Is it Friday yet?

Yesterday I had some visitors in my classroom to see what  my Reading block looks like.  I had prepped the kids ahead of time, and we practice our R-time rules about what to do when visitors come in the classroom.  Make eye contact, smile, and get back to work.  There were a couple of hiccups in the day, but for the most part it went as usually.  Then we got to the whole group lesson and things got a bit hectic.  One student wanted to talk with me in the hallway, one student came up to me to tell me his eye hurt because he'd been hit with the ball in PE, and one student was panicking because they couldn't find their reading spiral.  I systematically went through each emergency, took care of business, and set out to give students who needed extra instruction help.

I turned to one student and said, "J since you were absent yesterday, when we get to Independent Instruction, you and P need to go to the Summary Anchor chart and copy it down in your Reading Spiral."  He looked at me and said, "Okay."  I dismissed the odd look he gave me as being that he already knew that's what he needed to do.  So I went through my instructions for the activity, and asked for questions.  Not having any, they dispersed to various parts of the room to complete the activity and then begin on their independent work.  I went to my small group table and stated getting the items I'd need for small group ready.  My visitors sat really close to my SGT to watch what we did in small groups.

J came up and tapped on my shoulder.  When I turned around, he quietly whispered, "Um, Mrs. Huffman?  I was here yesterday. I already have the anchor cart."

I replied, "Are you sure?"  Dumb question, of course he was sure!

"Um, yeah. I was out on Monday and Tuesday," he said.

Oh darn!  It's Thursday.  "Honey, I'm so sorry!  I totally have my days mixed up."

"That's okay Mrs. Huffman. It happens to all of us.   But hey, do you want me to sit in front of the Anchor chart and pretend to copy it," he suggested.

I told him I appreciated the offer, but if he could just help P get started and then he could go to his independent work.  I paid him 20 Duck Dollars for not blowing my cover, and the rest of the class went great!  My students are really awesome.  They could answer all of the visitor's questions, and even showed them around the room.

Having said that, I'm so glad today is Friday.