Super Star!

Last week, I cut my hair. I got bangs and I dyed it. I didn’t think the dye would be all that dramatic… my hair is naturally very dark, but has got lighter with all the sun I got and the fact that I straighten and style it regularly. SO I had Ray (Ray is wonderful by the way, he is now stationed at Hairy Situations on South Congress) color my hair so that it all matched the dark color of my roots. The change was pretty dramatic, and kids are awesome when it comes to change.

Every day, I wait outside to greet the kids when they pull up in the bus. I knew exactly when they all recognized me because the back of the bus (where all my fifth and fourth graders sit) absolutely exploded into chaos. Ten fifth graders immediately started screaming my name and shouting about my hair. They were so loud that the bus driver got angry with them and told them to quiet down. Then the little kids started to pile off the bus. Here are some snippets of things that kids/students have said to me over the last week as they see my hair.

*sneaky voice* “What did you do to your haaaaaair?”

“Miss Cassie, you look gooooood. Did you paint it?”

“You look… different.”

“Wow Miss Cassie! You hair looks nice!”

“Is that Miss Cassie? Miss Cassie?”

My favorite was Henry, he came up to me while I was inside:

“Miss Cassie, with your hair, and your sunglasses, you look, you look, you look like a super star!”

And then the teenagers who all had extremely different reactions. One conversation went a bit like this:

“Why did you change your hair?”
“Because it needed to be trimmed and fixed.”
“It looks really different. It’s dark.”
“I know, it will lighten up a bit after I wash it. Do you like it?”
“Yeah…. I mean…”
“Yeah?”
“You look like Evelyn Salt.”
“Really? But who looks better?” (Keep in mind at this point I’m just giving him a hard time, he blushed.)
“… You….”

Or then there was the opposite end of the spectrum, which occurred yesterday when I showed up to work wearing my new (and much-needed) glasses, and a black shirt.

“I know!!! She looks like a goth emo kid!!!”

Iiiiiieeeeee think I prefer the Salt one. Heheh. What do you think?

     

Bwahaha.

Mexican Independence Day

Last month Mexico celebrated its Independence Day from Spain, and since we’ve tried to help make our kids more aware about other cultures we took it as a week-long event. At the end of the week we had a big carnival with a variety of activities for the kids to take part in.

The activities included soccer games outside, piñata making, Mexican bingo, and then a food area. For the most part everything went pretty well, there were a few minor hiccups… but instead of being the fault of the children they were the fault of one of the teachers.

My fifth graders ran the food booths and acted as assistants to the teachers in the centers. They were AMAZING!!! I was so proud of them. I stayed with them in the food area and helped them as they made quesadillas, traditional tropical sodas, and ice cream snacks topped with candy. Of course, they got a little rushed at a few points… and maybe the soda table got covered in Sprite and peach juice…. or there was the time when Em flipped a quesadilla upside down at the wrong time, resulting in cheese EVERYWHERE. But over all, they did a fantastic job.

At the end of the day… we divided the kids up by age and took them outside to smash some piñatas.

Kinder kid takes swing at piñata.

A girl gets a chance to swing.

Back up when he swings for sure...

She had a little bit of a hard time getting at it...

I can't believe I forgot about the mad dash that ensues once the candy falls down. Almost got trampled...