School Daze

There has been so much happening at school, that I decided to save it up and put it all into one, rather rambling post. Some of these are stories, some of them are observations, and some of them are just plain whining moments. Read on, if you're on board for any of those things.

First graders are incredibly resilient in some ways. They can be totally disappointed and mad at someone in one minute, and laughing hysterically with them the next. They can be best friends and enemies with the same kids in about 20 seconds. They can get their feelings hurt, but turn that around to an awesome moment. But the one thing they are not resilient about is boo-boos. I think this is probably my fault, because the mothering instinct kicked in, and I let it get out of control.

It all started with a tooth falling out on the first day of school. I made a big deal of it, showed it around, and then wrapped it and ziploc bagged it, so it would make it home without incident. I had the tooth loser rinse out his mouth until the blood stopped, then gave him a sticker for being so brave. After that, at least once a day, someone has a sore tooth, loses a tooth, or a tooth starts to bleed, so I'm handing out stickers and rinsing out mouths, and wrapping up teeth right and left. They are in the prime age for tooth loss (well, other than the octogenarians who are losing them for other reasons) so it makes sense that I'll be on this job for most of the year.

Then there are those who fall at recess, get a little scratch, show it to me, and I think, "Well a bandaid will make it feel better, and we can move on." Sure, that's just how it works, however now, when anyone has any little scratch or bump, we need a bandaid. And I can tell you that I'll likely run out this week. Oh...My....Gosh...what WILL we do THEN??? I thought about buying some fancy bandaids for the rare occasion someone would need one, good thing I didn't follow through until after I realized the allure that getting a bandaid provides to the injured party.

There also ice packs. My tooth hurts, I need an ice pack, I have a headache, I need an ice pack, I fell on the playground, I need an ice pack, I have a bug bite, I need an icepack...you get the picture. Ice packs are very prestigious, 'cause if you have one, it's sure that you've been mightily injured and must be so very brave to stay in school, and not be on your way to the hospital for surgery....:>)

So that's it for the medical observations, I'm sure there will be more, but so far I've been lucky not to have any one throw up or have an accident, although one of my colleagues got to experience both of those in one day, last week.

Sometimes kids say the funniest things, they seem to have a knack for making me laugh, when I'm mostly not feeling like laughing. Last week, during math game time, one of the students was disturbed that it was "too loud." Here's how it went: "Ms. Crabtree, me and K were over there trying to play, but it's so loud that I can't even talk." Me: "Did you ask them to quiet down?" Him: "Yeah, but they didn't listen." Me: "What would be another solution?" Him: "I think you should yell QUIET really loud." Me: "Is that something I've done before?" Him: "No, that's why I'm thinkin' it would work this one time."

Pretty logical thinking, get me to do what he really wanted to do, so he was satisfied and it was quiet...well, at least it would be for about 10 seconds. We chose another route, that better fit my personality, but he said that he still wasn't satisfied, so I moved him to another area, and it seemed to soothe his jangled nerves.

Finally, there's the bathroom thing. I have to take the whole class to the bathroom, or they can go one at a time with a pass. This works fine for most of them, however there are a few who go to the bathroom because they don't want to do the work, because they don't like the subject matter, or because they just want to move around. So, I've taken to having them put their name up on a chart when they go, this way I can tell whose gone an inordinate amount of times, check with home to make sure they don't have medical issues, then remind them when I see them going too much. Who knew I'd also be the bathroom police. I mean when I posted about Jr. High kids and their leaving for whatever, I really never thought I'd need to hear, "I need to pee." But, here I am in first grade, asking them if they really have to go bad, or can they wait until the next break....geez potty police here I come!

Until next time, I'm just working on doing this better, finding humor in the small things, and trying to pick topics that are fun for the kids and have lots of experiential activities that work well for my little peanuts.....if I can manage to stay organized, and I have to do this again next year, it should be easier...maybe :>)