If you had told me I would be lying next to the ocean by the end of today, I would have said you were crazy. That is, however, exactly what happened.
My day started early, 12:30am early. That is when the nausea and pain in my stomach awoke me. It was my friend for the rest of the night and needless to say, I was less than enthused when my alarm began buzzing at 6:00. Getting out of bed, I ached from head to toe and still was plagued with nausea. Apparently, this was the result of a super special “bug” my students gave me. Because being sick and missing school really isn’t an option for me right now, I loaded up on many over the counter medicines, swallowed anti-nausea meds, and headed out the door.
I am ashamed to say that my next stop was not school – it was, in fact, Starbucks. Normally this would not be an issue, but I have been engaged in a 21 day fast from coffee and soda. Today was only day 12…
Armed with my sin in a cup, I ventured off to school where I was barraged with questions by my students about the coffee. You see, I had spent quite a bit of time educating them on what it means to fast and explaining the reason for the fast. Today, I spent quite a bit of time, convincing them that drinking this one coffee was okay. I did it for them – so they would have a functional, nice teacher instead of an evil, crabby one. Not surprisingly, they all gave me their full support and I promised to tack a day on at the end to make up for this one. I could consider this coffee a failure, but I much prefer to consider it survival.
Survive I did…the morning actually went well. And then it happened, the drugs started wearing off just as my students began winding up. If you have ever been in a classroom full of kids who have been stuck inside for a multitude of rainy days (especially on a Friday afternoon), you know it is not a place lacking in volume or energy.
I did not want to try and teach Social Studies as I had planned. Did they really need to know how California became a state before this weekend? I thought not. I wanted to go to my happy place.
I actually have several happy places. One of my most happy places is the ocean – not in it – just next to it. I love it. Since going to the ocean right at that moment was not actually going to happen, I decided to bring it to me. In a moment of brilliance, the desire for my happy place gave me the perfect activity for the afternoon.
It just so happens that we are starting an Oceanography unit in the good ol’ 4th grade and today I told my students to create me an ocean!
With some construction paper, glue, markers, tape, and whatever else they could get their little paws on, that is exactly what they did. They eagerly went through their Science chapter, examining what creatures we would need to have represented and created their little hearts out. From sand dollars to squids, from sharks to starfish, from jellyfish to plankton and kelp, they cut and colored and crafted creature after creature. They were reading in their book to gain more information about the creatures as they made them and instructing me as to where they should be placed (near the bottom of the sea, near the top, in kelp, etc). They also decided to use tan construction paper for sand. It was such a blast for me to see how into it they were.
With stapler in hand, I took their creations and put them in place. I then covered everything in blue cellophane (that I just happened to have left over from a prior project) to make everything look under water.
My ocean, okay “our ocean”, turned out great and they were so excited and proud of their handiwork. They didn’t even mind the enormous amount of cleanup that was required.
It was such a blast for me to see how into this impromptu activity they were. I actually forgot how crappy I felt. And as I found myself relaxing on my classroom floor at the end of the day looking at the swimming swordfish and crawling crustaceans, I realized that I had been in one of my happy places the whole time – my classroom with my 23 kids. It is one of my most favorite places to be. It just so happens that I got to be in two of my happy places today – the classroom AND right next to the ocean. I feel pretty blessed.
No comments:
Post a Comment