December Chaos Break Through!

PEOPLE.

LISTEN UP.

Nobody panic.

Okay, you can panic a little. I know I am.

BUT WE ONLY HAVE TWO MORE WEEKS UNTIL WINTER BREAK.

That’s right.

TWO WEEKS.

That’s it.

And if the past five days are any indication of what is about to happen in order for me to actually MAKE IT to winter break . . . well . . .

I’ll be praying a lot.

And probably eating a lot.

And I might have wine IN THE MIDDLE OF THE WEEK, too.

Because you guys . . . my kids are EXCITED.

They are OVER THE TOP- HYPER ABOUT EVERY LITTLE THING.

For example, in reading groups, we were reading a book called Sleeping Animals, and it was all about how and where animals sleep (tigers sleep lying down, flies can sleep anywhere, snakes sleep curled up, etc) and when we got to the koala page, my group freaked out about the koala’s bottom.

And there was NO koala bottom.

The koala was FACING us in the picture. I’m telling you – THERE WAS NO BOTTOM.

But my group fell off their chairs.

And that was only the first fifteen minutes into our day.

And don’t get me started on the acorn collections my students are OBSESSED with right now at recess.

I tried to read a book about Asia (we are studying the continents in Social Studies) and as soon as I talked about the Dead Sea and how it’s filled with salt and so people can float . . . well.

The discussion we had regarding FLOTATION DEVICES rather than ASIA could have blown the roof off of our classroom.

It’s like . . . CALM DOWN, LITTLE PEOPLE. CALM DOWN.

But they can’t.

They just physically cannot. Speaking of bottoms, no one can sit on one. Nope.

Christmas is coming. And their elf did this or that or the other . . . and instead of “Hi, Mrs. Oldham” in the morning, I get “Listen to what my elf did!” or “My elf was in the refrigerator with the whipped cream!” or “I have two elves! One is a boy and one is a girl and one is called Candy and the other is called Cane!”

So.

I’ve got a lot of experience with December Chaos so I was sort of-kind of-not really-but really dreading it.

SO GUESS WHAT I DID?!

Over Thanksgiving break, I created a Listen and Learn MINI PACK just for the holidays!

This happens to be the Listen and Learn that I completed while recording myself over break, because, yesterday, when we did the activity as a WHOLE CLASS, and my WHOLE CLASS was quiet and listening and working . . . well, I meant to snap a quick picture of a real, live child’s activity page (with parent permission, of course) in anticipation of this blog post, and I didn’t. I did not.

I did not snap a picture because I was emotional and choked up and fighting back tears over the quiet and the listening and the working going on all around me.

It was a CHRISTMAS MIRACLE and if you think I’m joking, I am not!!

I had a grand plan to pull students one on one during that glorious 19 minutes (yes!! NINETEEN MINUTES – these turned out to be a bit longer because it reviews both ELA and MATH in one activity) but then I didn’t.

I just sat. I just sat and watched my little learners, and I felt all sorts of sentimental about them, and I just loved looking at them, with their little tongues sticking out to the side because they were concentrating so hard, and I thought bless their wee little hearts, oh to be young again, and so excited about the holidays, and aren’t they just the most precious little beings in the entire world . . . plus, I have instrumental holiday music and a crackling fire in the background of each recording, and it is so cozy and wonderful.

It was just absolutely MAGICAL.

And then we lined up for lunch right afterwards, and this one was mad at this one because she swears she had four acorns and now she only has two, and then this other one said he pushed me, and this other one said my elf was on a zip line this morning, and another one said blah blah blah.

Seriously, that’s all I heard.

BLAH BLAH BLAH at an extremely high octave, plus a few sound effects thrown in for good measure.

I promise I really do have good classroom management, but sometimes I just give up and walk them to the lunch benches without trying to look behind me to see what’s going on.

ANYWAYS!!

I made this Listen and Learn a MINI Pack so it only has FIVE activities instead of the usual ten or twelve and now I am thinking I should have made it a 30 to 100 activity pack.

Shoulder shrug.

I can’t get wi/fi in my classroom to save my life (our district blocks EVERYTHING) so I usually use the Power Point editions with audio right on my classroom computer, and then the audio comes out of our classroom speakers. But I also download the MP3 files onto my iPod when I have time, too, and use that option.

Anyways, ten more days, people.

Send help.

And try not to panic.

🙂