Turkey Day at LJPS

What a crazy day! Friday, November 17th was Literacy Day and Thanksgiving Luncheon Day at school. I got to wear two of my many hats at once: mom and teacher. LJPS (Liza Jackson Prep) holds a traditional Thanksgiving Luncheon every year. The families of all students are invited to share a traditional Thanksgiving dinner, prepared by our cooks, in the Liza Cafe. We are lucky enough to have an amazing cafeteria staff that makes incredible school lunches, so this was actually very good. Our student council decorates and transforms the entire cafeteria and helps serve the luncheon. The cafeteria serves about 4 times as many people as usual. Having taught previously at a school where most parents couldn't pass the volunteer background check, it still amazes me to see so many parents show up at school events. We even have a Christmas tree in the Cafe! This is definitely the South, where political correctness is not a priority and no one celebrates "Winter Break." The halls are decked and the little kids are learning Christmas Carols for the Christmas Program. There are parts of the South that are difficult for me to adjust to but there are parts of it that I really like and this is one of them. We manage to include everyone from Christmas to Hannukah to Kwanzaa but there is no "ban" on holiday things that might "offend someone" - we just celebrate everything in the big and overdone southern tradition, with lots of fried food. :)

In addition to the Cafeteria chaos of Thanksgiving Feast Luncheon, we added in Literacy Day, where every child gets to dress up as a character from a book. As we normally wear uniforms at LJPS, this was a hugely exciting day. Most of my middle schoolers were desperately brainstorming characters that would allow them to wear jeans or PJ's to school. Kaitlyn was the butterfly from Eric Carl's "The Very Hungry Caterpillar." At the end of the day, the elementary students parade through the halls and the middle grade students stand outside their classrooms and clap for them. It was a blast but completely chaotic. Duane came to meet us for lunch and one of the parents covered my class while I went to eat lunch with the Kaiti and the rest of the Pre-K. We had tons of food and tons of fun. It was cute to see all the big kids cheering for the little ones. I love teaching middle school, but it is fun to have little ones so close by. I included a picture of my crazy students who love to have their pics taken. :)

Happy Early Turkey Day to All!