St. Patrick's Day

This morning went well! The kids seemed to be in a good mood and they were calmer. My CT had green chocolate coins that she put on everyone’s desk for St. Patrick’s Day. They were excited and I was worried that it would start the day off on a crazy note, but it actually was fine. I reminded them that they needed to do all of their morning jobs if they wanted to eat their chocolate. They did a really good job and all of them were working on their morning work when it was time for them to meet for morning meeting. They all go into the circle quickly and we did a fast “Top of the Morning” greeting for St. Patrick’s Day. We played 4 Corners for ST. Patrick’s Day too since our 4 corners are St. Patrick’s Day related. We have spring, flowers, leprechaun, and 4 leaf clover. The game went well and they were good. We did two rounds before it was time to line up for art. At that time, one girl pushed to get to the front of the line. She fell down and go upset. She is already in trouble for hitting and hurting other kids and she knows she needs to be at the end of the line all week anyway. I told her this and she got angry. She hid in the corner of the room. My CT didn’t step in this time, and I was proud of myself that I got her to move. I told the class to go ahead to the first stopping point, and I was glad she followed the class after they left.

I went to go pick up the class at art and it was a madhouse. There was a volunteer in from Art Goes to School and they were writing a story about a painting. It seemed fun but they were all yelling and calling out and screaming! The volunteer read me the story they created and it was really cute. We got them in line and after a few minutes, finally got them to quiet down. I told them they needed to be really quiet in the hall because PSSA testing was going on. I was glad they seemed to calm down quick and I read them a story for the 6-7 minutes we had until it was time for recess.

The rest of the day was kind of a blur. We did Daily 5, which went well except for one round. I met with red group and two students on either side of the table were giving me trouble. I gave them a book about a crab and one said it made him seasick. The other one was just looking for attention so he kept hitting the book on the table and saying “ow.” Then I said we needed to get through the book and they both sat on the floor. I gave them the choice of sitting on their chair or reading it in time out. One sat up, the other didn’t. He then got upset saying we always read and never do activities in that group. I told him we never do activities because we can’t get through a book first. I said if we got through the book, we’d do an activity. Instead, he got really upset, and went to time out, saying he was going to stay there forever. My CT went to talk to him but he didn’t tell her why he was upset. I talked to him afterwards and her too and he finally came back when we started writing. We did a fun writing exercise where they got to write about either finding a four leaf clover or a leprechaun.

At the end of the day, we went out with the rest of the first grade classes to play dodgeball. It was so nice outside! That was really fun and we all had a great time. When we came in one teacher asked me to sit with her class for a few minutes because she needed to do something. I did and I was proud to go in and get them involved playing a game of 7-up before they called buses. When the teacher came back, everything was quiet and calm. She thanked me. That was a nice end to the day.