Monday, April 9, 2007
Why do you go to Mrs. Shoemaker?
Mrs. Shoemaker has been working on reading with small groups of children at our school. One of my boys went to see her every afternoon. One afternoon, he was sitting on the floor pulling at a piece of his shoe and talking about how it was wrecked. The little boy next to him turned to him and said, "Is that why you go to Mrs. Shoemaker?" Yes, that's right, we teachers do it all - reading, writing, arithmetic and fixing shoes!
Buzzing Bees
Blogs seem to be the thing to do these days so I thought I would jump on the band wagon. But first I had to think of a cool name. Well it came to me two weeks ago in a flash because of some exciting events in my classroom.
Anyone who works with kids knows that when there's a bee around there is all kinds of excitement. Well consider what might happen if you had hundreds of bees in your classroom? That's what happened to me two weeks ago. I came in fairly early as I usually do and was going about my business getting ready for the day. Just before the bell rang I happened to walk to the back of my classroom where I discovered hundreds of bees lying dead around the window. I couldn't figure out how in the world they could have gotten into the classroom. But I decided not to worry about it as they all seemed dead and I figured I would just try to keep the kids away from the window for the day.
One of my students came in and mentioned that there was a bunch of dirt covering the cubbies where they put their bookbags away. It appeared that the bees had forced their way through the air vent above the cubbies into our room. At that point I decided that they probably needed to be vacuumed up so there wouldn't be too much excitement. So I went down and asked the janitor if he could take care of that for me, hoping that it would be accomplished before too many children arrived. Naturally, that didn't happen. So every child was in the room but we were able to maintain some semblance of order by keeping everyone out of that area. But then several children noticed some of the bees moving and of course the excitement began and mounted when the janitor came in and opened the light fixture from which many more bees fell.
The principal, who happened to be in the hallway, heard the vacuuming and commotion and came to check on us. Well, she thought that perhaps I needed to relocate my class for a time until everything could be cleaned up. I knew this really meant that she wanted me to go to the library. Normally, I wouldn't have resisted but you just have to know my children and understand that they just aren't the kind of children who can follow the library rules for any length of time! Quiet? What is that?
Well, the long and the short of it is that I succumbed and took them to the library. We didn't get kicked out and actually maintained a level of quietness. Wonder of wonders! And so out of that excitement was born the title for my blog - the Bee in Beth's Bonnet...I've just been thinking about bees a lot since that experience so I thought ...why not?
Anyone who works with kids knows that when there's a bee around there is all kinds of excitement. Well consider what might happen if you had hundreds of bees in your classroom? That's what happened to me two weeks ago. I came in fairly early as I usually do and was going about my business getting ready for the day. Just before the bell rang I happened to walk to the back of my classroom where I discovered hundreds of bees lying dead around the window. I couldn't figure out how in the world they could have gotten into the classroom. But I decided not to worry about it as they all seemed dead and I figured I would just try to keep the kids away from the window for the day.
One of my students came in and mentioned that there was a bunch of dirt covering the cubbies where they put their bookbags away. It appeared that the bees had forced their way through the air vent above the cubbies into our room. At that point I decided that they probably needed to be vacuumed up so there wouldn't be too much excitement. So I went down and asked the janitor if he could take care of that for me, hoping that it would be accomplished before too many children arrived. Naturally, that didn't happen. So every child was in the room but we were able to maintain some semblance of order by keeping everyone out of that area. But then several children noticed some of the bees moving and of course the excitement began and mounted when the janitor came in and opened the light fixture from which many more bees fell.
The principal, who happened to be in the hallway, heard the vacuuming and commotion and came to check on us. Well, she thought that perhaps I needed to relocate my class for a time until everything could be cleaned up. I knew this really meant that she wanted me to go to the library. Normally, I wouldn't have resisted but you just have to know my children and understand that they just aren't the kind of children who can follow the library rules for any length of time! Quiet? What is that?
Well, the long and the short of it is that I succumbed and took them to the library. We didn't get kicked out and actually maintained a level of quietness. Wonder of wonders! And so out of that excitement was born the title for my blog - the Bee in Beth's Bonnet...I've just been thinking about bees a lot since that experience so I thought ...why not?
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