Today was test day in 3 subjects. I'm so glad to be done with that crazy first light unit book in math!!! The test is 7 sides long... Takes them forever and is really hard after a summer off. I was very dubious of what their grades would be. But they did amazing! But school work was done by noon except for a small reading quiz.
They started building ping pong ball mazes on Tuesday and some of the boys were possessed with working on those to where I couldn't even get them to go out for recess. But apparently that wasn't enough chaos for me because I had downloaded a bunch of mock trials during the summer and I thought it would be a perfect day to try one.
I arranged the lunchroom sort of haphazardly into the diagram they showed of a courtroom while they were having recess. There were 5 jurors sitting on the side, I was the judge, we had a clerk, and the rest were attorneys and witnesses. The trial script was about a family who sued a babysitter because their dog ran away while they were gone. They said she was negligent and she said the dog broke the rope because it was old. They had witnesses... A neighbor and the babysitters girl scout leader. It was all really simple, but it gave them the feel of how a trial works. The jury took 10 minutes or so and came back not guilty. They were so pumped about the whole thing! They want to do it again and make it real instead of using a script so they can find evidence and cross question witnesses and all that lol. One girl wants to bring her dad's gavel that he got for a youth leader going away present. ðŸ˜ðŸ˜ I think I will draw the line at judge robes tho. Which reminds me one boy said that black robes for judges started when Queen Elizabeth died, out of respect for her, and they never switched back. 🤔 Such random facts that kids remember.
And then we had 15 or 20 minutes yet before job time so they worked on their precious ping pong ball mazes and uproariously told stories of sketchy criminal like behavior that had seen and heard about... Two guys at Pete's fighting while driving, shoplifting by tripping on purpose hiding something in a high heeled shoe... On and on. Someone's maze worked out and all the sudden the whole class was clapping. As it was 5 minutes till job time I didn't really care anymore. Someone said, "Miss Nichols, you have a class that could all be cheerleaders. You just need to give us pom poms and little rhymes." So I told her one of my dad's old rhymes... Tub of butter, tub of lard, hit it again and hit it hard. She literally doubled over laughing. I didn't think it was that funny but whatever.
So I was all too glad to send them home to their parents and come home and chill in my hammock with the lawnmower noise in the background and fresh cut grass smell in the air. And now I have to get ready for volleyball... Which will probably be quite a bit like my afternoon at school... Five years older doesn't make that much difference behavior wise sometimes lol.