It’s a THREE DAY WEEKEND!!
A THREE DAY WEEKEND!!!
It’s practically like winning the lottery, don’t you think?
Poor Texas!! Oh my word! It’s awful. I can barely watch the news or read about the stories – it is devastating! I lived in Houston for four years during my elementary years and, as some of you know, my twin lives just outside of Dallas.
I love Texas. LOVE IT.
I totally want to help, and feel compelled to help, and I HAVE to help. Steve and I were able to donate money, but when I saw this Adopt a Classroom campaign from Sun, Sand, and Second Grade, I knew it was exactly what I needed to do.
But guess what?
Right now, it is temporarily closed because TOO MANY PEOPLE SIGNED UP TO ADOPT CLASSROOMS.
I mean.
Isn’t that the greatest thing ever? TOO MANY PEOPLE SIGNED UP TO HELP.
And have you seen that one video of a freeway completely backed up with trucks of every make and model and color towing boats of every make and model and color TRYING TO GET TO ALL OF THE FLOODING IN ORDER TO HELP?
I just love it.
THIS IS AMERICA.
THIS.
I’m keeping my eye on the sign-ups, though, because it’s just temporary and once everything is figured out, Briana is going to have two (or even multiple) people adopt the same classroom so that they can really get all of their needs met.
Here in my city, we have been experiencing a massive heat wave. It has been BRUTAL. One day the temperature reached 112 degrees. I sweat going from my car into the school office. And then from the office to my classroom. I mean — I am disgusting before the day has even started!! AND MY HAIR WILL NOT COOPERATE EITHER.
Obviously, we have been on inclement weather all week.
ALL WEEK.
Three days in a row, we did not get any recesses whatsoever at all.
It was the third full week of school and we had just started getting into a groove and then BAM.
It was hard to complain or whine about it, though, because we have air conditioning in our classrooms, and then I’d think about Texas and then it was just like get over yourself, Kristin.
So I tried really hard to just go with the flow.
But you know it’s bad when your kids are getting sick and tired of GoNoodle.
It looks better next week so I’m really hoping we can all get back into the swing of things.
Wednesday was my first BEST day teaching. I felt really good about it.
HOORAY!
One day, right before dismissal, it got super windy and dark.
Like all of a sudden.
It came from out of nowhere.
But it was at dismissal so I didn’t care and I was just saying Bye, See You Tomorrow, Don’t Blow Away! while my kids were screaming there’s a storm, it’s a storm, look at the storm!
And there was NO RAIN AT ALL.
CALIFORNIA KIDS HAVE NOT A CLUE.
There was not one rain drop until about a half hour later. But my kids walked to the bus lines and out to the front gate telling me it was storming and the fact of the matter is THERE WERE JUST SOME DARK CLOUDS AND IT WAS WINDY AND THAT WAS ALL.
When it did finally start to rain, the raindrops were GIGANTIC.
And kind of cold.
And it cooled everything off which was the BEST THING EVER.
We did get some thunder, too.
Two nights in a row this week, Steve and I lost power. Well, our entire neighborhood did. And it wasn’t too bad because it only lasted for about four or five hours and always came back on right before bed so thank God for the A/C, but I’ll tell you what WAS bad.
The smoke detectors chirping.
CHIRP.
Steve went around the house and up and down the stairs with the ladder replacing all of the batteries in every one.
And then CHIRP.
RIGHT AFTER.
CHIRP.
So then he googled how to reset each one if there is a power outage and went back around the house, and up and down the stairs with the ladder, and as he was on the last one, the power came back on.
The next night — same thing.
I thought he was going to lose his mind.
He went around the house THREE WHOLE TIMES. Up and down the stairs with the ladder.
And they kept chirping.
AND THEN.
Are you ready for this?
We finally finally finally figured out it was the Carbon Monoxide Detectors.
And it was never ever ever the smoke detectors at all.
We died laughing.
After we replaced the batteries, of course.
I put this on my Facebook and Instagram, but look at this.
It’s SIX peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.
SIX.
One of my girls left early one day and at dismissal, all of her stuff was still on top of her desk. So I went to put her things away and I couldn’t. Her bookS and whiteboard and pencil box wouldn’t slide all the way into the desk. So I reached in and felt sandwich.
BECAUSE IT WASN’T EVEN IN A BAGGIE.
And this was AFTER I told her she could not keep fritos loose in her desk, either, which I’d caught her doing the week prior. And we don’t eat lunch in our classrooms so . . .
Any who, I tried to put the stuff back in and nope. Something was in the way.
So I reached in and pulled out a sandwich in a baggie.
Repeat.
Repeat.
Repeat.
Repeat.
I died laughing. I laughed so hard. My kids all gathered around me and they wanted to know what I was doing, and if I was doing magic because I just kept making sandwiches appear.
And you get a sandwich, and you get a sandwich, and you get a sandwich!
It was a Wednesday which means THREE of the sandwiches had been there OVER THE WEEKEND.
I don’t know how we didn’t get ants or mice because I’ve had both in my classroom.
The funniest thing of all, and I swear I am not making this up or exaggerating, this is absolutely 100% positively true, one of my boys came up to me earlier that day during our inside recess and said I smell sandwiches.
I AM NOT JOKING.
And I said well, we’re eating snacks in the classroom so maybe that’s why. And he just repeated himself because we’ve talked over and over again about what constitutes a snack and what constitutes lunch (this is a first grade thing because our kinder classes are still half day programs which means the first day of first grade at morning recess, all of our kids want to eat their entire lunch) and so in his mind, he was probably thinking but it’s snack time and I smell lunch.
HE DOESN’T EVEN SIT AT HER TABLE.
