Full moons and Valentines

Hey all!
I have to say thank you to all of my fellow teacher blog buds and followers who wrote about this week being especially hard. It was SO hard!! I have a great class and I was finding myself saying things I never thought I would and sounding like my mother which was scarrrrrry! I blame the full moon. I do. I felt like I had a class full of little werewolves on the verge of turning! They were just crazy, busy, talking, roaming, yelling, fighting, pushing, crying, arguing, tattling and generally grumpy and moody. What happened to my sweet little smiley bugs that loved hugs and laughing and centers and listening to a story?? If you find them, can you please send them back to room 852? I'll gladly exchange them for the impostors who took their place.

Even in the midst of the craziness, I relied on my belief that you catch more flies with honey, so I found myself really rewarding the good behaviors that I saw and it did help. for about a second. We even had a team visit from administration who sweetly asked us to review the cafeteria rules because second grade seemed to be giving them a bigger headache than the other grades. oh joy. That at least helped me to know it just wasn't my group of nuggets being unusually unruly. I could also see it in the halls when more than one class was taking time to regroup with their heads down (hey - desperate times...).

I'm not expecting this week to be much better. We have Monday off for MLK then I have a team leader release day Wednesday, Thursday is an early release day and then it's a teacher planning day on Friday. We have chosen this week to try to squeeze in our fluency assessments since it's not a great week to do much of anything else of substance. Oh, and did I mention that the following week I'll be out Wednesday-Friday to attend FETC?  I have trusted subs that I can leave real plans with so I know my kids are in good hands. I'm actually going to leave some Valentine's Day things for them to get a start on. Can you believe that? I JUST (I mean just...as in yesterday. again, don't judge) finished de-Christmas-izing my house.

It might be a teeny bit early, but I wanted to share one of the sweetest gifts I ever received for Valentine's Day. It might be nice to pass the idea along to your own personal chid's room mom as a gift idea. I guess you could switch this up for any reason, even from a group of adults, like a retirement gift or teacher appreciation gift or bosses day gift (if you like your bosses...) Inside each of these bottles are handwritten love notes from each of my students. They are rolled up individually and secured with little rubber bands. The outside of the bottles are written on with a paint pen. Sweet, right?




I keep these out all year just because I love them. And I love pink things. And hearts. And I have such fond memories of the class that gave it to me and the wonderful mom who organized it. Have you ever had the kind of family where you wish the parents would have like 10 kids so you could teach them all? That was this mom. This was one of her beautiful girls who was in this class. Just delicious inside and out.

Have a fantastic Sunday friends. I hope you get to un-set the alarm for tomorrow morning! I'm having a problem getting threaded comments to work which is totally bumming me out! I'm working on it (thanks to my blogging idol Kristen aka Ladybug's Teacher Files). I feel like it will be so cool to comment right back to everyone. Fingers crossed I get it workin!

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23 comments

  1. I can so relate to this! I am also a "catch more flies with honey than with vinegar" believer. When my kids are at their worst, that's when I give out the most rewards. (In my case, they get beanie babies for their desks.) I guess it's my desperate attempt to find the one or two kids who are doing the right thing!

    Love the Valentine's day gift, although I'm definitely not crafty enough to do it myself. I know my limitations! (I don't even know what a craft pen is!)

    Sally from ElementaryMatters

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  2. I feel ya on the crazy kiddos this week! Had to deal with things this week I never had to before. Also, love the valentine's gift! I'm your newest follower!

    Kim
    Growing Up Teaching

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  3. The kids were crazy this week! It was almost like Second Graders Gone Wild- like I was at the zoo wild- in my classroom. I'm glad we made it! Enjoy your day off tomorrow! I would love to hear more about the threaded comments...maybe you could share in a future post...? :)

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  5. Ok, I can't spell to save my life today. We'll try again!

    Denise! You are my idol, with those fabulous printables you make! I feel so limited in mine...I'm working on it.

    Are the threaded comments still not working for you? You're not the only one, I heard.

    By the way. I had NO idea about the followers gadget 'til you told me. Holy cow! I am so bummed!!!

    Send me a line if I can do anything to help with the threaded thing. :)
    Kristen

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    1. Ok, how strange is this?? The threaded comments work on the mobile version of my blog! I'm on my phone right now. Hubs is going to tackle it in a bit...

      And I can't even believe you would consider ME an idol of yours!! I have learned so, so much from you!!

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  6. You are fabulous! And so correct about the full moon this week...oh my! I am so excited we have a very similar week to yours next week with Monday off, Teacher Mentoring Program Thursday, and PD on Friday :) Hope you have a great rest of your weekend and I truly hope you have a much better week next week!

    Lisa :)
    Made In The Shade In Second Grade

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  7. Hey I wanted to let you all know I've nominated your adorable blog for the Versatile Blogger award :) Check out www.lilbookchompers.com to see your shout out!!

    LilBookChompers.com

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  8. I agree this week wasn't the best, Ihave a rather tough bunch this year. I finally felt in control the end of October and then missed two weeks due to pnemonia and complications. The first week back was great, this last week not so much. It is made better by the blogs I have found. I love your site, the ideas, the worksheets and the fact we are teachers united for a common cause. Keep up the good work.

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  9. Adorable love notes! I would keep those out all year, too!
    Jenn
    Finally in First

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  10. Thanks for sharing, although it isn't always fun and smiles as a teacher, that's the reality and it's good to be reminded of that! Good luck this week. May your kids learn all that they can :)

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  11. I agree with you about your week - my kids were crazy too - I'm hoping it was just the 2 weeks off! Kathy from First Grade a la Carte sent me your way! Things will get better for all of us!!

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  12. Kathy sent me too!!! love your Valentines gift ideas!!

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  13. Kathy sent me to your blog. You have wonderful ideas!

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  14. Just catching up on my blog reading, today we went from 50 degrees to 14....guess they knew the barometer was dropping as they were many of them BARKING like dogs, a group was so good, my coworker and I went running as we thought a pack of dogs were attacking the kids ....had to laugh when I saw your graphic of the dog! We didn't have MLK off ...blech....so now we can add barometer changes, snow, full moon to hazard pay for school staff :)

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  15. Kathy sent me to your fun blog!

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  16. How cute! Kathy sent me!

    kellybrown28021@gmail.com

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  17. Kathy at first grade a la carte sent me. Love your blog!

    flyinghighinfirst.blogspot.com

    ashleysanderson1@hotmail.com

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  18. I am sharing the Versatile Blogger Award with you! Hop on over to my blog to pick up the button and get the rules!

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  19. Kathy sent me. Thanks!

    Melissa
    mizemelissa@gmail.com

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