All in a day

Do you remember Ralph and the Motorcycle – that great character from Beverly Cleary?    Well, I had my fifth graders begin reading this wonderful story late last week.  They are quiet thrilled by his adventure until today.

We have been working on science for the last few weeks to prepare for the science test and our science fair.  We have watched a few cuts from The Magic School Bus and they have begun to tease me about being Ms. Frizzle, without the dress.   The fish are in the back of the room, the plants on the windowsill and science fair projects and boards are stacked in different corners of the room.

In Ms. Frizzles world and in Ralphs world the mouse takes part in the events of the day and that is just what happened today.   I was working to establish a quiet reading and write time today since we have not had silent reading for what felt like weeks.  K says quietly as we began “there is a rat in the room”.  I looked at him and said in kidding –  “No, maybe a mouse but not a rat.”  Sure enough along the wall comes a small brown furry mouse quietly working his way around the edge of the room.   Needless to say my students lost it and were up on chairs yelling like in a cartoon show.

I quickly settled them and discussed that we were going forward with learning and I would call the engineer to take care of things.  At this moment our Principal comes in and tells me she is here to do her short observation of my teaching.  I decided we might as well move ahead since students were quiet and the mouse had disappeared.

As our Principal headed to the round table to sit down the students informed her that was not the best seat in the room since the mouse was behind the book shelf just to her left.  She then screamed and hurried to the other side of the room.   Determined to gain control I continued to set up my lesson as the students and Principal became more focused on our furry friend who was now watching the activities from between two book boxes.

After a few minutes our friend, the mouse, decided to make a run for it across the middle of the room – between my feet and off to the far side.  I now have most of my students and the Principal sitting on desks.  I did remind everyone, as well as the Principal, we were working on not sitting on our desks but realized it was a lost cause so we grabbed books, notebook and headed to the hall to read leaving our friend the mouse to have control of our classroom for a short time.

I quickly revamped my thinking as my students settled into the open space at the end of the hall.   My Principal is observing and recording my lesson so I reviewed with my students’ food chains and where do mice fit into the food chain.  We then transition to reading while my kids asked was I really Ms. Frizzle with the mouse, or was it Ralph coming for a visit.

All in the day of a teacher…       it will be interesting to see what my evaluation will be. 🙂