Footprints

I'm sure you read the title of today's post and you may have instantly thought of the poem, Footprints. It is one of my favorites, but it isn't what I'm writing about today. Today we had a crazy morning. When I walked into the classroom before the children arrived, the heat had not yet been turned on, so I turned it on to warm up the classroom. Well, while we were saying morning prayer, the classroom began to smell, kind of like the typical smell when you turn on the heat and dust is on the coils. The children began to complain of the smell, but since we were in the middle of prayer I told the children I had just turned on the heat, that dust was probably on the coils. I was also thinking, we were in the middle of prayer and God would definitely protect us.

Well, come to find out that the hallway began to have the same smell, which the hallway and my class share the same unit. After the maintenance man took a quick inspection on the inside of the ceiling, the classrooms were instructed to go to a different section of the building, the parish hall. I lined the children up with work and we went to sit in the parish hall. Then we had a number of firetrucks at the school and the firemen instructed us to go outside the building. Today was rather chilly, hint the heat needed to be turned on, and slowly but surely our coats and jackets were brought to us. When I finally got my coat, we were told we could go back in the building, but only back in the parish hall. The children got back to work and eventually we were allowed back to our class.

It took a few minutes before one of the children saw a black spot on the floor. I told the children that it must have come from the bottom of one of the firemen's boot. WOW, the children thought, we have fireman's footprint on the floor. Yes, this was exciting news to some in the class. Raphael raised his hand and asked, "Can I get on the floor and kiss the footprint?"

"I'm not sure you want to do that, we don't know where his boots have been," I said.

"Oh, that's right, he could have stepped on a dead body." Ralph replies.

Gwen finds in her reading book an old story we read titled "Fire!" "We should have read this today," she says.

Many of the children agreed with Gwen. I said, "Too bad we didn't think of that earlier, we could have got our books autographed by real firemen."

You're not listening

As a teacher, repeating what I have said over and over is a daily occurrence. The only frustrating part of repeating myself over and over again is when I'm repeating myself because a child was not paying attention to directions the first time. This morning, I can't even remember what we were talking about, but Cronius and I were going back and forth on something I said. He didn't hear me the first time and then was trying to tell me I was wrong about something I was saying. Eventually our discussion ended like this:

"Ms. J. but -"

"Cronius, I'm trying to tell you-"

"but really-"

"Cronius, you are not listening to me."

"I know."

"Exactly."

Everyone in the class bursts out laughing, to include Cronius who needed an extra second to finally figure out that he admitted to not listening to me.

Space Boundaries

Today I talked to the children about the types of things they and may not have at school. This was used as a reminder as the third graders seem to be having a yard sale during recess, in which you can buy their old happy meal toys with fake money you make. Apparently, they even have some coupons out of buy one get one free. One of the toys they had yesterday was small toy water gun. I told my class this type of toy is not allowed at school, ever. The other toys are fine for them to buy, if they play with them in class, they become mine, but the water guns will cause them to be in trouble.

Naturally, this will start the 20 worst case scenario questions, which eventually gets to Joseph asking, "What if you didn't bring that toy to school and someone just put it in your pocket without you knowing?"

"Hmm, I think you would know, if I'm walking around and someone puts something in my pocket, I will feel them do that and look right away to see what it is. I'm confused on how you wouldn't know someone put something in your pocket."

"So, if I put something in your pocket, you would look to see what it is?"

"Yes, but don't you think that would be inappropriate?"

"Why?"

"Because you would be touching my leg," I quickly said back. (For people who know me well, they know that I have this space issue and do not like having people I don't know touch me. If someone is sitting close to me and they slide in my direction, sometimes without realizing this I will naturally slide over or lean back.) Maybe I said this comment a little too quickly, but I felt the need to protect my personal space.

