Yikes!

Happy Dr. Seuss Day!

This morning first grade received a package.  In it were the personal dictionaries that our principal said we could get for our kiddos!  It was perfect timing because we acted like it was a gift for them on Dr. Seuss' birthday.

During Writer's Workshop, I let them look through their dictionaries:

In the back of the dictionary, there are pages for the kids to add the names of their friends, family members, and pets.  Some of them immediately began to work on filling in those pages:

Our morning was great!  But then, the day turned scary.

At lunch, we found out that we were getting out of school two hours early.  We were under another tornado warning and a line of strong storms was heading our way.

This type of weather is very odd because of where we are located.  We are in southwest Virginia which is quite mountainous.  I have lived here for almost ten years, and this last year has had the craziest weather I have experienced here.

Back to my day:  When we got back to the classroom I told my kids that we were getting out early, and of course they were nervous and had LOTS of questions.  I tried to answer them as carefully as I could because I didn't want to scare them. 

As you might imagine, MANY of the students throughout the school were picked up early.  We got our first bus load kids on the bus and the car riders were picked up. 

At 1:45, a different tornado warning was issued.  There were two buses that had to come back to get their second load students.  We had to get the middle and high school students off those last two buses and keep them in the school until 2:15 when the warning was lifted. 

My son, was of course, still at school and I had him sitting out in the hall with the other teachers' kids and the middle and high school students that we were monitoring.  He got very overwhelmed and scared.  He heard the older kids talking about a tornado and got teary, even though he was trying really hard to be tough.

Finally, the warning was lifted, the kids were loaded back onto their buses, and we were finally able to go home.  So, I have been sitting here watching the weather loop on Intellicast, hoping that I don't have to head to the basement.

Stay safe everybody!