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SOL21...Cutting out Tickets

Cutting Out Tickets

     I came in a few minutes later than I usually would because I didn't have morning duty. When I have morning duty I usually only have a few minutes to run to my room, drop off my stuff, make a cup of tea, and maybe check my email. I don't mind morning duty, it just leaves me with limited time in the classroom before the kids come. Days I don't have morning duty, I have almost 45 minutes in the classroom before kids come, so I can take things a bit slower. Making copies, writing the agenda, organizing, etc. is almost always done the day before, so honestly I don't really have much to do in the morning but check emails and make sure the classroom is ready. 
     As I walked in the room, I avoided turning on any lights. No one was in the room but me, and I preferred it dark. I made my way over to my desk and unpacked my bag, taking my laptop out first and setting it on the desk, followed by my notebook, grade book, SOL binder, and manila folders with graded essays. It was a Monday, so I'd brought home more than usual. As I passed by the counter on my way to put my coat and purse away, my eye caught a stack of yellow papers. I paused to see what they were. The top sheet had several blank tickets facing up, small rectangular tickets with ridged edges, like tickets used at the carnival or raffles. 
     That's right. I'd forgotten I printed them real quick before I left Friday afternoon. I had a flashback to Friday and realizing I needed more. The students were able to fill out a ticket every time they submitted a SOL post, and on Friday, we held a raffle where students could win school supplies or treats for the classroom. The raffle kept students excited the whole month of March working on their SOL posts, so I tried to stay on top of the raffle tickets. Staying on top of raffle tickets meant checking in everyone's SOL and having them fill out tickets daily. Friday when I'd checked the jar holding all of our blank tickets, I'd realized it didn't have many left. Hence, the printing of more before I left the building. 
     Once I'd put my purse away, I made my way back to the counter with the tickets. I glanced to see how many pages I'd printed, there were at least 20. I looked to the left, toward my cup of writing utensils, for my classroom scissors. They weren't there. I took a step to the right to glance on my desk. I had a second cup for writing utensils there and sometimes the scissors ended up there. Sure enough, a purple pair of stickers were popping out of the cup. Shaking my head, I walked back over to my desk to grab them. I double checked the clock as I grabbed the scissors to see how much time I had. It was still only 7:38AM, plenty of time.
     Scissors in hand, I made my way back over to the counter. I don't think I needed to cut out all of the sheets today, but I should do at least a small handful to get started. Just as I raised the scissors to meet the paper, a student burst around the corner of the door, "BOO!"
I yelped and dropped the scissors on the counter. "I got you Ms. Haury!" he said as he walked in the room, dropping his stuff on one of the tables.
"You most definitely did. Holy cow. What are you doing here so early?"
He shrugged and walked over to the counter, "What are you doing?"
"Cutting up more tickets for Slice of Life, want to help?" I picked the scissors up, showing them to him as I asked.
"Sure!" I handed him the scissors out of my hand and took a sip of my still steaming tea. Having him cut out some of the tickets meant I could do other stuff. As he started cutting, I went back to my desk to work on the essays....
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Comments

  1. NoëlMarch 21, 2018 at 9:13 AM

    My heart leaped when he said Boo! Great build up in your piece. Hope you got a few essays graded before the rest of the class came in.

    ReplyDelete
  2. UnknownMarch 22, 2018 at 6:42 AM

    How nice that your student wanted to spend some extra time in your room, and cared enough to get a reaction from you!

    ReplyDelete

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