Dirty Days

As you all know, I am a first grade teacher. Left 8th grade and went to first, not by choice, but by force. I could stay angry or resentful, but the bottom line is that this is what I'm doing now, and it's in my best interest to try to enjoy it, and ethically sound to do my very best at teaching these little kids. I always knew, even when I was sad to be leaving 8th grade, that I would enjoy this job. I had NO idea how much work it would be, or how long my days would become, or that I'd spend a lot of time on weekends, working on being a good teacher....nope, NO idea!

That said, even though I am spending long hours (average 11 hour days) and time at this job, I often feel as if I'm still a step behind. Just today, I figured out how to find a way in the daily schedule to have a spelling and phonics lesson, and be able to teach grammar during reading time. Oh, my, so much to do, so little time! I've had tons of mentors helping me, advising me, and telling me what I should worry about, and what things I can let go. That's been tremendously helpful to me. It's because of this that I have "fun Fridays," at school. During this day we do a bunch of themed activities that go along with the Social Studies or Science theme of the week. They involve all subject areas, but are themed in a way to make them fun.

It's with that information that I can now begin to tell you about "Dirty Day" at school. You see, we'd been talking about soil. We'd been discussing what grows in soil, what we need soil for, how to conserve soil, how to protect the soil, what type of soil is best....well, you get the picture...lots of conversations about dirt. In one of our little educational videos there was a piece on composting. Now, if you know me at all, you have to know that this would be something that would just really be exciting to me. Talking to kids about mixing dirt and garbage to make really good dirt to grow things in...a serious winner in my book!

So, the plans for a Fun Friday and Dirt were well under way. The kids each brought in a ziploc bag of dirt from home, so that we could plant beans in their dirt and see which beans grew best. We compared their dirt, weighed their dirt, and then planted in their dirt. They made a little plant stake to put their name on, so we could tell whose plants were whose. They made a bean book, about the life cycle of a bean. But the biggest, and best part of the day was when we made our own compost bins.

Yeah, four big plastic containers with a little dirt in them, add garbage, carted in from their homes in ziplocs. "Hey, that's my garbage, I want to dump that in.." and then taking their hands and crunching it all together to create a lovely, muddy compost bin. Hand washing was a necessity, and also took longer than making the compost. Kids love to rub foaming soap on their very dirty hands and then show their friends just how "gross" this is!

My favorite part of the day was the dirt pudding trick that I pulled on the kids. I made dirt pudding (chocolate pudding, oreos, whipped cream and gummy worms) the night before and put it in a flower pot. I picked up the pot, so the kids couldn't see inside and said, "Hey, look, someone left us some dirt." Then I proceeded to take a spoon and eat "dirt." Their faces were so shocked, and disgusted, they couldn't even comment! I have to tell you, it was probably the best trick I've ever done.....still makes me laugh when I tell the story.

Of course I had to quickly tell them is wasn't real dirt, it was dirt pudding, and offer each of them a cup full to taste. They were all for that, well all but one little guy, who just couldn't seem to compute that the dirt everyone else was eating, really wasn't dirt. He said, "I have to put my head down, it's making me sick to see everyone eating that dirt."

I LOVE Fridays, they are more relaxed, and the kids leave for the week feeling really happy to have been in school. I leave exhausted and already thinking about next week, and next Friday and what I'm going to do to keep their interest. I think apples....and we'll just go from there.