The Dream Team

New School Year. New Class. New Ideas. I don't usually like new things, but this year new is good. My class is so sweet and innocent and I love how my old students come and see me every single day.
I feel like a celebrity. My class this year is seriously THE DREAM TEAM. They are perfect in every single way. I am so excited for this school year and the memories that it will bring.

With the whole getting married thing, I haven't written for a long time. I had a whole blog post written out and right as I was about to press publish, my computer restarted. And for some reason it was all deleted except for the first paragraph. So... here it is from my memory, which is like a 90 year old woman's.

Nobody's Perfect
Whenever I think of this story, I always think of Hannah Montana and her song, "Nobody's Perfect". We are often singing that song in 2nd grade because I teach a bunch of perfectionists (I wonder where they get it from). There has to be some fabulous primary teachers in Spanish Fork because the kids at my school sure know their stuff. While one of my students was getting frustrated during writing one day, I heard this conversation:
Student 1: "Don't worry. Nobody's perfect. Except for Jesus."
Student 2: "Yeah, Jesus is awesome!"
Student 3: "If we try to be perfect, Jesus will come down to earth and visit us."
Student 1: "But if we aren't perfect, we will go to heck."
Student 2: "Guys, I don't think we should be talking about Jesus because we are at school, not church."

Yes, kids, Jesus is awesome.

Scooby-Doo
Last year, I had a lot of students who were obsessed with Scooby Doo. While my class was sitting on the rug one day, I noticed one of my Scooby fans staring intently at his neighbors face. After staring for what seemed like forever, the fan leaned over and whispered to his neighbor, "You have whiskers on your chin... just like Shaggy." I don't think that is what a 7 year old is wanted to hear.

Later that day, the same Scooby enthusiast came up to my table during Centers. He had a very concerned look on his face so I asked him what was wrong. He, nervously and obviously very upset, whimpered, "My eyebrows fell off." YOUR EYEBROWS FELL OFF??? How is that even possible (unless they are just giant, bushy caterpillars)? Your eyebrows don't just fall off! The only way this little boy would believe me was if I took a picture of him and showed him. He finally believed me and all was well... but MY EYEBROWS FELL OFF?

Sugaaa.... So Sweet!
All of my students know that the way to my heart is through my stomach. The teacher across the hall often brings me donuts, I always have a bag of Skittles or M&Ms in my desk, and I love a Jimmy Johns sandwich on a Wednesday (yes, they know my order and yes, we are always embarrassed when we go in there). My awesome principal has a basket full of fun-sized candy bars that she keeps in her office and sometimes after lunch we indulge and have one or two. As I was walking back to class from lunch, I had one of my students ask me, "Why do you get a candy bar?" Another student quickly piped up, "It's because she is really nice!" But another student rolled his eyes and said, rather matter-of-factly, "It's because she is way underpaid!" Yes, my friend. Utah teachers are underpaid, but I don't think that the government is trying to supplement our income by having our principals give us fun-sized candy bars. The chocolate does make me quite happy, though.

When I was in first grade, my teacher was teaching us about bar graphs. We had made a bunch of different bar graphs, but there is one that I still remember today. One morning, Mrs. Snyder passed out a gumball to each of us. We were going to make a bar graph graphing the colors of our chewed up bubble gum. It was the stickiest, grossest, most memorable lesson of first grade. So, I decided, "Why not?" And added it to my lessons plans for our graphing unit. My kids were so excited. They chewed up their gumball and stuck their slimy, slobbery, chewed up gum on a poster board (that I hung in the room for a couple weeks) and they LOVED it. But the best part of the whole activity was when my student came up to me and said, "Miss James, bubble gum just makes my heart flutter." Me too, honey. Me too.

Mawwage
Last year, I had a couple of students that I nicknamed my shadows. Whenever I was on recess duty or anywhere outside the classroom, they would follow right behind me. The whole recess. It was sometimes annoying, but I guess I was mostly flattered that they found me so interesting. These two boys were also OBSESSED with Kyle and the fact that we were "in love". One recess, I was checking the time on my phone. One of the boys asked me if I was texting Kyle. I reminded him that it wouldn't be appropriate for me to text him right then. He then said, "Well are you going to text Kyle and tell him that you love him?" The other boy, obviously the love doctor of the two, replied, "Of course not! Don't you think he already knows that?" I would hope so, after all, we were engaged. I just hope these boys are still able to read hints and understand love when they are teenagers.


Miss Frizzle
Finding the perfect outfit for school is probably way harder than teaching school. Just last week I wore the cutest, white shirt to school and I dropped my black expo marker right down the front of it. I have yet to find a remedy that removes expo marker. So, every day, I go through my schedule and brainstorm what bad thing could spill on the outfit today.... markers, paint, snot, ketchup, food coloring, glue... the possibilities in elementary school are endless. If I deem the day "safe", then I usually wear the new, cute outfit that I have been saving. If not, black pants and dark colored shirt it is. One day, while we were watching a Magic School Bus at the end of our Rock Unit, I had a student blurt out the question of the year.... WHERE DOES MISS FRIZZLE GET HER CLOTHES??? I'm wondering the same thing and I'm started to thing that I need to find items and accessories that align with what I'm teaching as well.

I think that this school year is going to be fabulous. I have the dream team, I know how to set up my classroom expectations, and I no longer feel like I am drowning every day (so far). So cheers (only if its Diet Coke, of course), to a new school year with lots of laughs, learning, and love.