The Lunch Duty from _____

We all know how much I love standardized testing. So when I had lunch duty with 5th grade (blah!) during the big deal science test last week, I was just so excited. I'm sure you can just picture me skipping off to do mt lunch duty! Ha! So the kids were ready to relax and I was more than happy to let them. But they had to come in acting crazy.

First one girl bought another girl's pizza for $1. So what did the other girl have left for lunch? Pudding. Yes, pudding for lunch and taking the big deal science test!! Then the same girl who now had 2 pizzas tried to buy half of another girl's pizza for 50 cents. This is where I caught them. Gave them a lecture about sharing food and germs. And threw in how they needed their food to help their brain work for the big deal science test. Turned around and there they are, trying to sell the pizza again! I'm trying to remain calm - they are testing - so I tell them no selling food at lunch. Turn around again and there goes a pudding cup sliding down the table - to 2 pizza girl! Like she needs more food! Another lady on lunch duty grabbed it and threw it away.

So I'm thinking the rest of my lunch duty would be calm, right? WRONG! A group of boys raise their hand. I walk over and tell them I didn't want to hear any tattles. They insist, so I ask what the problem is. Oh, just another boy has a razor. WHAT?? I pull him aside and he denies it. I ask why 4 other kids are saying it then. Told him to empty his pockets. And what do I find? Not a razor. A pocketknife! About 4 inches long. Ugh. He says he just brought it to peel his orange. What in the world was he thinking?? Not to mention another boy in 5th grade was recently suspended for having a pocketknife, so they KNEW better. Of course I take him to the office. And here I was trying to not upset them during the big test! I went back and told the other boys they did the right thing by telling me.

While I was dealing with the pocketknife boy, two other boys decided to be totally disrespectful and make fun of the other lady on duty. They mocked her and wouldn't line up or close their mouths.

So on this lunch duty, where we wanted to have a calm, relaxing lunch for the kids testing, we end up with 3 referrals. What a lunch. I was so happy to have my 2nd graders back! We've only had one referral all year with them!

Lunch Duty

This year I have 55 looooooong minutes of lunch duty. Because I have nothing better to do with my time - you know, like teach children to read. Anyway, I'm in the cafeteria during kindergarten, 1st, and 2nd grade lunches.



Yesterday they had pears for lunch. Sounds like a safe fruit, right? WRONG! Very few even knew what a pear was, much less how to eat it! One of my kiddos from last year, who happens to be in kindergarten again this year, was going at the pear with his spork like it had hurt him. There were pieces of pear flying all around - across the table, over kids heads, and on the floor. I went to talk to him about how to eat a pear. He looks up at me. There is pear in his eyelashes! I about cracked up!! I told him how to eat a pear - just like an apple, and he smiled. And then I realized he didn't have any front teeth. I had to stick around to see what he did. He did try to bite it using the side of his mouth. Poor guy got frustrated and told his teacher he couldn't eat this thing. She suggests he eat his other food. He was too determined! Back to gnawing on it he went! He also apparently didn't like the skin and would spit that part out on his tray. I'm not sure how much he ate that day. . .



Today was a crazy day in the cafeteria. After repeatedly telling one stubborn child to sit down, stop yelling, and turn around he decided to yell at me. He told me he wasn't turned around and yelling. Yeah, must have been my imagination, I'm sure. I moved him to the end of the table for arguing with me. So then he throws his tray on the floor and storms out of the cafeteria yelling something about hating me. I'm not real sure where he thought he was going, but lucky for him he ran into the principal.



When I got done with that child, I came back to the cafeteria. One of my 2nd graders was looking for me. I'd been teasing her yesterday about stealing star crunch snack, so she brought me one today. I told her I couldn't take her food and she said that she brought 2 - one for me and one for her! Aww, I needed that! How sweet! She made my day!

back to school

So it's that time of year again. We've had a week of getting ready for school to start. We had one great training on writing. Two days of pointless inservice. And two days to get our rooms ready. This is going to be an interesting year on my campus. Our district is building new schools and combining some schools. My campus is combining with "M" school on their old property. So this year M school is on our backyard in portable city. Over 500 students, grades PK-5. I'm glad I'm not out there. We're operating as separate campuses until we actually move into the new building. We do have to share our gym and let pk and k eat in our cafeteria. We have lots of lost parents and many more workers wandering our halls looking for M. Not sure how you didn't notice all the portables!

I plugged in my fridge Wednesday and went to a meeting. Came back and smelled some sort of electrical burn scent. Discovered my fridge wasn't working. I was smart enough to test the plug and discover I had a whole wall of outlets not working. The teacher next door doesn't have power in one outlet on our shared wall. I looked outside and saw all sorts of wires sticking out of the roof. That doesn't look safe at all! I'm guessing they tapped into our power to run some portables outside my room and overloaded it. That's my expert electrical analysis! So for now I have plugged a few extension cords into each other and ran them all around my room just so I can have my fridge! Doesn't that look nice? It's a cell phone pic - sorry about the quality!

I do have one major complaint this year. I have lunch duty. For 55 minutes. That means I lose all that instruction time! And there were already 8 people on duty at the same time with me for about 100 kids. That hour will cost me 4 groups - 16 kids. I pack my schedule and don't have any time for this! Wouldn't my time be better spent trying to get kids to read?! Those 16 kids I'm cutting are losing out on their small group time that is focused on their weaknesses. It just frustrates me. I guess that I'll save time writing lesson plans and prepping for them - whoop-ti-do.