Oh Snap!

This story happened outside of the classroom today.

Being a teacher in a small(er) town, I am very conscious of going into the market to purchase any kind of alcohol.  The only time of year I go into the local liquor store is at Christmas to pick up whatever my dessert recipes call for.  And don't you know it, I ALWAYS see a parent from school!

So today I picked up a bottle of wine at Winco.  I literally have my baseball cap on and sunglasses!  As I am checking out and putting it into a brown paper bag, I dropped it.  SMASH.... oh snap, that bottle of wine went everywhere!  A very nice Winco employee came right over with a huge cart to clean it up.  I thought things couldn't get worse..... but they did!  The checker announced over the loud speaker, "Register 3 needs a new bottle of New Age wine to replace the one that broke."  Second announcement over the loud speaker, "The clear one."  THIRD announcement over the loud speaker....."It's wine."

I seriously wanted to crawl under a rock!  And of course, the person straight across from me, at the bagging station, was a parent from school!

Lockdown

Every year we practice a lock down drill at school with the Ada County Sheriff's Department.  This always makes me sick to my stomach and the whole day is a mess.

This year, the Sheriff's Department told us to have our kids stand in a designated area instead of hiding in their cubbies.

While we are practicing the new procedures, I shut my curtains, made sure my door was locked, closed the blinds to the outside window and grabbed my district issued T Ball Bat.

While the kids and I were standing in a corner of the room, one little girl started laughing and asked, "Mrs. Kwid, what do you think you are going to do with that T Ball Bat?  I, too, started laughing after looking at all five feet and a little over 100 pounds of their teacher!  Then we were all laughing at this ridiculous scene!

The laughter really did take the edge off of an ugly drill.

I do know that if a real danger was to occur, I would do anything to protect my kiddos.  I may be small, but this girl is strong!

SeeSaw

My classroom is blessed with several pieces of technology.  In addition to an Interactive Whiteboard, Lego Bricks, Bee Bot Robots, and a document camera, we have 6 i pads, 6 laptops and two desk top computers.  One app we use on the i pads and laptops is called See Saw.  This app allows parents to register their phone or i pad and their child can take pictures and videos of projects and different activities during the day and send them to their parents.  I find this to be a great way for students to communicate with their parents what we do in the classroom during the day!

I recently introduced the See Saw app to my students.  I partnered up my students and asked each child to make a short video for their parents and post it to their account.

While walking around the classroom and monitoring my students, I saw one student watching his video he was about to send to his parents.  He looked at his partner and told him, "I really need to brush my teeth!"

Who knew the See Saw app would promote good dental health!

Princess Of The School

I have been kicking around the idea of writing what I hear throughout the day in my second grade classroom for years.  I love listening to my students.  Everyday they tug at my heart strings.  I laugh, cry, and am always amazed at what comes out of the mouths of babes.

This story convinced me that I need to start documenting!

Last Tuesday was my coworkers birthday.  Because it was Tiara Tuesday, and because it was a birthday celebration, my teaching team and I decided we needed to break out our crowns.

During afternoon duty, a Kindergarten girl walked up and asked if I was the princess of the school!  In my best princess voice I replied, "Yes, yes I am the princess of the school!"  This student proceeded to ask, "Princess, is there anything I can do for you?"  I asked her name, tapped both her shoulders, and crowned her Princess Maddie!  She ran off as fast as she could to tell her friends she was Princess Maddie!

I think both our days were complete after this!