JEEBUS FRIES!

So I had the same class today as I had yesterday. They were better in the morning than they were yesterday. So much better, in fact, that I was regretting mentioning some of them in my end-of-day report yesterday. Then, I got cocky. I basically only had them in the morning. After lunch recess, they had spelling, and then they had to go to gym class, and then music class, and then I had to read to them out of a storybook till dismissal.

So, as I mentioned, the morning went well. After lunch, it turned sour. The three boys I'd written up yesterday were involved in some sort of argument, so that the boy who had acted out the most yesterday was in tears. I sent him to the office and told him he could stay there until he stopped crying, and could talk to the principal if he wanted. (To clarify: I didn't send him to the office because I was angry, I sent him there so he wouldn't have to cry in front of his classmates. And the principal at this school is the nicest woman ever. She was my choir teacher in junior high and my brother's 3rd and 4th grade teacher. Lovely, lovely person.) When I told mom about it when I got home, she asked, "A case of bullies and victim?" and I replied "He's a bit of a bully himself, I think. I'd say it was a taste of his own medicine." This might be an unkind statement, but it's true.

Anyway, she brought the kid back while we did spelling, and pulled the other two boys of class to chat, and then told me it had all been straightened out.

I took them to gym, and when I went to pick them up, the gym teacher told me they'd gotten a "dot" today *gasp* instead of a plus sign. When I picked them up from music, the teacher seemed very happy to return them to me. And when it was storytime, they would NOT SHUT UP. I finally had to send Crying Bully BACK to the office, this time for banging his forehead forcibly against the bookshelf. I asked him to stop. He pulled out a bin lid and started hitting himself with that. I asked him to stop. He said, "What else can I hit my head with?" and picked up a waterbottle and started hitting himself with it, so I asked him to go to the office. He was completely incredulous. "What? WHY?"

"Because I've asked you to stop hitting yourself several times and you haven't." And even after that I had to ask him AGAIN to go to the office before he went. Bleeeeh.

Got a call at 10 this morning. Woodfield needed an afternoon sub for a 3rd grade class whose teacher's daughter was ill.

This was my afternoon.

11:30 Get to classroom, meet teacher, she explains my day to me
12:30 Kids come in from lunch recess
12:30-1:00 Silent Reading
1:00-1:45 Gym (I just had to drop them off and pick them up)
1:45-2:00 Read to kids from a Magic Schoolbus book
2:00-2:15 Afternoon recess (I was a recess monitor)
2:15-3:15 Administer math test
3:15-3:30 Clean up, gather books and coats, play 5 minutes worth of Heads Up, 7-Up
3:45 Come home

Oh...oh. My day was...so hard.