Another Day In Kindergarten

Today started out as a pretty normal day at school.  My students were on task most of the day and we all adhered pretty well to our schedule – this doesn’t always happen in Kindergarten…so many distractions to side track us!!

Over the last few weeks, we have been learning about the five senses and today we had a really fun taste test with all sorts of foods. There are a few children in my class with food restrictions so after clearing all of the foods with the school nurse, the taste test began.  We tried one piece each of something sweet (marshmallows), salty (pretzels) , spicy (buffalo sauce flavored potato chips), minty (tic-tacs) and smoky (beef jerky – for everyone except one vegetarian.)  It was a great lesson and the day was off to a great start.  The children went off to Phys. Ed and I actually sat back and realized how quickly the morning had flown by yet we had stayed right on track.

I picked them up from PE and it was snack time.  During snack time, one of the little girls came up to me with her face and hands filled with vomit!  She said, “I feel better now, I don’t even need to go to the nurse!”  She never even told me she wasn’t feeling well!!  Somehow, she kept it off the tables, the floors and the chairs.  Only on herself.  Being right around the corner from the nurse,  I opened the door to get her to the nurse only to find a hallway filled with the remnants of another sick child who had not quite made it to the nurse’s office.   Ick, but not the first time I have had to deal with this and definitely not the last!

As the day progressed, despite our little “hiccup” earlier in the day things still were going pretty well until….another child didn’t make it to the bathroom and needed some new pants which were in his cubby.  This is still, an occasional happening in Kindergarten, so again, not a big deal.  Change of pants, plastic bag for the dirty clothes and back to work as usual.  Unfortunately, the unpleasant odor seemed to be lingering much longer than it should have so I began to investigate where it might be coming from.  As I walked around the room sniffing the air for evidence…I realized where it was coming from.  Yikes!  After the “accident” in the bathroom, there must have been some “remnants” left on the floor that got stepped on by another child and traipsed all over the classroom carpets.

If anyone had seen my classroom commotion after that – it would have been comedic! I had every child lifting their feet in the air so that I could check their shoes all while the custodian was in the room putting down a green sawdust like substance that would have to suffice until they could shampoo the carpets.  For the rest of the day, the kids were hopping over piles of sawdust and shouting out reminders to the ones who weren’t watching were they were going.

….and all of this happened BEFORE LUNCH!!  No one could top this story in the staff lounge today!!  It really could only get better after that….right?

We went back to our classroom after lunch and all was relatively calm until one little boy yelled out, “I see some ants on the floor!”  No big deal I thought, how bad could it be???  Well, apparently a piece of beef jerky from this morning’s taste test had missed the trash bin and HUNDREDS and HUNDREDS of ants were devouring this tasty little treat.  There were way too many to just pick up and dispose of like I normally do, which is to pick up any bug we find in the room and “set it free” out the window.  I grabbed a can of disinfectant and sprayed them, (yes – feeling guilty)!  The kids were yelling, “Is that bug spray?  Are you killing them?”   To which I replied, “I am just putting some disinfectant on them to slow them down so that I can put them outside after school.”  That seemed to satisfy them.  We packed up our things, lined up and it was time for dismissal.  Phew.

After school a few teachers and I were talking about it and we laughed because it was really “just another day at school.”  We joked about comments that routinely come out of our mouths without skipping a beat.

• Fingers our of your nose!
• Put your shirt back on!
• Do not sit on your friends!
• That is not for eating!
• Would you do that at home?

I am sure I could go on and on.  Just another exciting day in the life of a teacher…but I wouldn’t want to do anything else!

Tagged: a day in kindergarten, ants, classroom commotion, funny things teachers have said, kindergarten teachers, PE, the five senses, what teachers say