What Did I Do This Week?

So I don’t know if you know this, but we only have two weeks until Thanksgiving break.

And next week, we have Veteran’s Day which means we actually only have nine school days until Thanksgiving break.

And HERE’S THE DEAL:

During parent conference week, when we had minimum days, and a non-student day, and I finished up conferences by noon on Wednesday . . . well, I made GRAND PLANS.

I’m talking HIT THE GROUND RUNNING, lots of engaging, exciting, valuable, meaningful lessons and activities, look out CHILDREN OF MINE, you are going to learn all the things and have the best time while you’re doing it.

And I even had time to PREP ALL MOST SOME OF THE STUFF for ALL THE THINGS because it was minimum day week and I actually HAD the time!

Do you know where I’m going with this?

Do you?

Because SPOILER ALERT:

On Friday, I looked back at my week and I am just here to tell you that I have no clue what happened but PRETTY MUCH NOTHING HAS HAPPENED WHATSOEVER AT ALL.

Seriously.

Number one: THE TIME CHANGE!

HOLY COW.

I know I got an extra hour, and I was super happy about it, but I can’t stay awake to save my life. I am hitting the wall in the afternoon, but my kids seem to just be getting their second wind, and I am OUTNUMBERED, and I just stand around looking at them wondering if they are going to mob me, and is this one of my summer/winter/spring break nightmares coming true?!?

Number Two: We did a little writing on spiders (catching up from October in November because this is my life) and the next thing I knew, I went off on this super long tangent about the time Steve got bit by a brown recluse, but didn’t know it, and how he ended up in the hospital for two whole weeks, and on and on . . . I don’t think I’ve ever blogged about that particular story, but it’s a GOOD ONE when you want your kids to get excited about writing. However, we ran out of time for the actual writing portion because I am long-winded when I am story telling . . .

Number Three: our new intervention teacher is AMAZING, and he never ever ever forgets to pick up my kids, and then he ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS keeps them for the entire thirty minutes, and it’s two different groups of kids so sometimes I find myself stalling because I don’t want that many kids to miss a particular fun engaging lesson, such as ABC order or sequencing a cute, Thanksgiving type of story (One is a Feast for a Mouse).

Number Four: on Thursday, we started our day with AN HOUR LONG Yoga Assembly which was sponsored by our PTA. It was absolutely amazing. It was yoga with headphones! Headphones, I said! The instructors taught us through the headphones and that’s how we heard the music, too.

Do you know how INCREDIBLE it is to wear headphones, and for your kids to wear headphones, and the only things you hear are the calming voice of a yoga instructor who is all Zen-like, and a Calming Seas or Babbling Brook playlist?!

IT IS THE ONLY WAY TO GO, PEOPLE.

I’m pretty positive a class set of these headphones would be expensive and a long-shot, but I really really really want them. You can’t hear tattling. You can’t hear sound effects. You can’t hear whistling.

I mean, when a kid tries to talk to you, all you have to do is point to your headphones and smile and keep stretching.

Surely I could make this work in the classroom?

Anyways, there went an hour of my instructional minutes, plus I had computer lab the same day . . .

I am telling you – I just honestly don’t know where the week went and I don’t know if I taught anything of significance.

I DO know that one of the chapters that we read in our Junie B Jones book was about Junie B helping her Grandpa Frank Miller fix the upstairs toilet which led to a lengthy discussion on the toilet itself versus the toilet tank and what’s actually in the tank, and how my students need to get parent supervision in order to look in the tank and look at the mechanisms that make the toilet flush . . . and after that big ole discussion, I had to tell them to be sure to NOT talk about this when their parents asked them what they learned in school that day.

See?

I mean, really.

WHAT DID I DO THIS WEEK?! I ASK YOU.

Do you ever feel like this?

TELL ME I AM NOT ALONE.

Tell me this is normal.

Tell me next week will be better and I’ll be a rock star teacher.

Because this week? Nope.

NOT AT ALL.

This week, we read books. We sang songs. We danced. We did yoga. We read Junie B. We did a little math. We learned a little bit about Veteran’s Day. And we did put word cards in ABC order.

But is that enough?

I don’t know . . . Honestly, I do not know.