Christmas Break Schedule

Every day I have a schedule for my students. It is pretty routine but is flexible. I was looking forward to a schedule free Christmas break but alast, that is not happening.

Josh and I have gotten these questions alot: "So, what house will you be at on Christmas Eve? Where are you spending New Years at? When will you be back?"

So I have sat down (without Josh because he could really careless) and made out our schedule. Here it is...sad we have to split holidays up.

Be in Spartanburg until Tuesday, December 23. Then we're heading to Gastonia.
Spending Christmas Eve DAY with Josh's Dad and Stepmom. Spending Christmas Eve NIGHT with Josh's mom and Stepdad.
Spending Christmas MORNING at the Kiser's with Josh's brother, sister-in-law.
Driving to SPTBG for Christmas NIGHT here at the house.
Leave for Gatlinburg Friday, December 26 until Monday, December 29 with my family.
Come home. No plans as of yet for New Years.

and o yeah, do last minute things for Shawn and Reo's wedding.

So much for a "break" right?

It was a "Dicken" of a day

I had a horrible day at school last Tuesday. I was so looking forward to Tuesday night's "Dickens of a Christmas" but my kids got to the best of me that day. I don't know what it is about Tuesday but it is like heck on wheels with my kids on Tuesday. Every week it's like a time bomb has gone off. But they weren't going to get me down...ok they did somewhat. I was looking forward to Josh coming down to join us for Dickens of a Christmas. But by the time he got here I was tired and just wanted to crawl into bed with the sheets over my head. But I'm glad I didn't let it get me down. We had a funtabulous time.

They didn't teach me at the WU

The object of teaching a child is to enable him to get along without his teacher. ~Elbert Hubbard

When you go into teaching and get into your own classroom, you KNOW there are things that are going to happen that your college did not teach you.

For example: How to unclog a glue bottle in under 30 seconds....how to rush a child out of the room quickly and quietly when they peed in their pants...how to handle decide who gets what snack.

But they especially do not teach you how to handle bratty mean eight year old girls.

This week I have heard from several students "There's some mean words on the bathroom wall....It's about (blank)...You need to check this out..." And their mean words are like, "Shut up" Or "Elephant Head." So I finally take a gander today after school what is written on our bathroom wall. Yes, students write on the walls but it's normally like, "Hey!" or "Joe wuz here."

Oh no. My bathroom walls said POOP and (BLANK) IS A #$!&* and LET GOD BE ARAISE (whatever that means). I mean have you ever heard of such???

My mouth droopped. First of all, POOP. Seriously?? Yes we all take a poop but there's no need to advertise that unless it helped you focus on completing the task of pooping.

Secondly, CUSS WORDS?? I didn't even know how to spell that when I was 8. And someone signed another child's name along with it which mean they were trying to frame that child. This is not the first time that phrase has been brought up in my class. I've found notes and other writings in the class. At least my lower kids can barely read so they dont know what the words mean.

Thirdly, GOD BE ARAISE?? What the heck does that mean? Someone wrote that on my cute recyling posters!! I guess they felt like God needed to take presence in the bathroom since that nasty writing has consumed my bathroom walls. Yeah, God, please consume that nasty wall and that nasty pee infected smell.

I am at lost how to handle this. I know girls are nasty and mean because hello, I am one. But I have tried to talk to individual girls about their attitude, behavior, actions...I have talked to the whole class about it. And I have it narrowed down to like 4 or 5 people....but I can never catch them in the act. Some do a lot behind my back that I can't prove or catch. Last year my girls were not this bad. I guess because they were all new kids to the school so they didn't know anyone. We all became "friends" somewhat. But I guess since I got the "true" Roebuck kids they know about one another and what they can get away with.

I want my kids to get along. It is killing me that they are vandalizing my walls, being nasty to one another, and forming cliques. How do you handle this situation? I know "Be positive...encourage good decisions and choices" and I do all that. But does it ever stop? Will it ever end?

No it won't because of the world we live in, the families we have, and the society we're raising our students in. And I know "I can make a difference because I'm a teacher" blah blah blah. But tell me--how do you get your kids to stop writing on the walls? Calling each other these names?

Please I'm up for suggestions.

And if I have to scrub one more wall, I am going to have a throw down. Hard core.