Spirit Week, The Recap

I had intended to write this post over the weekend, when I could include photos, but I think I'll just have to come back and add them later at home. Today, only 13 babies showed up for school. Apparently, I never received the memo that stated a pizza party signifies the end of the school year. Hmmm...oh, well. I'll just have to deal with having 1/2 my class gone... ;-)

Ok, so I already shared Monday's festivities. Fun, fun, fun! Tuesday was Crazy Hat/Hair Day, and the babies did not disappoint! The girls had the crazy hair, and the boys wore the hats. I actually only had 3 boys that did not have hats, but as luck would have it, I had three "crazy" hats in my trunk (from last year's Spirit Week!) so it all worked out perfectly! I didn't need the paper hats after all. I'm going to pack them away for next year. I've already thought of a hundred different things we can do with them (including making 100th Day hats! yay! I've warned you all several times now that I'm a helplessly geeky teacher, right?) I tried to take pictures of my hair for you, but of course my camera died! I had the front of my hair up in a ponytail (picture samurai hair?) then I braided that. I put the two sides up in pigtails, and the back was up in a bun. The babies thought it was hilarious, and the adults all told me I looked like a little girl (because of the pigtails). I took pictures of the babies, though, and I will post them later.

Wednesday was Mix 'N Match Day, and it was too cute! Let me first tell you how I dressed. I prayed all the way to school, that I wouldn't get pulled over or in an accident, because I would have a hard time explaining myself! I took half of my hair and put it in a french braid, then put the other half in a pigtail. Because I did this immediately after I got out of the shower, my hair was soaking wet. As I drove, I must have been twisting the pigtail, because by the time I got to school, it was one big banana curl (picture Cindy Brady!) I had one brown eye and one green eye. I had on a crazy patterned top (flowers and hearts) with a pair of penguin pajama pants (navy blue pants with white penguin silhouettes) I wore one orange sock and one red sock, one slide-on sandle (the ones that I adore, that make my foot feel better! smart, right?) and one clog. I looked utterly ridiculous, which was the point, after all! Most of the babies wore two different shoes and/or two different socks. A couple actually wore some mixed patterns.

Unfortunately, the Trail Mix was a big bust! Most of the kids didn't like it, and I watched my $$ get thrown right in the trash. :( I don't understand it. It was all stuff they liked individually. As I told them what each ingredient was going to be, I kept hearing "mmmmmm!" but then once it was mixed together, they didn't want it. Go figure!

Thursday was a cute day. Not all the babies brought Teddy bears, though. Some of the kids, however, brought bears that were literally bigger than they were! It was hilarious! I had downloaded a bunch of teddy bears pages from a website, so we colored teddy bears, wrote our Daily News on teddy bear paper, and made a jointed teddy bear. That afternoon, the Teddy Grahams and Gummy bears were a HUGE hit!

Friday was Pajama Day, always my favorite day! I wore a different pair of penguin pajamas (I know, you're shocked that I have more than one, right!?) and put my hair in pigtails (this time they both were in Cindy Brady curls!) and most of the babies wore jammies, too. All but one of the girls wore cute two-piece pajamas, as did about half of the boys. One little guy, DB, wore his Superman pjs under his clothes, but didn't want to take the clothes off. He had denim shorts on over his long Superman pants. It was hilarious! His mom also brought us cupcakes, which was an unexpected treat. Another mom brought three big bags of candy for the kids (I ended up making candy bags to take HOME!) so we had lots of treats. During my prep, I convinced my friend to go to the grocery store with me, so he could run in for me, (I didn't want to walk around the store in my pajamas!) and get the Popsicles. Turns out we didn't even eat them since we had too many other treats. I'm hoping we have a warm day tomorrow or Wednesday so we can go outside and eat them. It's raining today :(

I guess because we had a week of celebration, my parents assumed that school was over. Um, hello!! Who the hell said that?! I guess I shouldn't be complaining, but I'm not ready for the babies to leave yet. I haven't given them their end-of-the-year gifts, they didn't empty their cubbies, they didn't take their papers home, WE'RE NOT READY!! They didn't even get their report cards yet. And, many of them owe me library books. I'm really pissed about this, to tell the truth.

I have never let my students take my library books home before. Never. I knew I would never see them again. Now don't get wrong, I have hundreds of other books that I let the babies "borrow" because I don't really care if I get them back. Some were here when I came to the Hell-Hole, and the rest I've accumulated over the years, either through donations from colleagues, book drives, or other programs (we have this awesome program every year called Bookworm Angels.) Anyway, I made a list this morning of every child who owes me a book, with the name of the book and the replacement cost, to hang on my door. I'm also giving the office a copy because none of those children will receive a report card until the book is brought back or paid for. Sad thing is, most just won't get their report cards because their parents could care less. But, since today's post is not going to be a bitching session, I'm moving on....

We only have two full days left of school. Thursday is a teachers institute day so the kids are off, then Friday the kids are supposed to come for one hour. What a waste! I actually convinced the Big Cheese to print the report cards out early so we can pass them out on Wednesday, thus eliminating the need for the children to return on Friday. Our attendance is anticipated for the last week of school, anyway, so the kids are already marked present. The teachers only work a half-day on the last day, so we are finished at 11:30. That is, IF you worked both Report Card Pick-Up nights. I don't know why they always stipulate that. Who would NOT work Report Card Pick-up? But, I guess some people don't, since it's in the evening. Who knows!

Traditionally, I meet for lunch with a group of my teacher friends on the last day of school, since we get out so early. Even though we don't all work together anymore, we still try to keep up with this, since we so rarely see each other anymore. I'm really looking forward to our lunch.

Oh, one crappy little thing I realized today...we start back to work on AUGUST 5TH!!! I want to cry. I keep trying to find the silver lining in this year-round BS, but things like this make it really, really hard....ok, I said no bitching, right? I'll come back and do it tomorrow....