St. Patrick's Day

St. Patrick is the patron saint of the school and church that I work at and attend. Naturally, we plan a low key feast day for our patron saint, low key because we are in the season of lent and this should be a penitential time. When I taught first grade, I do not recall us celebrating St. Patrick's Day. On one of the years, St. Patrick's Day fell during holy week and if you did not know this, holy week trumps St. Patrick's Day and therefore that year we only attended Mass. When I moved up to fourth grade, I knew that the third grade teacher brought in bagels and cream cheese for the kids while they watched a movie on St. Patrick. I decided that I would borrow the same idea for fourth grade.

Last night, I went to the store to pick up bagels and cream cheese for the kids. Recently, I have started going on a healthy food kick. I have started hitting running season, and like last year I have changed my diet, I even stopped drinking diet coke. So, far I'm having some great runs, which I'm contributing to my change in diet. When I went to the store I found plain bagels, but they are thin, which is less calories, because I read that one bagel is equivalent to five slices of bread. When you think about it, that is a lot of bread for an adult, let alone a child in one serving. Please don't think I get crazy on calorie counting, I actually eat all day long and am trying to build up to a 3,000 calorie diet.

When I got to school today, I started unpacking the items for later in the day and Ralph sees the bagels and realizes they are thin. Gwen then says, "Ms. J. why do you have to go all healthy on us?"

"Isn't this great!" I said.

"No, Ms. J., only you," Gwen replies. (This is a common response from Gwen, only Ms. J. would do that. For example, only Ms. J. would bring in a small wedge of Laughing Cow cheese to put on organic crackers that smell like pizza.)

Before Mass more and more children realize that I got the thin bagels, which like Gwen, they wanted to know why. Apparently last year they got the good bagels, with cinnamon and sugar. So, I tell them, "you guys are lucky, I almost bought you the whole wheat bagels, but then I figured you wouldn't want to eat them." This kind of changed their minds on the thin bagels.

In the afternoon when it was time for the movie, I started pouring drinks of green lime fruit punch, that was generously purchased by a parent in the class. As a class we said a blessing over the food, I put on the movie, and children patiently waited as I colored the cream cheese green and served bagels. Well here is the thing, I thought the third grade teacher colored the cream cheese green, that is the only reason why I did that. As soon as I did this the children were oohing and aahing over the green cream cheese. I decided to ask the children if they had green cream cheese last year, no they tell me it was just plain. Okay have you even tried to color cream cheese with a plastic spoon and knife? SERIOUSLY!

If you could ask a priest anything, what would you ask?

On Tuesday's Father will come to visit the class. Typically Father will plan well planned lessons on different saints and will bring in a relic of the saint if he has one, which he usually does. Today, he briefly discussed the mission and allowed the children to ask question. So, what does a fourth grader want to ask the priest?

Father sees Joseph's hand raised and calls on him.

"Father, where did you get your coat?"

"Well, I got it at a military surplus store. Do you like it?"

"Yes."

"Would you like to try it on?"

"Yes."

Father took off his coat and let Joseph try it on. I was sure to take a picture of this, it is probably a once in a lifetime event. This makes me laugh though because out of all the questions Joseph could have asked, what he wanted to ask most was where did Father get his coat?

Where is My Mother?

Lent has started and I think I may have over done it with what I'm giving up for lent. The past two days have been extremely hard for me, basically a non stop headache. I keep telling myself next week will be better, next week will be easier, and of course my favorite saying, "Jesus hung on a cross for three hours." The days I have a headache are much harder to get through, because it is one of the days I wish I was one of the kids, can I please go lie down in the office for fifteen minutes? So, when it is time for dismissal, I'm counting down the minutes so I can leave and go home.

Usually, the weekend before a holiday weekend or holiday break, I'm eager like the children to start my weekend or vacation, too. If not a lot of children have left the classroom and it is close to the end of carpool time, I will go, "Where are your mothers?" Today to make it through dismissal, I started trying to guess what child would be called next for carpool. I guessed a child and Ralph says, "Wait, what about me? I could go next, because this is about the time I'm asking, where is my mother?" This made me laugh to myself and Ralph was right, he was the next one called.