Costume Parade Antics

Our school  decided to have our Halloween parties and costume parade on Friday. The whole school brings out chairs and sits in a giant circle, 3 chairs deep. Each grade takes a turn parading around the inside of the circle, starting with kinder. The big kids always lean over and try to get the little kids to give them 5 which then gets my little guys excited to stand up and do the same back when the other grades come around. The control freak in me hates this because they are out of their seats (because the back two rows are left out otherwise) but I try to let it go since the other teachers let their classes do it as long as they stay in our chair area. Of course, this class pushes everything PAST the limit and started going out too far in the circle. I tell them to sit back down. This is to be expected with this class.

What was NOT expected was what happened in the last parade round when ALL the teachers do a lap. I had told some of the teachers at lunch on Thursday that I was worried about leaving my class unattended. They looked at me like, "Really? No one has ever had any issues. It is only a few minutes." I start to think that maybe I am blowing it out of proportion. But, just to be safe, I announce to my parents at the end of our party that there will be a teacher walk at the end and I would very much appreciate it if they would keep an eye on the class for me while I am gone. I even make eye contact with a parent who volunteers enough to KNOW they need watching. And yet....

I am strolling around the circle, waving to my former students, when one of the teachers comes over to me and says, "Do you know you have an entourage?" I must have had a look of confusion on my face because she smirks, "Look behind you."

I turn around and 4 of my students (you know which 4, the ones that are making my year OH SO SPECIAL) are parading behind me. They even grabbed our class sign so there is no doubt which teacher has no control over her students. SIGH. REALLY? Thanks a lot parents for helping me out. Is it too early to start a Days to Summer countdown?

Due to extreme exhaustion (or perhaps depression) from constant behavior issues, I have not been doing much creating of my own. So I thought I would share (with permission) some cute things my teammate Toni does.

Remember I posted about the Mystery Bag last time? This is the follow-up activity.  Students guess how many mini marshmallows it will take fill the ghost. 10 are glued on as a benchmark. Toni has the kids use unifix cubes to count 10 with one-to-one correspondence. Then they take turns coming up to glue theirs one. I use double ten-frames.

Aren't these cute?

And look at these tear art cats. She said there are supposed to be polka dots on the cat too but the parent helper forgot. They are still adorable.

Alright friends, Super Mom has to go to 2 baseball games, deal with a car that won't start, host dinner for family tonight, write progress reports, do 7 loads of laundry, etc. so I will try to check back when I can to read all YOUR wonderful blogs. I hope you got a chuckle out of my parade story and you have no similar stories of your own!