My principal went out and bought brand new jump ropes for the playground. They’re nice ones – long enough to play double-dutch and nice and sturdy. The children were delighted and they got lots of use the first day they were put out. Lots of jump roping and happy children.
And then….the “big boys” (2nd and 3rdgraders, ha!) got a hold of them and decided they would make a good tug of war implement. Twenty “big boys” started tugging – and 5 (yes, you read that right) of my little firsties decided that it looked fun and they joined in.
Predictably, yard duty busted every one of them – EXCEPT the two of mine that ran away. The recess bell rang and I walk to the line-up spot to pick them up and I can hear YELLING and angry voices as I walk around the corner. I suppressed a sigh and brought my lovelies into the classroom to hear the whole sad story. (I won’t bore you with repetition – just read the above paragraph with lots of first grade angst and you’ve got the jist of the conversation…) MY contribution to the conversation went something like this: “Dudes, weren’t you supposed to be playing JUMPROPE with the jumpropes? You joined a group of 20 big kids to pull the rope? What were you thinking?????” Etc, etc, etc. Nobody’s listening, I don’t know why I bother….they’re not mad they got busted – they’re made because 2 of them DIDN’T get busted.
It is a fair comment to say that I grew tired of the conversation WAY before they did.
And because it was the same 5 kids (minus a few others, which I was happy about) that I’m ALWAYS talking to about their playground behavior, I made them write a letter home regarding this and I changed their color card. The principal and yard duty had already told them to knock it off – And honestly, since I’m ALWAYS talking to my class about their behavior, YEAH, I was done…
So yesterday, after the entire class witnessed these 5 kids getting in trouble, I’m fairly confident that I no longer have to remind the children to use the jumpropes for their intended purpose – I mean, come on! If 5 kids got in trouble in your class, wouldn’t the rest of the class think, “WELL, I certainly won’t be trying tug of war anytime soon.”?
OH, NOOOOOOO!!!!! It’s lunch time, I’m eating my lunch – alone – without children – enjoying the quiet – when the door bursts open and in comes yesterday’s Famous Five to snitch-tell on- REPORT that 5 more of my kids joined ANOTHER tug of war game! (And people, two of them were my GOOD KIDS! The other 3 were the kids that I was honestly surprised yesterday that they weren’t involved, so no surprise there.)
So, of COURSE the first Famous Five are breathlessly waiting to see what will happen to the next group that dared to play tug of war – and HONESTLY, I’m so tired of this, I can hardly stand it. But you can’t tell that to first graders so….we had another conversation (see above…. Just add in a conversation over the intercom by our principal to underscore the point.
Oh, and add bored expressions by all 10 kids and them saying in their minds, “Mrs. M, BITE ME.” And you have the whole sordid tale.
Group 2’s notes home were WAY funnier than Group 1’s, though. One of them even drew a line and wrote next to it “Mom, Sine Here” (Okay, so “sign” wasn’t spelled correctly but he knew it was a long vowel! Hey, I’m looking for the positives as I can here!)
I am contemplating taking a sick day how to best remind my lovelies to use the jumpropes and plan on introducing some jump rope songs. I dug through my bookshelves and found a book with a bunch of them – I think this will be our P.E. lesson for the next few days.
One of the parents of the boys involved said to me, “You know you’ll miss them when school gets out.” Yeah…………..maybe………………….
