Fridays with Fourth Graders

Kelly's Korner is doing a "Day in the Life" type post today.
So here's a day in my life. I realize it's a smidge detailed.

Up at 6am. Get ready for school.
Put Crazy Daisy in her crate and proceed to take 15 minutes to finally get out the door.
Find a gem on the radio as I drive in to school. Rock out to "Southern Cross."

Get to school, make breakfast, chat with another teacher about student.
Partner in crime/co-teacher has brought me a Sonic drink, but she purposely ordered diet for me so I will learn to start drinking diet. Good luck with that.
Turn on lamps and turn off evil flourescent lighting. Write on the board and start classical music morning selection. We save the rock-n-roll for later things like math.
Kids enter and the zillions of questions begin.
Review Greek alphabet with the kids and give those still interested an independent study project: I'll teach you the upper case letters, you come back to me with the lower case letters.

Tell kids to get quiet and work on morning work roughly 37.4 million times. Threaten with study hall.
High school athlete arrives, bearing donuts. The kids are very excited and gobble down sugary treat.
Head outside to play kickball with athlete. Laugh as kids try to organize themselves into teams.
Catch kickball with one hand while holding Sonic drink in other. Crown myself Queen of Kickball. Kids disagree.
Come inside to settle the kids down before sending them off to Spanish.
On conference time, discover another fourth grade teacher is planning to show "Gremlins" as the reward movie. Help her to realize the stupidity of that idea, and tell her she has to find a different movie. Hello?!

Begin teaching lesson on Tall Tales. Confiscate yo-yo from student. Wonder if I'm teaching in the 50's.
Begin working on independent Open House projects.
Play a little Rob Thomas to get us inspired. Enjoy the children singing along.
Monitor student chatting. Remind them that the phrase "your mom" is off limits.

Put in the reward movie: Where the Wild Things Are.
Fuss at children for breaking my lamp for the second time in two weeks.
Finally get everyone settled.
Lesson plans for next week. Update school website. Miscellaneous tasks on computer.
Smile as children laugh at different parts of the movie.
File emails in inbox. Go from 73 to 18.

Lunch duty. Eat my own lunch hurriedly.
Discover one of the KG teachers got engaged today. I'm okay with it because the teacher is 35 and was my age (33) when she met the guy.

Finish the movie, head to KG reading buddies. Love this time of the day to watch my 4th graders mentor the KG precious ones.
Give my kids their report cards and send them out the door.

Make 37.4 billion copies for next week, and take my Friday afternoon quiet time to clean my classroom.
Head out to pick up pizza for dinner, and cozy in for a Friday night date with my DVR.

On tomorrow's agenda: antique shopping and a birthday party in Crazy East Texas!