When the going gets tough, it’s time to bring out the Stop Light.

Last week I came home from school feeling as if I had been run over by a truck. Run over by a big truck full of five year-olds that backed up and ran over me again.

Twenty years of teaching reminded me that it was time to mix it up. If you aren’t able to keep up with the music, sometimes you need to change the way you’re dancing!

I spent most of Tuesday evening making a larger than life stoplight, labeling 21 clothespins, planning new games, structuring every single activity that we do and had high hopes that I could regain control over a class that I loved. (Well, I loved them for at least 75 days. Let’s just say that.)

On Wednesday morning we held a class meeting and discussed the stoplight, discussed the rules AGAIN, made and signed a new rules poster and together agreed on consequences for landing in the red light zone.

And you know what happened? Yep. An angel, well twenty-one angels to be exact, got their wings.

Oh sure, Frank moved his pin around and around the stop sign many times during the day for various infractions that I’m convinced he committed only so he could MOVE HIS PIN, but the good news is he served the punishment(s) that we had all agreed upon.

And the tiny little incident involving Suzy passing her Barbie doll around the room during Show and Tell so that everyone could smell the perfume on her “boobies”? Well, that was just a reminder that I need to pay closer attention during Show and Hell.

Cheese-us. (It couldn't ALL go well now, could it?)