Ah Spring

You have to love Spring in The South.  The daffodils...the greening of the grass...the Redbud trees and Bradford Pears in bloom.

And of course, we can't forget the tornadoes.

We had a warm weekend - actually hit 82 degrees which is pretty warm for this time of year, and a cold front was headed our way.  It was 70 when I got up this morning, and windy, so I knew we were in for a busy day in terms of weather.

And oh my, was it busy.

We got all the way through lunch without anything much than dark, ominous clouds, heavy rain and wind.

It wasn't until 5th period that The Principal came across the loud speaker, told us we were under a tornado warning, and requested that everyone get alongside the interior walls on the floor until further notice.  My fifth period is usually pretty good, so they lined up along the walls like they were told and I sat there on the floor and tried to conduct class the best I could.  We are, after all, in the midst of reviewing for The Very Big Deal Government Mandated Test, and I need every second of instruction time I can get.  So, although we were all on the floor, I did manage to go through a PowerPoint on body systems, did an activity on levels of organization, and, since we hadn't handed out their review books, read to them from their review book about diffusion.  It wasn't ideal, but I still got material covered, the kids were kept quiet (sort of) and we managed to make it through the end of the tornado warning.

I may add that the Enforcer, he who is in charge of safety and security, did away with the blaring tornado warning siren.  That thing going off for twenty minutes was enough to drive anyone mad.  Not only was it noisy and aggravating, but it made it fairly impossible to hear what was going on outside (I have no windows so I can't see anything.)  Trust me, if there's a tornado coming, I seriously want to hear about it before it smacks us.

The warning ended, we wrapped up class and headed into sixth period.

Where we had another warning, ended up on the floor, and I did my "teaching from the floor" lessons yet again.

And we had another one seventh period as well.  By then I had done more teaching from my spot on the floor against the wall than I had actually standing on my feet this day. This one was a little louder outside, the lights flickered a bit, but we made it through this last warning with flying colors.

Three different periods, three different tornado warnings.

Ah spring!