April Fool's Day

Every morning at school, I start the day the same way in class. I start by saying good morning to my students and then we go over the day's date and the day's weather. On Monday, I told the kids about April Fool's Day. My kids had heard of April Fool's Day last year and they remembered it is a day that you trick people. Every day this week I would remind them about April Fool's day and told them to be careful, that Katie Teacher might trick them.

I had a few ideas in mind but once Thursday morning came, I didn't have much planned. I was thinking of just skipping it and not fooling the kids but once I got to class in the morning, all the kids were asking about being fooled. I had two lessons with my Leeds class in the morning, then I had a break for about 40 min until I had them for one more lesson in Math. I decided to trick them. I talked to my partner teacher and she conspired with me.
This was our plan:
Leeds was at art class and they were there unitl 11:40. At 11:40 Sheena, my partner teacher, picked them up and brought them back to class. She then told them that Katie Teacher would no longer be their teacher and that her twin sister "Greta" would be her replacement. Greta was from Germany and Sheena told them not to make fun of her accent. Sheena would introduce me before Math class and leave the room. Then I would teach for about 5 minutes and then Sheena would rush back in the room and say there was a family emergency and I had to take a phone call. Then I would run out of the room, into the bathroom and change back into myself. I would then run back in the room and explain to the kids there was never a Greta and it was all an April Fool's Joke.

As Sheena was telling Leeds about Katie teacher no longer teaching them, I was upstairs "disguising" myself as Greta. I put on a pair of fake glasses, changed my shirt and put my hair in a ponytail. As I was changing and getting ready to head back downstairs for Math class Sheena came running up the stairs to find me. She told me that when she told the kids about Katie Teacher leaving and Greta Teacher taking over, all the kids started crying!!! We both felt so bad! I never thought they would cry because I was gone. And even though I did feel bad that we had made them cry, I was very touched that they were in tears that I was leaving. I have only been teaching these kids for about a month and at the news of me leaving, they were all in tears.

Anyway, at 12:00 Sheena and I headed back down stairs for math class. Sheena introduced me as Greta and left the room. I started talking to the kids with all the German words I knew. It was really hard to not laugh. They all looked at me like I was crazy, they kept telling me they couldn't understand anything I was saying. But they definitely believed I was Katie Teacher's twin sister. After 5 minutes of being Greta, Sheena broke in and said I had my family emergency and had to take a phone call. I then ran into the bathroom and transformed back into Katie Teacher. I raced back in the room and asked the kids about my "crazy twin sister Great." They said she was really weird and talked funny. Then I stood in front of the class and said, "April Fools!!!" Sheena was still in there and her started laughing and told them it was all just a joke. Two kids started to cry again!! But after a few minutes, when they started to realize I wasn't leaving the school, they started to laugh. It took them a good 20 minutes to realize that Katie and Greta were the same person and that I really don't have a twin sister in Germany.

Needless to say, we didn't learn any math during math class. They kept asking about Greta and needed reassuring that Katie Teacher was not leaving and that she would be there the whole school year. It was very touching to know how effected they were when they thought I would be gone for the year. Once Math was ending and we were getting ready for lunch, one of my boys said something that really meant a lot to me. He is a tough kid and is one of the last kids I would of imagined would say something like this. He leaned over the table and said, "I wouldn't come back to Helen Doron if you weren't here." It was so sweet.

Even though it was a day of jokes, I felt so much love from my students.