Does dark have a short a?

What a crazy day! First, our otherwise sublime morning duty was marred by a former customer who, when Anonymous Joe told her NOT to walk out into the middle of traffic and gum up the works, told him to, "Shut up and go back to your job."

When I came back inside, I was informed that my colleague was out and so I would have to split up her class among the other 3rd grade teachers. Once again, I had 25 kids in a room with 21 desks-- always fun!

Then, around 11:30, the school lost power. I was right in the middle of a (very interesting) sentence about pictographs when the lights flickered, there was a strange alien sound outside, and the room was plunged into darkness. Thankfully, it was a relatively sunny day outside, so opening a few blinds provided us with enough light to continue our learning experiences.

As a result of the power outage, we had to go to lunch about 15 minutes earlier than usual or run the risk of the food being cold.

The power finally came back on around 2:40, but only to half of the school. I don't mean that half the rooms had light while the other half did not. Half of the lights in EACH room came back on, while the other half in EACH room stayed dark. Curiouser and curiouser.

Nevertheless, it was a pretty fun day. The kids enjoyed making their pictographs, but the most fun came when we started a language activity. I gave them each a piece of paper, which they then folded into a booklet. This was the "short a" book. Over the course of the week, they are to write down any word that they see, hear, or think of that has a short a.

To get them started, we talked about the sound a short a makes. It's basically the same sound I would make if I stepped on a hot coal. I introduced several short words, stretching the phonetics out each time.

"Cat -- Kuhh-aaaaaaa-tuhh"

"Man -- Muhh-aaaaaaa-nuhh"

The kids picked up and this and started stretching words out with me. And for the rest of the day, I couldn't help myself from stretching out words as they came to me, like a sheep turned teacher.

"OK, cl-aaaaaaaa-ss, take out your pl-aaaaaaaa-nner for your m-aaaaaaaa-th homework."

During my morning class, one of my sweet little girls called me over and asked, "What about ass?"

"Excuse me?"

"Ass!" (while the other 4 kids at the table looked on expectantly)

She continued, "You know, like cool AS ice?"

WHEW!!!

The lights are off, and nobody's home

This morning, the Dallas area had a major storm. When I got to the school at around 7 a.m. the power had gone out and there were no lights in the building. It's a pretty good thing I don't scare too easily, because otherwise I would have been freaking out being the first person to walk down the pitch black third-grade hallway.

Once I used my bat-like sonar and gained access to my classroom, I was able to pull up the shades and let a little bit of light into the room. Then I went back outside and did my usual morning crosswalk duty.

The power was still not back on by the time I picked up my kids, so we ate breakfast in darkness. The kids of course kept asking, "What happens if the lights don't come on on Wednesday?" Referring to Wednesday's TAKS test. I told them they'd have to take it in the dark. Evil, I know. Sorry.

At around 8:10, the power came back on in a very strange fashion. The lights out in the hallway came on, but when I flipped the switches in my classroom, those lights remained off. On a whim, I tried the pencil sharpener, and it worked just fine. I went and turned my computer on. Not sure why all of the electrical outlets worked while the overhead lights did not, but that was the case until around 8:30, when the lights finally came on.

An odd start to the week, and tomorrow is going to be even crazier. Tomorrow is Stupendous Tuesday or Fabulous Tuesday or some such, so there will be voters galore at my school. Stranger danger everywhere you look, and I have a feeling Anonymous Joe and high will have a very hard time keeping them from parking in the student drop-off zone.