Vacation Heebie-Jeebies

Exactly how geeky is it that I'm all excited to go to the craft store tomorrow and buy wool for my next knitting project?

Yep, thought so. However, at least now I don't have to feel left out come holiday season. My wonderful singer friends (teaching is my second career, the first was opera singing) frequently arrange a holiday knitting drive for my Criminals. I can't boast of being as talented as they are. The hats and mittens and scarves that come to my school are beautifully crafted with cunning little ruffles and trim and roses and beyond. Mine won't be as fancy, but hey, warm is warm!

God Bless Us, Every One!

Of course, in the midst of the cooking whirl (standing rib roast, roasted potatoes, yorkshire pudding - all courtesy The Goddess Nigella - creamed spinach, parker house rolls, and for dessert homemade butterscotch and hot fudge sauces with vanilla ice cream - courtesy of smittenkitchen.com, thanks Deb!) I remembered that I wanted to post about our finishing up A Christmas Carol on the last day before break.

I've been reading it to the Criminals for about a week and a half (it's not very long) in abridged version and showing them the old Mr. Magoo movie of it bit by bit (each chapter before we read it aloud. It's new on my list this year, so of course I had that hesitation. Will they get it? I'm of the opinion that if you teach it right, they'll get it most of the time. Hence my decision to show the movie in installments, even though in general I shy away from showing movies. This one, though, was for academic reasons, so I went with it.

I was considering whether or not to continue on the third day, when I got the signal I needed. I finished reading the portion for the day and heard the "AUGH!" of frustration from the class - they wanted to hear more. So we proceeded on.

On Wednesday we saw the end of the movie - from the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come to Tiny Tim's "God bless us, every one!" As the credits rolled one of the Criminals said to another, "BEST Christmas movie EVER!"

Then we began reading, and halfway through the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come part, I put the book down and - taking a chance - said, "Who is this, this spirit?"

Adam raised his hand first, and when I called on him, said soberly..."It's..the Grim Reaper." I squee-ed inside and said, "And..who's that?"

He looked almost stricken with concern and nodded seriously at me. "It's Death, Ms. Victoria, Death's coming."

God DAMN I freaking LOVE smart kids.

God bless us, every one!

God Bless Us, Every One. (2003)

Well we had ourselves quite a time, I tell you, the Criminals and I.

We entered our classroom on the morning before Christmas break to find a mountain of presents had mysteriously appeared overnight, along with festive decorations which included a lot of glitter and shiny things. In case you have forgotten being six, nothing competes with glitter and shiny things. When you are six, you also don't notice the dark circles under Miss Victoria's eyes which appear when she stays until 7:00 PM sneakily decorating the room after all the criminals have gone home at 5:00. Good thing, because if you did notice, Miss Victoria's game would be up.This wonderland of presents produced the very satisfactory reaction of curtailing too much misbehavior because of over-excitement all day. What if you did something bad at the last hour and Santa Claus swooped in to retrieve his gifts? You can bet your ass Miss Victoria wondered that aloud...very aloud.

We did some reading, did some math, watched the Peanuts' Christmas and The Lion King, had some doritos and soda (oh yes indeed, it was a banner day, even the caffeine and sugar didn't make them lose it) and then we were told to get our coats and go quietly to the rug to receive our packages. You can also bet your ass we were extremely quiet.

Teacher: Now I don't know what's in these packages, so don't ask me. The Elves dropped them off while I wasn't here, so I couldn't ask them. However they left instructions that NO ONE is to open his package until CHRISTMAS DAY. Except for Muhammad. He's allowed because his holiday is already happening.

Criminals: (glaring at Muhammad)

Muhammad: (grins at everyone) ha!

Teacher: Here we go. (distributes packages to a silent, awestruck audience)

Darriel: I bet this is a book.

Kelsey: (urgent whisper) Darriel! You are not supposed to guess!

Teacher: Okay everyone got his stuff? Let's line up to go home.

Class walks quietly to the door. Class walks quietly through the halls. Class goes outside to see parents waiting.

Class:EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEMOMMYMOMMYMOMMYDADDYMOMMY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (turns, runs back to throw arms around Miss Victoria) Merry Christmas, Miss Victoria!

Teacher: (to self) Happy Holidays, and someone get me a drink.

A Criminals' Christmas Carol (2003)

So earlier this week one of my criminals, a serious academic named Jessica who looks like she should be in a Renaissance painting of a Spanish Infanta, informed me that, "Santa Claus isn't real." The rest of the class looked shocked and appalled, and Miss Victoria went right along with that. Miss Victoria is of the opinion that her children are growing up too fast, and she will use any method necessary to insure they get just a little bit more time in the land of childhood.

"Don't be ridiculous! Of course he's real!"

Class looked slightly relieved.

