Crazy Hat/Hair Day

My little buddy, CS, didn't want to stay at school today. He was embarrassed by how cool his mom did his crazy hair. Check it out:

She did a reverse mohawk, then did a stripe down each side. Then, she dyed the 'stripes' with Kool-Aid, of all things, but it doesn't really show up in the photos. It took a little convincing to get him to stay. He kept saying he looked silly, but then I reminded him that he didn't look any sillier than me!

Apparently, I was right, cuz he stayed! This was the only other baby to come with crazy hair. How cute is she?

This was my absolute FAVORITE crazy hat ever!! This little darling made this hat with his mom. Isn't it just the best?!

I mean, seriously!? Did you see the braid they attached to the back!? Too cute!!

These little cuties came in hats, as well.

The white stuff you see all over their hands and tables is shaving cream. They LOVE when I bring it out. I write different things on the table in front of them, and if they can tell me what it is, they get to smoosh and play with the cream. What they don't realize is that they are giving my tables a nice deep cleaning at the same time. In the beginning of the year, I start out with just letters, then move on to words. Once everyone at the table smooshes their word around, they cover the whole table with a layer of shaving cream, then write in the cream. It a great way for them to practice their writing without using paper and pencil. (Suz, think of all the trees this saves!) When the foam starts to fade away, we get wet rags and wipe the tables down. Voila! Clean tables! And, as a bonus, the room smells awesome.

8

Stud came to school with me today. Many of my coworkers have been asking about him, so I thought today would be a good day to bring him for a visit. I had already made arrangements with New Principal to leave early today because Stud had an orthodontist appointment. He got his braces off!! Woo hoo! Anyway, I'm glad he came. Everyone was so happy to see him. Some of them hadn't seen him in quite some time, and they were amazed at how much he's grown and matured. I think I've mentioned before that when he was in grade school, his school bus used to drop him off at the Hell-Hole at the end of the day, so everyone there got to know him well. They think of him as one of their babies. It's always heartwarming, as his mom, to see how they react when they see him. There were LOTS of hugs and kisses given today at the Hell-Hole. :)

8

Today was a loonngg day, though. The orthodontist took a while. I had promised Stud this morning that when we were done, I'd take him somewhere for Beef Stroganoff. But first, I had to make that Walmart run for Hershey Kisses. Well, as we pulled into our parking spot, it started raining, so we made a mad dash for the store. Then, we ended up running into some old neighbors, so we were there longer than we intended. The whole time we were there, we could hear the roll of thunder outside.

8

We were both STARVING by the time we left. We went to our favorite Polish/Lithuanian restaurant for dinner (which was AWESOME, by the way, even though he ended up not getting the beef stroganoff) and the storm continued. I met CSJ at the grocery store about 1/2 block from the restaurant so he could get Stud, and just as he was coming out of the store, the skies really opened up. It was raining so hard, I could hardly see. I actually picked him up at the door and drove him to his car, while Stud jumped out and stood with the shopping cart, so that CSJ could drive his car back to the door to load his groceries into the car. It was raining THAT hard! The parking lot was already starting to flood as I left the store. Thankfully, I was only about 6 blocks from home.

I'm certain there's water somewhere in my basement, but I'm too tired to even go look. There's nothing I can do about it, so I'll just wait until the storm stops. In the meantime, I guess I'll go stuff my goodies bags with Hershey Kisses....

My Gifts to You

At the end of every year, I give my babies a little goodie bag of treats, along with a little letter. The items may vary a little year to year, but for the most part, I try to stick to the same items.

My Gifts to You

A pencil, to remind you to keep writing.

A sharpener, to remind you to keep your mind sharp.

An eraser, to remind you that everyone makes mistakes.

A pad of paper, to remind you to write down your dreams.

A box of crayons, to remind you to keep your life colorful.

A yo-yo, to remind you that life will have its ups and downs.

A bandage, to remind you that there will be bumps along the way.

A bookmark, to remind you to always keep reading.

A compass, to keep you on the right path in life.

A bottle of bubbles, to remind you to let your troubles float away.

A lollipop, to remind you how sweet you are.

A Hug and a Kiss, to remind you I love you!

(The bookmark, yo-yo, Hershey Hugs and Kisses are missing from this picture. I need to make one more run to Walmart tomorrow!)

This week is our last week. Thank you, Jesus! We are having a Spirit Week this week, so I hope that helps it go by faster. Today was Sports Day. Everyone was to dress in their favorite sports gear. Naturally, I was sporting a Cubs shirt and hat. This afternoon we simulated the ballpark experience with hot dogs, nachos and popcorn.

Tomorrow is Crazy Hat/Hair Day. I think I'll bring some colored hairspray with me for those whose parents are too lame to help them participate. Wednesday will be Mix & Match Day. Like years past, we will be making trail mix together. There is no school for students on Thursday, since it's our last teacher institute day, then Friday is Pajama Day. That's always my favorite day. However, this year, it won't be nearly as fun. Friday is our last day of school, which means the kids only come for an hour.

Normally, I do Spirit Week during the last full week of school, which would have been last week. Unfortunately, New Principal said I had to do it this week, since "we need to still be teaching until then." I don't think she really understood how Spirit Week was going to go. There IS still teaching going on. As a matter of fact, most of the day goes the same as a 'normal' school day, with the only difference really being how the kids are dressed, and the treats we have. But, the treats are enjoyed during our daily snack time, so we really aren't losing 'teaching' time. But, whatever, she's the boss!

Sadly, because of the teacher institute day, we lost a day, which means I had to cut Teddy Bear Day. That's usually a fun one, too, cuz all kids LOVE to bring in their favorite teddy bear or stuffed animal. Typically, I get gummy bears and Teddy Grahams for snacks.

