Sorry for such the delay in posting lately! I have fought off TWO stomach bugs in the past three weeks and I've been playing catch-up ever since!! I know that I posted a little bit about Johnny Appleseed Day before in my "Applelooza" post...but here it is in all it's glory! The true story....
Johnny Appleseed Day was September 26th...also his birthday. It sounded like soooooo much fun! Then reality set in! Let me start off by saying that I love my job, I love my team, I love my kids....BUT I've learned a few things the hard way this year! I must admit making the change from fifth grade to first was much much harder than I had expected. I've had a few frazzled days that ended in my coming straight home, hopping in the jetted tub and then straight to bed after that...asleep by 7 with no dinner. I was just too exhausted to eat.
One thing I do when I am in a new environment is follow those with the experience. So when discussing our Johnny Appleseed day we talked about what we would all wear...plaid shirt & jeans, along with the cute crafts we would be making and how we would go about doing that. My sweet team members with oodles of experience told me all about how they turned the dozen or so (6) crafts we were going to make into stations and the kids would rotate in groups throughout. My sweet friend, Miss Liv to Teach, was showing me the craft she does for early finishers. That way when members of one group were ready to move on, they would have a task to keep them busy.
That night I went home and cut construction paper with my husband until 11pm. My left hand was killing me. But hey...my sweeties were not missing out on any of these Johnny Appleseed crafts! The next day, I donned my plaid shirt and jeans...I do love a jeans day...and off to school I went with my hundred bags of thousands of construction paper giblets. Yes, sometimes I exaggerate.
I arrive at school to set up my stations and get things ready for our day. Now, the first half of our day is normal. But at a school with uniforms, when your kids walk in wearing something other than their polos and khakis its as if they walked in wearing straight-jackets. Straight up crazy. Surviving the first half of the day seemed doable, but as it turns out surviving that party should have earned me a gold medal.
Oh did I mention that I made home-made applesauce that morning that was simmering in the crockpot all day long....a little slice of heaven!
Back to crazytown...well I had two lovely mamas come volunteer in my room for the party. Thank God for them! I set up four stations: Life cycle of an apple foldable book, apple wreath painting, create your own Johnny Appleseed, and an apple diagraming station. I also had a mosaic apple early finishers task which I completely forgot to show them. ALSO, as I was circulating during the madness I was creating Johnny Appleseed pot hats for each kiddo. Yeah...I had lost my mind.
The first thing I did when the party started was put the stations out at each group's tables. I showed the kids what they would be making. As I am explaining to the kids that I am going to come around to each group to show them what to do, I am interrupted by one of my sweeties shouting over me "Can we start? Can we start? Mrs. Malcolm can we start?" I explain to him that he will have to wait until an adult gives him directions for his group. Seeing as I had 3 adults in the room and four stations, we were on a bit of a delay. And of course his group didn't have someone standing over them just yet. I quickly get my group started and head over to his group. Where I find him cutting one of the books to shreds. I ask him what he is doing and he tells me that he decided to start. Super. I explain to him how this works and make him put the scissors down. This sweet child is going to cause me to have grey hair by the end of the day. OK so I teach them what to do. I give them all of the parts that they need to label and glue for their life cycle books and I explain that they ONLY need to cut out the bushy tree top from the green square...that everything else is cut for them. Overall the group is a group of independent kids so I leave them to it and head back over to help some other sweeties.
As I'm bouncing around to the constant "Mrs. Malcolm! Mrs. Malcolm, come help me!" or "Mrs. Malcolm! LOOOOK at what I made!" I find that my sweet darlin who had decided to start without instructions has managed to chop of half of his book. Lord help me. We manage to do some triage with our handy-dandy Scotch tape and move on.
One of my sweet volunteers informed me that she had to leave for an appointment and she split. Ok to be fair, she told me ahead of time that she couldn't stay the entire time, but boy did it feel like I had just received an unexpected bikini wax when she said she was leaving. The other mom was looking at me with a look of fear. I have to hand it to my mama who stuck around. She took the painting station and she was a TROOPER! The other mom was a trooper too, but she left early so she doesn't get the all caps award.
We ripped that bandaid off and kept going. At one point my TROOPER just looked at me and started cracking up. It startled me and I looked at her. She proceeded to inform me that the look on my face was priceless. I imagine that it was something along the lines of silent horror. My room looked like a construction paper bomb went off in it. That is when I tell her that I've learned a big lesson in crafting with 6 year olds. I have learned that rotation stations will only work if I have a volunteer at each station. Next time I will do one craft at a time with the entire group.
Suddenly we see that it was about ten minutes until the end of the day, it is obvious that my groups are not going to make it to all of the stations. Each group got to three of the four stations. In that moment we realize (ok ok, it was my volunteer who realized it...not me!) she realizes that we haven't handed out our apple treats! We quickly pass out apple chips, apple jacks, apple cream cheese wraps, apples and cheese and crackers covered in caramel.......apples, apples, apples...and they wash it all down with apple cider.
My kiddos scarfed the food down and quickly packed up. We shuffled them out the door and I went to afternoon duty....still wearing my "Ingrid Appleseed" pot on my head. My team assembled in the cafe and asked me how it went. My response: "I hate Johnny Appleseed." Their response: laughter. Yeah they had a good chuckle at my expense.
As duty finished up my TROOPER walked into the cafe and proceeded to inform me that she cleaned my room. How awesome is she? When I walked in my room looked spotless! I love her! I remember thinking....I can still smell the apples...and...oh wait! AHHHH! I forgot the applesauce! Boo! No worries...I took that delicious crockpot home and my hubby and I enjoyed it with some vanilla icecream and a crushed waffle cone for added crunch! Heavenly!
Don't fret, I don't really hate Johnny Appleseed. He's cool. I hated the fact that I had no idea what to expect and I felt like it showed. It may have showed to me, and even to my two sweet volunteers, but it didn't show to the kids. At the end of the day when your sweeties are walking out the door shouting "Mrs. Malcolm! I don't want this day to end! It is the BEST day EVER!" you know you did something right!
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