And excuse me? WHERE WERE YOU!?

The ice storm hit St. Charles pretty badly, while St. Louis apparently wasn't so much as touched. As a result, I missed work on Monday, and the two subs I called already had work. My kids were split up among the team as a result.

I caught hell from the kids the very next day.

"Excuse me, Miss Franklin, but where were you yesterday? We had to go to Mrs. Stanley (computers)/Walker (health)/Wayne (librarian)/Dobrivichkova (music)/YAY FOR GOING TO JOHNSON (aka gym), LEAVE AGAIN PLEASE."

"I do not like Mr. Walker/Ms. Wayne/Stanley (etc.), so why did you write down that we had to go there?"

"Um, Ms. Franklin? I missed you yesterday."

"You got to take a day off yesterday, so today we get off too, right? So, where are the Uno cards?"

"Wait... wait... you live in St. Charles!? WHY DO YOU COME OUT HERE TO TEACH!? Don't they have schools there? How far away is it? FOURTY-FIVE MILES!? What are you, nuts?"

Yes, I might be nuts, but I'm not nutty enough to have driven here when I couldn't even get out of my own driveway. I literally had to explain to every single class of my little learners as to why I was not here, and describe in detail how I had slipped and fallen on the ice three separate times at 5 a.m. just trying to get to my car. They listened patiently, probably thinking happily, "Yesss, yessss Misss Frankle, keep talking about your missssshapsss and tumblessss... keep usss from learning about main idea and detailssss..."

Yes, they are hissing like snakes. Because they are sneaky and don't like to learn. I overheard one of my students saying, "I love Ms. Frankleen's class." And when my heart was filled with warm butterflies and happy thoughts, elated by the love I was receiving by a student who apparently likes my class, it was crushed by the snort and response of another girl who I don't have as a student, "Probably because you said you don't do anything in that class."

heart. crushed. smooshed. like a little, sad bug.

How could she say that!!! Apparently I am going to be forever plagued with students thinking they do nothing in my class. Which perhaps should make me re-think if whether we do... do things in this class. Which, if my planner is correct, we do do things. Perhaps just not very well.

When I confronted the girl about it, she exclaimed, "What!? I never said that about your class. She was just saying that! I love this class! I promise! We do stuff! I just did the journal that listed five things about me, and then I did Read180 on the computer! We do stuff!"

Right now, I'm having kids alternate between the rBook, which we are learning about Main Idea and Details through the theme of immigrants, the computers where they work on the Read180 software that is now up and running, and the reading center which is apparently also a napping center.

Gah. I hope that classroom management happens like a swish of magic after Christmas break, because I'm in dire need of some serious classroom management with my little lower-level-learning hellions.

YAY ONLY 7 MORE DAYS LEFT UNTIL CHRISTMAS BREAK BEGINS!!!

(And for anyone curious, my mole was really agitated so I had to wear a bandaid over it for a week, and then I apparently broke out in an allergic reaction to the bandaid so it's still healing. I'll take that over the mole having to be removed or it being infected!!)