Honesty: Always the Best Policy

A mini-friend of mine was missing from his table after the usual bathroom break. I ask "Has anyone seen minifriend?"

It was reported that he took his bathroom break, drink of water, returned to the classroom, only to go back out for ANOTHER drink of water. This, in the second grade, breaks the law.

I go out - and he is there, at the water fountain. I motion him towards me, assuming that he has now had two bathroom breaks and two water fountain breaks. (Never assume).

I ask "What is going on?" (Meaning "Why the *&^% did you just take 20 minutes in the bathroom and water - TWICE!??")

His response: "I had to poop and it made me thirsty."

Truth in Poetry

One of the students I am working with wrote the following poem today.

Bully
There's a bully in town
he does not share when you
say is that yours he says none
of your biz! That why I
just enore (ignore) him every day.

There is also an illustration. Picture this:
A sun in the upper left hand corner with a strange expression on its face.
A school (labeled with our school's name) in the background; including a window in which you can see a stick figure student - and the dialogue bubble is screaming HELP!
The "bully" in the middle with a terribly mean expression.
What looks like animals in the background with a dialogue bubble that says "You are a nauthy (naughty) boy!"
And, to top it all off - a row of flowers around the bully - all wilted and saying (yes, another dialogue bubble) "You are making us die!"

Truth in words and in illustration.

Needed: How to Deal with Parents 101

My t-shirt says: "I survived my first week of IT." I planned, I replanned, I cut, I pasted, I used marker, I wrote messages, I read notes, I looked up that word, what's that word, that means that thing, you know - that thing that students do all those times... what's that called.... well, I looked it up. I did all these things and the week passed... quickly.

One thing that was on the backburner of my week was assigning homework. It's for students, I thought, to practice what we are learning at home. That's how I currently think of it. Because the week was full of changes, I kept repeating that they could go home and share with their parents what is happening at school. We started new units in every subject. Their heads are spinning, their fabulous "regular" teacher is out of the room, they have new seats, new resources, new classroom organization... you name it. So, homework, in my mind, seemed pressured. Instead of turning in something that I knew I'd be over my head in looking at, I talked about the homework. "You read a poem to your parents last night! How'd that go?" And we shared, and shared, and discussed strategies. We talked right through my carefully prescheduled Morning Meeting time frame. All was going well.

Then this morning, a student comes over and says:
"Mrs. M., my mom wants to know why we don't have as much homework."
"O, she must want you to read to her more!" (HW was to read to someone in family).
"No, she said it's hard for her to have Mommy time if I don't have my own work to do. And she said that I talk enough, so reading to her isn't good."

Um. Blank. I silently pointed to his homework for the day, looked him in the eyes as I tapped the two papers, nodded, and walked away.

Shouldn't You Be Sleeping

Uh-huh.

It's not that I'm not planned for tomorrow.

It's that when I look at the plans I say:

"I can do better than that."

But then I look at the empty boxes in the planner

For the weeks ahead

And say:

"Nevermind. That looks good."

But the fun

is all in

the search.