Love/Hate

I love my students--their delight in all the snow we had on Friday, their sheer joy in having snowball fights and making gigantic, slightly dirty snowmen.

At the same time, they drive me crazy. Two boys are being really rough with some of the girls and they excuse it by saying "they always bother us." And then I caught the girls all in a corner "gathering evidence" against the boys so that they could go home and tell their moms. Hello, who's in charge here?? Why did I get cut out of the equation?

And then I watched them all work together so well this morning decorating the classroom for Christmas. (The student council always has this contest and the kids get to spend the first 20 minutes of one day in the week before vacation decorating). They all shared the materials, even though some people had forgotten to bring any in and they helped each other with the tape and no one made fun of anyone else's ideas and one boy who often gets antsy when he's done with things and no one else is, said, "We also should do some cleaning up to get the room ready," and then started doing it himself.

But then I've had to threaten to send pink slips home because they keep forgetting to turn in their reading logs which is a regular part of their homework! UGH! And then I caught one boy kicking another and then he yelled at me for sitting him out of recess. He wanted me to punish the other boy for something he wouldn't admit to and I'm supposed to just go by the word of the one I saw kicking??

Anyway, I do love them--I went to a doctor's appointment for the first half of the day and then when I come back they all called my name and were so happy to see me--like I had been gone for days!

We're dressing up in "tacky Christmas wear" on Wednesday (another student council idea) and I have to remember to take pictures and add them to my poor blog!