Pajama Day is always on Friday, and we usually do a Pizza Party that day. But, like I said, we only have an hour this year, so I don't even know if I'll bring a special treat. I may just pass out their goodie bags that day, along with their report cards, empty their mailboxes and call it a day!

Sheesh, I hope the next couple of days goes by quickly. I'm just about at the end of my rope. :( There have been a few really sweet moments the past few weeks, which is keeping me from losing it completely. Today during centers, one of the babies wrote this on her board: "Love is for me n my mom. To day we is having hotdogs. " ('hotdogs' is written backward, from right to left, across the bottom.) How cute is this? It's amazing to me how far my kids have come this year. This particular baby couldn't even write her name when school started, and here she is writing sentences.

8

I am seriously regretting the fact that I agreed to teach summer school. The past two weeks have been hot and miserable here, and let me say one more time - WE HAVE NO AIR-CONDITIONING!! I've been completely wiped out by the time I get home. Plus, I've been in such a foul mood for the past two week. I realize it's hard to believe, but I've been an even bigger bitch than usual. How the hell am I going to do this all summer?! The worst thing is, I will not have even one day off this summer. We are even getting screwed out of a day off for the 4th of July, since it falls on a Sunday. With the exception of Labor Day, I don't have a break coming until the end of September. How the HELL am I going to make it until then? I'm so afraid that the next school year is going to start off on a really crappy note because I won't have had a summer break to decompress and refresh my mind. Argh!! I think I'd rather scrimp and pinch pennies to pay for Stud's tuition. I wonder if I can find someone to take my spot....

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....

It's Spirit Week!

Today was such a fun day. It was the first day of Spirit Week! Today was Sports Day. I'm afraid that because of the field trip last Friday, I didn't do an adequate job of reminding the babies about today, and only a handful dressed. (And, on a weird note, I had 6 babies out today. That's 1/4 of my class!) But, the ones that dressed looked cute. Twin Boy and Twin Girl were my favorites. He wore a "football shirt" and carried a little, soft football toy, and she wore a cheerleader outfit and carried pom-poms. Too cute! (I have to come back and write some more about the Twins later...) Naturally, I wore my Cubs visor and jersey :)

I went above and beyond what I normally do for Sports Day, but that's partially because I only had to worry about my own babies. The other kindergarten class has been doing their own thing all year, and don't see any reason to change things now. I did, however, tell the other teacher about Spirit Week, and even gave her a copy of the letter I sent home so she could do the same with her kids, but I'm pretty certain she didn't.

Anyway, I wanted to do a little something extra for them this year, because I seriously LOVE my class this year, and I kind of let myself go overboard. I thought I would teach them "Take Me Out to the Ballgame," and then serve peanuts and Cracker Jack as a snack. Well, from there, it snowballed into bringing in my crock pot and making hot dogs and bringing in my air popper for popcorn, too. I even bought little popcorn bags and hot dog trays. I bought the dogs, paper products and a bunch of other stuff at GFS. (Do you guys all have these where you live?)

The longer I walked around that place, the more I saw to buy. Tomorrow is Crazy Hat/Hair Day. I was able to get a box of plain, white paper hats (like the kind cooks would wear) for the kids to decorate and make their own crazy hats. It's harder for the boys to participate in this one, since the girls can do silly things with their hair, so I always try to have extra hats with me on this day. But, now, they can all make their own.

I also bought a jug of gummy bears for Thursday's Teddy Bear Day. We're also going to have Teddy Grahams that day. We're going to have a Teddy Bear Tea that day, so we'll have the grahams and punch, and then later we're going to do some math with the gummy bears before we devour them. (I LOVE gummy bears!)

Wednesday is Mix 'N Match Day. The kids were told to wear the craziest clothes they can put together (like maybe a striped top with polka dot pants, or two different shoes and/or two different socks, etc.) I was having a hard time thinking of a snack for this day, and the best I could come up with is the trail mix I used to make last year with my babies. Toward the end of the year, Fridays became our Trail Mix Day, and those who had wonderful behavior all week were able to help me make what we called trail mix. I would buy a bag of mini-marshmallows, a bag of chocolate chips, a bag of white chocolate chips, a bag of pretzel rings, a canister of raisins and a can of nuts. (This was usually enough for a few week's worth of trail mix) Then the kids were allowed to add scoops of each to a big bowl, we would mix it all up, then enjoy our snack. The other kids had to just sit and watch us. I know, mean, right? Don't worry, they still had a snack, but it was whatever snack we got that day from the lunchroom. I'll tell you what, behavior surely improved once these Trail Mix Days started!

Anyway, that will have to do for Mix 'N Match Day. However, if any of my Bloggy Buddies have a suggestion, please give it to me! Friday is my favorite day of Spirit Week every year. It's Pajama Day!! We will also be having a pizza party, and probably cupcakes. Wait, maybe I should get Popsicles, just to keep the alliteration (pajamas, pizza, Popsicles). (tee hee, yes, I'm totally a geeky teacher!)

I'm still debating whether or not I should try and get a "themed" snack for tomorrow. What the hell would you get for Crazy Hat/Hair Day? The only thing I thought of was maybe Twizzlers Pull 'N Peel, because it could look like hair. Lame, I know. Normally, there aren't themed snacks during Spirit Week. This is the first year I've ever done it this way, so I don't have any previous years to go back to and reference. Again, if any of you have a suggestion, PLEASE share it!

Ok, time to go watch bad reality television. I'm embarrassed to say that I love the new ABC show, Here Come the Newlyweds. Night, night!