I figured I'd better back it up with some actual proof, so my entire Thursday afternoon was devoted to creating, if I may toot my own horn, a masterpiece epistle with the aid of red construction paper, silver and gold pens, and silver and gold glitter. The text was as follows:

Dear Class X-XXX (room number):

We have a very important message from Santa Claus. He has too many presents to carry. He has to leave some with Miss Victoria. You must come to school on Tuesday to get yours.
Signed,The Elves

Santa Claus written entirely in gold glitter, The Elves in silver glitter. I completed the package with a tiny red and green felt bootie, stuck together with my trusty hot glue gun.

Now, Miss Victoria is no dope, and neither are the Criminals. I couldn't just stick the thing up on the door and expect them to believe that the Elves had been by to drop off the mail. No no. I had to let one of the school aides in on the plan. At the end of our math lesson, while the door was closed, the note came sliding under the door. I said sternly, "Yusmery! Pick up your things! Don't leave paper on the floor!" and pointed to the note. She picked it up and said, "No! Me no leave this here!" (she's an ELL student, still has Spanish sentence construction). I took it from her and read it silently, ran to the door and opened the door - Lo! how a bootie e'er blooming - picked it up and shut the door with a bang. Everyone stopped and looked up. "Oh my goodness, sit down, Miss Victoria has to read this to you immediately!" I sounded so serious that they all scrambled to their seats.

I read the note, and as I get to the words, "Santa Claus" a gasp runs through the audience, er, I mean class. They are hanging off their seats, glued to my every word, and then as I finish I turn the note around and they see the glitter and etc. They are almost fainting at this point, but when I say, "and look, the elf was in such a hurry, he left his shoe," they are finished. They rush me, climbing over me with cries of, "Let me see! Read it again! Show us the shoe!"The shoe is snatched from my hands and smelled intensely. The cry goes round - "Eeeewwww I smell elf feet!" It is passed from hand to hand, all declaring the same result - the smell of elf feet is present. Javier runs to the door, opens it, looks out, slams it shut, leans against it and yells, "Miss Victoria! I saw the elf!"

Gone is any sign of a non-believer. Jessica is smelling elf feet with the rest of them. I get them calmed down enough to line up and go to the bathroom, and Luis comes back from the boys' room to report, "Miss Victoria, I saw an elf in the bathroom!" I didn't ask what the elf was doing.
We then sat down for our afternoon journal session. Imagine my shock when every single story is about an elf showing up in our classroom. I pinned the bootie up on the bulletin board, "in case the elf comes back for it," and will replace it with a bag of red and green hershey kisses on Monday morning.

Oddly enough, the last thing I heard every child say to his parent as he was picked up from school was...

"I have to come to school on Tuesday!!"

Mind Your Manners (2003)

So today the entire first grade at my school (nine classes) went on a field trip to see "Jack Frost," which was about the lamest piece of crap I have ever seen in my life. Picture those horrible shows we've all done for education and outreach, only with talentless "professionals" in their mid-thirties as the "kids" from Brooklyn. It was like a bad joke - the Jew and the Muslim and the Catholic dancing around on stage singing about how wonderful the holidays are and isn't it nice to be multicultural (sha la la).

Now, before we left, Miss Victoria and the Criminals had a Very Serious Talk about How We Behave at the Theater. Never ever ever going on another field trip ever ever ever again was mentioned. Twice. A lot of nodding and "Yes, Miss Victoria," dutifully intoned.Directly before we went IN to the theater, it went something like this:

Miss Victoria: Our mouths are...

Criminals: CLOSED!

Miss Victoria: Our ears are...

Criminals: OPENED!

and in we went.

I was never ever ever so proud of them as I was today. They did not talk. They did not kick the seats in front of them. They did not pull each others' hair. They sat and politely watched this piece of drivel as if they were Little Lord Fauntleroy and Polly Anna. The children around them screamed and walked around in the aisles and loudly said "I WANNA GO HOOOOOMMMME!!!" and my babies looked up at me with wide eyes and nodded silently: THEY knew the score.

Then our bus never came to pick us up. They stood out in the cold (the bus field was nowhere near a building) and waited for this asshole to show up for half an hour and did not act up. They squished four classes to a bus and quietly rode home. They ate their lunch and cleaned up after themselves.

We sat down to do some journaling.I told them I wanted to hear what they thought about "Jack Frost." They were to write down their thoughts about it, remembering not to worry if they couldn't spell a word - just circle it and keep writing, we'd come back to edit later. "Pencils up....GO!" and away they went.

So then we're sitting on the rug with our rough drafts, getting ready to edit them so we can write our final versions on the paper shaped like a snowman, and we're working out all those words we circled. "Show. Shhh shhhh...who remembers what those two letters are that make that sound?" "Oh yeah! S H!"I don't spell words for them. We work it out together, we check our First Grade Fast Words Wall, we look in our word bags. But then, Darriel raises his hand, looking tentative. All my kids are so polite really. They think it's bad manners to say something stinks. He says..."Miss Victoria? Um...how do you spell...(pause)...boring?"

I snort and say..."B-O-R-I-N-G!"

Every head in the class bends over its paper and starts writing. Does this group have good taste, or what?