Now, That's Some Thinkin'

I met Bus Boy last Spring during my stint working as an admin when the discipline referrals were starting to overwhelm the office, threatening to bury the Guidance Diva under mounds of paper.  It's also known as the season When the Kids Went Freaking Insane After the Very Big Deal Government Mandated Tests.

Anyway.  I recognized Bus Boy's last name - it's a bit unusual - because I had his brother.  We only had a few weeks of school left so we had a little heart to heart about behaving on the bus and helping him to realize he had just a Few More Days to deal with the bus, and he Could Do It!  So, it was a bit funny when I looked at my rosters and I realized that Bus Boy was going to be in my home room this year.  I actually liked the kid.

And truth be told, I still like him.  He's personable and funny (a lot more animated than his older, very serious, brother), and a pretty good student.  However, on his student information sheet, he answered the question "What do you like the least about school," with "My bus driver and riding the bus!"

So, he still hates the bus.  Go figure.

In any case, most of our after school clubs are starting to meet this week, and yesterday he stayed after they dismissed bus riders so he could attend game club.  He also handed me an application for knitting club which will be meeting on Fridays.   (He is the sixth boy in knitting club so far.)

"Bus Boy," I asked him, "just curious.  Why'd you join the knitting club?"

"Oh, my friend is in it," he said, "And I already know how to crochet, so I figured I'd give knitting a try."

I'll be honest, this just about cracked me up, and I chalked it up as one of the more entertaining comments I'd heard this past week.  And, truth be told, it is a pretty fair reason why a kid would want to stay for knitting club (especially since he's a boy.)

But then today I noticed he was staying late again.

"So Bus Boy," I asked him "what club are you staying after for today?"

"Oh, newspaper club," he said.  "I think that sounds like fun and I have a digital camera to take pictures."

And then it dawned on me that this kid has really gotten it figured out.  He hates the bus.  He hates the bus driver.  Solution?  Join clubs that meet every single day of the week so he never has to ride the bus home and his brother or parents have to come pick him up.

Genius.

I can't wait to see what club he's going to be attending tomorrow.

A Roll of the Dice

Today was the first day of The School's Chess and Board Game Club.

Mrs. Eagle and I have been sponsoring this club for, I think, something like seven years now and we usually get around 20-25 kids every year.  Sometimes when the fashion show club gets rolling (student council puts on an amazing fashion show every year for a fundraiser) we lose kids who are models, or doing the lighting, or something.  Or soccer or baseball season or something starts up.  But in any case, we can usually count on about 20 kids.

We had 45 today.

45!!

So many that we had to split them up into two rooms - I kept half, and Mrs. Eagle took the other half (fortunately we both have tables in our rooms rather than desks.)  So from 2:30 to 4:00 we had screaming, yelling, laughing chaos in not one room, but two.

Amazing!

Oh, and by the way, (and this is for all those folks who think teachers roll out of school at 2:30), we don't get paid for this.  We just do it because it's a cool thing to do for the kids, many of whom have no one to play games with them at home.

Knitting club starts after labor day.  So far I have 20 kids signed up (was thinking we'd get lucky to get 12).  Including 5 boys.

Seriously.

Our kids are digging the clubs this year.