No Power in First Grade

Once upon a time there was a sweet teacher and a class of students sitting down to watch a Magic School Bus video about plants and seeds, because the class had been learning about the parts of a plant. The children lined up their seats near the TV just like they were at a movie theatre. The teacher turned off the lights and told the class when the video was over they'd have a test over the parts of a plant. Just then, as the video was starting, all the lights went black, the computers shut down, the TV stopped, and the kindergarten class next door screamed. The power had gone out! And our excited first grade class could not watch the science video or take the science test (as the sweet teacher had not yet printed it off the computer). The teacher, being a master of improv, quickly asked the class what they thought a group of people should do if the power suddenly goes out. A bright young boy put up his hand and said, "Read a story!" Which, was exactly the answer the sweet teacher was looking for. So the teacher grabbed a chapter book all about first grader, and read the antsy class a chapter of the story. It was a good story. It was all about a first grader who had a loose top tooth. When the chapter was over, the lights were still off, and the sweet teacher was secretly hoping the principal would send everyone home. Since the lights were still off, the teacher asked the students to make a picture of their favorite part of the first chapter. Soon children were creating pictures of peculiar colors because its hard to see what color you're using in the dark. Pictures finished, children got out toys to have some inside recess and some snack. Our sweet teacher thinks that this power outage must come to an end soon, but as the timer goes off for children to clean up, the power still has not come back on, and now its time for reading centers. What is a teacher to do for reading centers when there is no power? How are the children suppose to listen to the stories on CD? How are the children suppose to use the computer? How are the children suppose to see the words on the pages? How is our sweet teacher going to sharpen pencils in the electric sharpener? Alas, the sweet tired teacher can not let the children play all day, so onto reading centers they go, playing puzzles instead of listening to a story on CD, and writing sight words on dry erase boards instead of using computers, and doing their best to use broken, dull, barely there pencils or in the worst case, a crayon. It was not the best solution, but it was going to have to do. Right about the time when our sweet teacher's eyes seemed too tired to strain to see any more words and just in time to go to lunch (all sandwhiches, because the cafeteria can't cook steak and gravy or chicken chunks without power), the computers flicker to life, the lights buzz on, and the kindergarteners next door squeal with delight. All the children's learning was done in the dark, but fortunately they get to eat in the light! And our sweet, tired teacher wonders why, at the end of the day, she is sometimes exhausted.