Who Knew?

So Friday was an interesting day. As any teacher will tell you, the week before Christmas break, Spring break & summer holidays are BRUTAL! The kids are so done. The teachers are so done. Everyone just needs a break.
Well this starts happening even earlier in an Early Ed room. So on Friday my kids were D-O-N-E. The youngest ones (2.5-3 yrs old) spent most of the day completely spaced out. They would begin to pull off their mittens, then just sit there, staring into space until I tapped them on the shoulder. We played a game where they pretend to sleep for about 1 min, and none of them wanted to get up!!
In the afternoon, my little J had a rough day. For the first time in 2 months he bit one of us. One of my poor EAs got it pretty bad on her arm. So while she went to get disinfectant & ice, my other EA had to sit with J in his modified form of a "Time Out". This left me with 7 wired, exhausted kids who all wanted to see what was going on.
Salvation arrived in an unusual, unexpected form. A box! A delivery from Scholastic to be exact. I had been expecting a set of Teacher Resource books I had ordered for awhile now and it chose that moment to show up at our classroom door.
Not knowing if this was going to work or not I promptly made a BIG to-do about this "present" arriving. How exciting! How wonderful! Let's see what's inside! What could it be? Etc. etc.
I was terrified they would lose interest the second I opened it and they saw not toys, games or even picture books, but Teacher Resource books. I needed to buy all the time I could get though.
So we all plopped down on the floor, slowly peeled off the tape & one by one, pulled out the books.
"Look! This one is full of fun crafts we can make! This one has lots of cool pictures!"
I B.S.-ed with the best of them. And lo and behold, they bought it! They must have sat there flipping through these books for a good 5 mins! And for a room full of special needs preschoolers, that's a miracle!
It just goes to show. You never know where a miracle is gonna come from. And don't underestimate the value of a little excitement and enthusiasm! ;)