Flipping Frogs

Due to a week of no sleep, my expectations for today were not very high. When I got up this morning I felt like death and did not want to do anything but stay in bed all day. Despite my unwillingness, I dragged myself out of bed and into the shower. As I proceeded to get ready my allergies were so bad that I was imaging teaching with snot flying out my nose. Thankfully, my meds finally kicked in as I was walking to my car, and I had about five hours until I had to teach, so I knew I would be okay.
As the day progressed I started to feel a little better, but still had no voice by the time it was my turn to teach. My first class walked into the door, there was no turning back now. Even though I did not feel so well, I was excited about my lesson and ready to get the next hour and a half over with.
My first class went extremely well. The frog stations I had set up, kept the entire class occupied and on task. I was in no mood to deal with students messing around, and only had to sit one student out, and only one time. I was afraid that the boys would think that pretending to be frogs for 20 minutes would be stupid. But who was I kidding, they are first graders! Being a frog is cool. The station called “Flipping Frogs” was by far the coolest. I discovered this great phenomenon; that if a bean bag is set on top of a playground ball, and then drop it; the bean bag goes flying to the air. When I practiced the skill, the bean bag went straight up, but when the kids tried it, the bean bags were flying all over the place. It was hilarious. They would go flying in every direction, hit them in the face, or shoot right over top of their heads. The students had a blast trying to catch the unpredictable “flipping frogs”. Other than slowly losing my voice, the class went just fine.
The second class is always late. 15 minutes into class two girls showed up. Really? Where the heck was the rest of the class? They showed up about 7 minutes later and I had a whole whopping 10 minutes to teach the 40 minute class. Oh good Lord, let’s see how fast I can efficiently explain instructions for the five Frog Pond stations. They listened better than I thought they would, considering my mouth was running a mile a minute. Thankfully they all got to make it to every station, just in time to let them grab their backpacks and run to the bus. Shew, that time when by crazy fast.
The day was overall fabulous! My time analysis should be much better this week. Which is good, I am not sure it could have gotten any worse.
During Chris’s lesson, I had a kindergartener walk over to me and tell me that he loved me. It is amazing how feelings develop over tying a tennis shoe.
I am stoked that Mrs. Thomas liked my lesson, and am really glad I got to work with her.