Keeping it Short and Sweet

I don't know about you, but I only have 16 school days left before summer vacation! As we all know, things are crazy this time of year. For example, yesterday I found out after school that I was going to get a new student today. Yup, that's right, a new student with 17 school days left in the year. So I scurried around my room yesterday afternoon, trying to figure out which group I could add my new student to so as to not disturb the careful balance that I had established with my seating arrangement.


Not finding a suitable place for her, I decided to completely rearrange the class. (Side note: The kids had asked for a new seating arrangement yesterday morning. I said absolutely not. I'm done moving desks for the year. Oops.) So I pulled out my indexed cards that I had labeled with each student's name, and began the tedious process of finding the perfect balance of students for my groups. After moving all but one desk in the classroom, I gathered up the necessary textbooks, workbooks, and a copy of our novel, wrote her name on a name tag, and, exhausted, called it a day.

Her dad brought her to my room this morning, I told him about our end of the year field trip that we're taking on Thursday, and let him know that we had an extra ticket to the Cardinals game if his daughter would like to join us. She was just as sweet as could be all day--if all of my students were as polite and well mannered as she was, I would have my dream class. After lunch, her bus info was ready for her to take home, I let our School Improvement Specialist know that I had a new student so that she could be set up for our next round of Discovery Education testing, and we were all settled in.

Then, as I walk out the door, the office calls to my room. It's never a good sign when the office calls as you're trying to leave. Never. Our secretary let me know that my new student's mother had called to let us know that she would be going to a different school tomorrow and would stop by in the morning to get her things.

At moments like this, all you can do is laugh. "Seriously?" you ask yourself. Did that really just happen? Sigh.

But, I've got everything ready to go for tomorrow, have a handful of things left to get ready for our trip to St. Louis on Thursday (bus leaves at 6:00-eek!), and have my sub plans all set and ready to go for Friday

Whew! This was supposed to be a short post. All of that storytelling was supposed to be an explanation as to why this was going to be a short post. Oops.

I promise, the next post will be far more entertaining and refrain from long winded rants. Promise!