"It's 5 O'Clock Somewhere"

What do you do after school?

"It's 5 O'Clock Somewhere"

  So it's almost Friday (yay) and school is out.  I've got papers to grade, lessons to plan, the daily tornado to sort through on my desk, parents to contact, etc.   A couple of kids come by my room armed with cameras, wanting to know what I do after school.  They're doing a piece for the yearbook on what teachers do when school is out.  I go back through that laundry list of tasks and none of it sounds like fun.  I said, "Let me think about this for a second. I think it would be funnier if I made something up, because what I really do isn't that glamorous."

It's Good to be a "Parrothead"

One of the yearbook students, who is in my English class, has an idea and wants to know if I have that parrot.  For a while I was moving a stuffed parrot around the room seeing if kids would notice it.  I got the idea from my local Trader Joe's (it's a grocery store)  When I would go grocery shopping my kids would be occupied looking for "JoJo" and I was grateful for the clever diversion.  I was wanting kids to notice that there were resources and anchor charts to use all over the room. I have this stuffed parrot, a relic from Jimmy Buffet concerts with the family back in the day, maybe I can make this "JoJo" thing work for me in the classroom too.

The parrot was a good idea, but next to the parrot was a bucket of hand puppets, the shark is also an old Buffet prop:  "Fins to the left!" Now this is worthy of a "What do you do after school?" photo op.  

"Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes"

Earlier in the day, I had sent a student to the office for doing a puppet show of his own behind my back, from that time out chair in the photo, while I was talking to the class.  Okay, so he didn't have puppets he was just using hand gestures.  But here comes my brilliant idea...what if we got some puppets for that space in the office that often is a holding tank for kids waiting to talk to administration about their behavior?  A little role playing about the situation that got them sent there might be helpful, as long as I'm the blonde cheerleader puppet and not the shark.  Maybe the office staff would be grateful for the diversion as I was in the grocery store.  Love you Annie, I'll be submitting all period attendance shortly.