Confessions Link Up!

I found a new blog the other day that I've been spending my lunch hour reading. Mrs. Bear over at Think Happy Thoughts started a link up party for Wednesday's Confessions and I wanted to join! So here goes...

I confess...that I spend a lot of my lunch/prep poking around the internet while I eat.  It keeps me sane :)

I confess...I'm so excited about the pizza and wings that are in the oven for supper.

I confess...that I've gone to the bar instead of going to yoga for just about every Thursday this week. I'm changing that tomorrow...and I have wine ready for me at home so I have incentive to come home after yoga!

I confess...I kind of wish I had experienced Frankenstorm.  I used to live in VA and was there for a Noreaster, and it was really interesting/a little scary.  But really I'm glad I was safe and dry in Idaho.

I confess...I watch way too much t.v. and I can't wait to catch up on all my shows this weekend :)

There ya have it! Wednesday's Confessions! This was a quick one...there's only about 5 minutes left on my pizza!!!!

It's the Little Things

I know I've written a lot about field trips lately, but something happened on the most recent field trip that I thought was really interesting that got me thinking more about the little moments in life that we sometimes miss.  Little experiences that slip by as we look toward other things.

 I've said many times that my town is smaaaaaalllll. But sometimes even I forget how small.  When we were at the museum a few girls came up to me all excited, "Ms. K!" they said, "come ride the elevator with us!"

What?

There was a sign next to the elevator that said children had to be supervised, but I couldn't figure out why in the world they wanted to ride the elevator to the only other floor in the building, the 2nd.

"C'mon! It's so much fun!" they all exclaimed.  By that time they were pulling me towards it.

"Um...ok. Sure," I said.  As we rushed to the elevator and they pushed the button to call the elevator to us, it hit me! We don't have elevators.  I can think of one, maybe two, buildings that might have an elevator.  This was cool!  I rode with the girls to the 2nd floor and off they skipped.  I wasn't planning to ride again, but a kid that I know doesn't get out much came walking up to me expressing disappointment that he hadn't gotten to ride.  I asked if he had ridden one before, and he said maybe once or twice.  We got on the elevator, he pushed the button, and as the elevator started it's 1 floor descent he beamed.  There was a window on the back side of the elevator and he was very impressed that we could see outside.  

I must have let 30 kids ride the elevator, and it was the most fun I've ever had on an elevator ride.

The next time you ride an elevator, enjoy it :)

My morning view that I'm trying to fully appreciate everyday :)

Everything You Always Wanted to Know About a Middle School Fieldtrip

Yesterday, we took the kids on another field trip.  My little town is an hour in any direction away from another town, and those towns are smaller than this one.  The nearest Wal-Mart is 2.5 hours away.  Suffice it to say any field trip we go on require at least a two and a half hour bus ride.  As I mentioned in my last post, the smells of the bus are varied, everything from sweat to lotion to chips (I'll come back to the chips).

There are a few rules on the bus:

1. Boys in front, girls in back (just so there's no hanky panky)

2. No food on the bus because the kids have trouble picking up their own trash

3. No touching each other horse play style

4. Sit

Other than that they're allowed to wear hats, use electronics, talk, sing, laugh, pass electronic notes (i.e. writing a note/memo on their phone and passing it back and forth on the bus).

I spent the day alternately laughing hysterically and being furious depending on whether or not they decided to follow the above rules.

Here are some interesting things:

1. My hair was done no less than 7 times.

2. I actually said the phrase, "You don't poop out of your foot" when a kid kept insisting he was sitting on his bottom and was really sitting on his foot.

3. I used my talent for sniffing out food and had to yell to the back of the bus that, "I smell chips! If you have chips and I find them, I WILL eat them.  I love chips. I think you have Doritos."

4. I heard this phrase come out of nowhere from a kid who just cracks me up: "I do not like tie dye tshirts in case you were asking."

