? Well you forgot a big thing. They are also very MESSY."

Then at the end of the day we were doing a community circle where the kids all get to share something as we pass around "Tickles the Tiger." We had some extra time, so we went around again with a free share. When is was J's turn, it got hilariously funny! He is not one of my kids who acts silly or is attention seeking, so his statement was completely serious:
J: "Mrs. White, is it okay if I tell the class about my really scary dream about the monkeys?"
Me: "Sure, J."
J: "Okay (takes a deep breath). These really scary little monkeys were chasing me. They were like (begins beating his chest, wiggling his eyes back and forth and making himself crosseyed, and hooting and hollering). Then they were slapping themselves like (continues to do all of the above, but takes random slaps at his own face).
(At this point, I am already beside myself, laughing so hard I have tears streaming down my face. I looked around the circle to see how the other kids were reacting, but they were just staring intently at J, enthralled in this truly horrifying dream, lol).
J: "Then I woke up before the eated me."

For the rest of the day every time I thought of J's dream reinactment I busted into laughter again.

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It has been such a long time since I've written and I apologize. I hav been finishing my first course of grad school, buying a new car, and having my laptop reimaged. My laptop crashed last week (with all of my Lamar courseware and a ton of documents on it). Luckily I had backed up enough of my files to not be completely devestated. I spent most of last week waiting to have it fixed and then this week so far getting all of my programs and documents back. It was a pretty big hassle, but it's all okay now!

And what about this new car, you ask? Yes, we just bought my Mazda in 2007. The problem is, the Mazda is just not big enough for us, our dogs, and the family we plan to hae in the future. Right now GMC is offering 0% interest for 60 months, so we went to look at my dream SUV: a GMC Acadia in White Diamond paint with titanium leather. And what do you know, we found a great deal! Not only did we get 0%, we got a considerable amount off of the invoice price of the car. Kevin tried to find a deal to beat it, but no other dealerships would even come close; we got really lucky. I am SO in love with my new car! It rides smooth, it's beautiful, and it's got some really great features - like OnStar, bluetooth for handsfree calling through my car speakers, and a back-up camera and sensors that appears in half of my rear view mirror when the car is in reverse. Anyway, I love it. I havent taken any pictures of mine yet, because the dealership is finishing the make-ready and we will pick it up tomorrow. It wasn't done already because I've been driving the car for the last 5 days as a demo.







I can't think of anything else right now, but know anyone who wants to buy a 2007 Maxda CX-7? ;)

100 Days of School!

Howdy, everyone! I apologize for the delay in posting...again...it's becoming somewhat of a habit I guess. With school and my classes it seems like I barely have time to come up for air, much less to blog. And then we went to San Antonio to see my family this weekend (which was amazing btw), so that's why you didn't hear from me over the weekend!

Yesterday was our 100th day of school! In the primary grades, this is a huge deal. We play it up big time - counting 100 things, writing 100 words, bringing in a collection of 100 things, playing games with counting to 100, and having a party. This year the kids ate 100 calorie packs for snack, which I thought was cute. But try explaining what a calorie is to 22 curious 6 year olds. Not easy. I actually probably couldn't even explain that to you guys, considering my knowledge is extremely limited!

I took an adorable class picture with our 100 day glasses on, but due to new guidelines in our district I can't post it - sorry :( I do have some that I can show you, though!

100 days down, 76 to go!


Emily (my teammate) and I in our 100 day glasses - imagine the kiddos walking around all day in these! And yes, I did too.

Kinder and 1st grade teachers in our shirts with 100 things on them - mine has 100 jewels :)

We did some cute writing activities with the "100" theme, and some of them turned out really cute!

Here is 'Jake' writing his 100 words - many of my kids chose to use the dictionary to find bigger words!



This paper is cute and funny (click to view it larger):

This one says that having 100 babies could really be a problem - can you imagine? I also think it's cute how it says that she hopes that in 100 years she can make 100 friends.


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Today I had to laugh because, as I was passing out the homework at the end of the day, I suddenly sneezed. In an effort to cover my mouth and not spread my germs, I flew my hand up to my face. This hand just happened to be holding the stack of homework I was passing out, which I sneezed all over. From across the room, I hear E gasp. She said "Um, I didn't actually want snot all over my homework."

I will seriously try to update before the end of the week!

Have a good one!