But he smelled sandwiches!!!!
When I asked the little girl about it the next day, she said she only likes Skippy peanut butter and all of those sandwiches were not made with Skippy.
She was so afraid she was in trouble and begged me NOT to call her mom. I told her she had to talk to her mom or I was going to and guess what?
The next day SHE BOUGHT LUNCH.
🙂
We had a nice chat AGAIN about how our desk is not a refrigerator, pantry, lunchbox, or cupboard. And I think I scared her a little when I said she might have reached in and found ants or a mouse instead of her pencil box.
THOSE SANDWICHES WERE THE HIGHLIGHT OF MY WEEK.
🙂
It’s Gerald!!!! I am IN LOVE!
Little Kinder Bears is amazingly talented and I love all of her crafts. I left her a Q/A in her store asking her (or politely begging, whichever) to make a Gerald and Piggie craft to go with all of the Mo Willems books that my kids and I are obsessed with.
And she did!!!
If you do not follow her, I highly recommend it. Just take a look around her store and you will fall in love with her crafts. They are the SWEETEST! I just really like her style.
We made Gerald on Friday and we’re going to make Piggie next week.
My kids were so excited.
Some of my girls made Gerald’s sister. I didn’t know Gerald had a sister so I’m pretty sure they just made that up.
🙂
And that wraps up my week!
I hope you have a fabulous three day weekend!
I laughed so hard at the sandwiches! I love reading your blog because there is none other that is so totally relatable. Up in No. Cal, we too have been missing outside recess due to the heat, struggle with what is a snack and what is a lunch, have an “outside” classroom. We don’t get the sudden clouds and rain….wish we did in this heat! I also have been telling myself that the heat is nothing compared to what those in Houston are dealing with. We haven’t lost power, but my air conditioning died last night and we spent a night with our Disney fan/water sprayers by our bedsides. At least they didn’t chirp! I wanted to ask if you started Unit 1 in Benchmark, or are doing the 20 intro days. I thought I would maybe go right into Unit 1 next week…but then got overwhelmed by the 16+ components of one days L.A. plans! I think I need to designate certain days for certain tasks. Have you found a flow? Stay cool! (And I hope you aren’t getting smoked out by the fire! )
Your Disney fan/water sprayers cracked me up!!! 🙂 We started Benchmark Week 1 last week. I didn’t get to anything OBVIOUSLY. We read both stories in the shared reading and I about died when I found out the second story is a poem by Henry Longfellow Wadsworth! I MEAN! My kids “sorta” got it. We can’t follow the grammar lessons either because our Kinder teams did not teach nouns so us teaching proper nouns wasn’t going to work. And our kinder team didn’t teach verbs so us teaching verbs in past tense wasn’t going to work. We are a HOT MESS trying to figure it all out. I’ll try to blog about it!! Stay in the 20 day routine. I think it’s safer!! 🙂
Oh Kristin! I laughed so hard about your chirping. Last fall we moved into our new house and in April we heard a smoke detector chirping. I mean, brand new house, brand new detectors, how the heck does that happen? My husband replaced all the batteries. Chirp. We reset all the detectors. Chirp. We called our builder, who in turn called the electrician. He told us to use compressed air to clean them. Sometime dust or a cobweb will set them off. We did. It chirped. It chirped ALL NIGHT LONG. We called the builder in the morning. He called the electrician. The electrician met my mom at our house to exchange the faulty detector. He got on the ladder. It chirped. Mom said he got the funniest look on his face. It wasn’t the smoke detector. He looked around the room for the Carbon monoxide detector. He didn’t see one. So he and my mom started unpacking the boxes in our office. And there was the old CM detector from our old house, unplugged, with a dead battery chipring away. The electrician laughed so hard. My mom laughed so hard. We didn’t laugh so hard since it cost us $200 for the electrician to unpack the boxes in our office. We laugh now, but it still hurts the ego a bit. Thanks for the reminder and the laugh.
THAT IS HYSTERICAL!!!!! Oh my word!!!!! I’m crying!!
OMG. Number three happened to me too! But my husband was out of town so I was the one carrying the ladder and batteries up and down the stairs. And I came home from school and found my dog cowering in the shower of all places trying to get away from the noise. Poor baby! Who knows how long she’d been listening to that. This has happened more than once! ? Same thing, it was the carbon monoxide detector. Which I unplugged and took the batteries out and IT CONTINUED TO CHIRP!! I threw it out in the woods. No lie.
Hahahaha!! You threw it out in the woods!! I AM DYING!!!! 🙂
Oh man- we had a similar experience with our smoke detectors last year! We had the ongoing chirping and changed every single detector’s batteries I our house & we still had chirping!!! As we stood in our living room trying to figure out what on earth was going on, I happened to spot our carbon monoxide alarm plugged into the wall. Sure enough- it was low on batteries. Problem solved!
That was so funny about the sandwiches. I have had problems like that before. Only it involved chocolate pudding. Opened chocolate pudding in a desk. Pretty gross because when I found it (along with all kinds of other food) it spilled on me. Giant ICK! Gotta love firsties. LOL
My first year of teaching was in 1979 and I had 5th and 6th graders. I naively believed a student’s desk was their private domain. After all, I wouldn’t want a student going through my desk. I came back from a particularly warm Thanksgiving break and my classroom smelled horrible! It wasn’t hard to locate the desk where the odor was coming from and it was full of moldy, rotten lunch leftovers. There were weeks and weeks worth of food. There’s no way I can begin to describe the smell. Instead of preparing for the day, I had to clean out that desk. The sweetest, most adorable girl sat at that desk and we had quite a talk after she arrived for school. I switched to tables after that!