5. We had to stop after driving for only an hour because of a potty emergency.  The town's population was equal to the number of kids we had on the buses.  About a hundred.  The teeny tiny town store had only one bathroom and obviously couldn't accommodate the 60 kids who just HAD to go.  So we circled around town trying to find a bathroom and ended up at the school whose staff was kind enough to let us all run in and potty.

6. On the way back, a girl on my bus really did have to go.  She kept screaming, "It's giving me goosebumps! I have to go so bad!!! I just pushed my bellybutton and I felt a little come out!"  We passed a porta-potty and she slammed herself against the window and screamed, "NOOOOOO!"  We finally stopped, and I've never seen that girl run so fast. And she's an athlete.

7. They aren't allowed to eat on the bus.  Asking these kids to go for two and a half hours without eating is like, well I don't know what it's like because I don't think there's really anything to compare it to.  After an hour they were SO HUNGRY.  Like, "I'm going to pass out if I don't eat something RIGHT NOW," kind of hungry.  "How can you not let us eaaaaaat???"  "This is SO UNFAIR" kind of hungry.  I've never seen anything like it.  An entire bus full of starving children.  

8. We had a spell-off between two of the kids for the last few minutes of the bus ride and lots of people paid attention.  Yes, we were that bored.  But it was really cool.  Neither one could spell "patriocisity." Mostly because I made it up.

9. Overall, lots of fun.  Though I wouldn't want to do it every week!

10. On a semi-related note, the chipmunk from this post is alive and well.  Well being a relative term since we're pretty sure Jojo (that's his name) suffered some brain damage from the rock.  He lets you pet him.  I got to pet a chipmunk!!!!

And there you have it, everything you didn't know you wanted to know about middle school field trips!

Teacher Problems

I've come to realize that teacher problems are probably the most random, funniest problems there are.  We have real problems, of course, but a lot of the time I find myself standing somewhere and coming up with a solution to the most ridiculous problems I've every heard.

Just yesterday I heard a story about a teacher who had a student, that I have now, who used to smell her hair.  Like multiple times per day. Whaaaaaat!?!

The 8th graders went on a field trip to Crystal Park in Montana last week.  Crystal Park is basically a dirt hillside chock full of actual crystals.  I don't know why they're they, but it's darn cool!  After a 2.5 hour drive filled will camp songs, giggles, occasional scolding, and all the smells that come with a bus load of middle schoolers, we arrived at the park.  The kids were armed with shovels, pails, and sifting screens and off they went.  Dirt flew and kids exclaimed as they found crystals worth keeping.

At one point, one boy saw a squirrel and yelled, "SQUIRREL!!!" Four boys ran after him while one hollered, "Don't touch the wildlife."  I'm still not sure what the goal of chasing a squirrel was, but they were on a mission.  They walked back to their spot after a spirited 4-second chase.  Around that same time (here's where teacher problems come in), some other students came tearing down the hill shouting that another boy had killed a chipmunk with a rock.  It was big news! The student in question came down shortly after, and I asked him what had happened.  He replied that he didn't know.  "Well did you do it on purpose?" I asked.  He was adamant that he did not do it on purpose, and after thinking for a second, I realized that the likely hood of hitting a chipmunk with a rock on purpose probably wasn't that great.  Then he told me that another teacher had it.  When I asked why, he said that the teacher was going to take it to his wife (another teacher at the school).  I tried to wrap my mind around why this teacher would want to take a dead chipmunk to his wife while the student shrugged his shoulders and wandered off.

When I saw the teacher in question coming down to path towards me I asked if he had given the chipmunk mouth-to-mouth.  "Not yet," he said and tapped his shirt pocket.  The chipmunk, with a broken leg and a head injury, was tucked snugly in his pocket.  He transported it back to school in an empty water bottle and as of today, it's still alive!

Last year, I had a group of girls bring me a baby bird who chirped through my last three classes of the day.  I had kids feed it with an eye dropper during down time.

And that's just a taste of a day in the life of a teacher :)