29 October 2011

Dates, Schmates.

We did Halloween on Friday this year by unanimous staff consent.  A Monday Halloween is a week of disregulated, sugary children: when you start the school week with what is basically a play day, it's hard to recoup.  A Monday Halloween is even worse than a November 1st picture day, and I speak as someone who  had to take extreme measures to remove the last of the waterproof makeup from a child's face.  I know someone who teaches in a school district in which November 1st is always a teacher PD day, to which I say: BEST PLAN EVER.

After over a decade of Kindergarten teaching, I know that there is never any need to provide more than twenty minutes of designated "class party".  The kids do not enjoy eating snacks for longer than that, no matter how gooey the snacks are.  (This year, I had amazing 100% compliance with the class snack policy. As the kids munched fruit, cheese and the little pumpkin tarts they baked at school, there were no complaints about Mean Teacher and her Mean Anti-Candy Policies, either.)  Also, we snack outside.

Regardless of the fairly easy Halloween day, by the end of it I was so exhausted that I'll be at school on Sunday.  This would have had to happen anyway, I think: Kindergarten was on duty to clean the staff room, and when I left around 4:00 the copier was still broken.

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