Today I was the guest reader for the entire kindergarten class at Gwyneth's school. How is it that 26 kindergartners can be intimidating and strike fear into a fairly normal adult mom who is used to being around kids?
My guest reader saga began as my overachieving/need to impress side took over, so I spent several days agonizing over what to read, and since my daughter goes to a private school (but not a religiously affiliated one) there was the whole question as to "what was acceptable" to read. God forbid we mention little baby Jesus (no pun intended). ANYWAY, I think I was over analyzing this a bit-it all works out in the end. :-)
Then, not only did I have to select my books, I had to bring something to hand out. The mom who talked about Chanukah the week before handed out chocolate coins and dradles, so there was no way I was going to show up empty handed! So, I was rushing around all morning racking my brain. Spent an hour in Michael's wandering around trying to get inspired. Actually I must give credit where credit is due. My sister gave me several great ideas, but none of them really tied into the books I was reading, and I just wasn't feeling it. (FYI. If you EVER need some great children's book recommendations, or you are doing a reading segment and need some theme ideas, etc. talk to Christina-she is amazing! Guess that's what a Master in Education gets you!) Then as I was really getting desperate, I heard another woman in the store talking on her cell phone and I heard the words, "Reindeer Food!" PERFECT! Now for those of you that have never heard of reindeer food, check out, of course, my crafty sister's blog. My poor children are so deprived. It was the perfect thing to hand out to the kids, and I now remembered that I had handed it out to Gwyneth's preschool class last year, so I already had a little note written up about it to attach to the bag-one less step to take care of in the two hours or so that I had to accomplish all of this. So I raced around Michael's gathering glitter and bagging supplies and was on my way. I rushed home, unloaded Mac, got our shoes and coats off, set all the stuff on the table to start rapidly producing 26 bags of Reindeer food-crap! No oatmeal! Are you kidding me?! I forgot to run by the store while we were out and get oatmeal. Sorry Mac, who was all settled in to watch a little "Harry Potter" while mommy was neglecting him for the sake of the kindergartners, back to the car for a speedy trip to Fred Meyer.
Whew. I am reliving this all over again and I am getting tired all over again. Next hurdle-printer trouble. Why does the darn printer always give you trouble when you are in a rush and your husband is out of town? I swear the computers work fine when Fred is here, and as soon as he leave town-caput! After a quick call to him on his cell I got that sorted and got my Reindeer Food tags printed out. I got all the Reindeer Food mixed, bagged and looking cute, and we were out the door!
Shoot, I wish I had taken a picture of one of the bags-they came out really cute. Maybe I can get a picture of one tomorrow at school. Stay posted.
So Mac and I headed off to school with the selected books, 26 bags of Reindeer Food, and a tray of back-up Christmas cookies (in case I couldn't pull off the Reindeer Food in time.) I settled into the reader's chair and started the reading time with:
1) Pinkalicious

Now I know you are all saying, "Whoa! This isn't a Christmas book?!" I know, I know. But this was a special day for Gwyneth too, so last night I asked her what, out of all her books, was her favorite, and this was it, so I told her I would start the reading time with this one in honor of her. See-sweet mom that I am. :-)
2) Next was The Snow Angel
Beautiful illustrations and a nice story to go along with them.
3) The third selection was a book that I happened upon at Barnes & Noble earlier in the morning and actually walked by several times before I picked it up, mainly because it looked like another book about Santa, and I was really looking for something more Baby Jesus/true story of Christmas centered, but I finally picked it up and read it, and was I glad I did.
Santa's Favorite Story
Nice story with unique illustrations that ties the whole Santa Christmas thing back to the story of the first Christmas.
4) The end of Santa's Favorite Story story was a good lead in into my last book that worked right in with the Reindeer Food.
Christmas at the Top of the World
I found this book awhile ago and I love the illustrations, but my kids also just love the story. I don't know how many times I have read it to Mac.
As I said, this last book fed nicely into the handing out of Reindeer Food. I explained what it was and that I had included the recipe so they could make more with their family if they wanted. It went over really well. Well, not as well as the cookies, I think. Darn-after all that work and stress and all I needed to do was bring sugar to make them happy! :-) I did have another stressful moment. As I mentioned, I really just grabbed the cookies as a back-up plan for the Reindeer Food, but I figured since I had them I'd bring them. Well, when I grabbed the tray of cookies at Fred Meyer it looked like there were tons of cookies on the tray, so I didn't even think about counting them. So here I am passing out cookies and I have gotten to about half the kids when I realize, "SHOOT! I might not have enough cookies!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" That would have caused mass hysteria for those kids who hadn't gotten a cookies yet! Here I was counting the cookies down as I handed them out, praying that some healthy kid would say, "No thank you." Ya right. We're talking 5-6 year olds here. Have you ever seen one turn down a cookie before?
Are you holding your breath yet?
I reached the last kid and...I had one cookie left! Whew! Well...that is if you are not counting my sweet Gwyneth.
I know! Again-horrible mom! Her teacher immediately said, "You're telling Gwyneth she doesn't get a cookies!" Thanks, Kari! Sweet Gwyneth was currently out in the hall helping her little brother (who was the first cookie recipient) get a drink of water. Do you see how bad this is heading? Mac got a cookie, but there was not enough for her? Perfect! I caught them as they were coming back into the room, and luckily Mac had only eaten half of his cookie, so I explained to Gwyneth the situation and asked Mac nicely if he would give the other half of his cookie to Gwyneth since there were none left, and guess what? He did. See-they can be sweet and share. Of course I don't think he really understood what was happening because he kept asking me for a cookie, and then proceeded to have a meltdown in the car about not getting a cookie. An explanation of their nice sharing was wasted breath at this point to a tired 3 year old.
So, all in all, a good experience. Lesson learned-be more organized! It isn't like I didn't know my date for reading since about the first week of school and I had to wait until the morning of to get my stuff together?! Next time I am calling Christina a week month ahead of time for a theme and some book suggestions!
Happy Reading Everyone!!!!
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