fun in the shade

It's hot out. Seriously. Time and Temp said 93 degrees at 3pm. Time and Temp fails to mention the heat index, though. But my class desperately needed to get out of the classroom for a little while this afternoon. So I needed to get creative.

Our playground has a very limited shady area in the afternoons, and I wanted to keep them out of the sun as much as possible. So I grabbed a red bucket and filled it with water. I grabbed the paint brushes and rollers out of the art center. We took our water bottles and the supplies for our "mystery activity" out to the playground. And my kiddos "painted" the wall of the preschool.

For about a minute, they were concerned about getting wet, but then I explained that it was hot enough out that the sun would dry us all off quickly. After that, they competed to see who could get their paintbrush the highest, giggling happily about the water dripping on their heads. Then they realized that the sponge rollers were actually taking dirt off the wall - a bonus I hadn't considered when the idea came to me.

Oh, Really?

Children are such funny creatures. Their minds process events and concepts in sometimes odd ways, but you are always left with a sense of awe. Daily I am reminded in some small way of why I teach. It's not for the hefty salary. It's not the prestige of the office. It's not even for the satisfaction of teaching. It's for the comedy. You just can't get this stuff in an office setting.

"When I die and go to Heaven, do you think God and Jesus can get this rock out of my ear?"

Yes, she did have a rock in her ear, and yes, this is how she informed us of the situation. Seriously. I know - I have weird kids in my class.

"The table hit me!"

This little boy was playing with blocks at the table and he dropped one. When he leaned down to pick it up off the floor, he bumped his head on the table.

"Watch this! I'm turning tricks!"

The 5 year old in question was playing on the monkey bars and wanted to show me that he could do a flip. His mother got a good chuckle out of this when she picked him up that afternoon.

"A little bit."

That was the response I got when I asked one of the 5 year olds in my class if they had been good for the other teacher they were with that day - I knew this little boy had caused some problems for her.

"Land hole!"

They were pretending that a piece of playground equipment was a pirate ship. They were making each other walk the plank and everything. Finally one little girl decided it was time to find an island to look for treasure on, so that was what she yelled. Close, huh?

See what I mean? You just can't get this kind of quality entertainment with any other job.

Definitely Monday

There is a big difference between a group of 5 five-year-olds and a group of 18 six-to-twelve-year-olds. A huge difference. When I got to work this morning, the teacher for the school-aged class had called in sick and the afternoon teacher for the class was not answering her phone. So, me being the nice (and obviously more than a little bit insane) person that I am, I offered to take the class. I thought I'd be able to keep my kids in there too, since the state says that with that particular age group a teacher can have up to 20 children on her own (which is further proof to me that nobody who has any authority on such matters ever was a child, let alone spent any time with a group of children). But once everyone arrived, I was over the ratio. So my lovelies had to move down to the fours class.




The strongest thing there was to drink today was Dr Pepper. Yeah, that's not gonna cut it.* Not a large enough Advil bottle, either.** And if I were to go to bed this instant and sleep until it was time to be at work tomorrow, that wouldn't be enough rest to make up for the day I've had. It's not that they are bad kids or even that it was a bad day. It's just physically and mentally exhausting dealing with a class that you don't usually deal with.

And obviously more than a little insane me decided that this was the week I was going to start cooking more. So there's nothing quick and easy to pop into the microwave for supper tonight. *Bangs head against desk*

I'm with Garfield. Mondays suck.

DISCLAIMERS:

*I'm not suggesting I would have imbibed if there were anything stronger to drink available. I can, however, understand how some people would feel the need for a nice strong drink in the same situation. As in "This could drive a person to drink!" I'm just sayin'.

**I am also not advocating the use of more than the noted dosage of OTC products. Thought I'd throw that in there, just for good measure.