In my eight years of teaching, I have had several things break…chairs, desks, school supplies. But never has anything glass ever broken in my classroom until this year. I have had to sweep up glass five different times this year….FIVE! It has happened so much,that my students go on autopilot when they hear the sound of breaking glass. Don’t crowd around…grab her the broom and dust pan…bring over the garbage can…and don’t ask questions until Mrs. Gibbons is done.
The first time, and I thought the only time, happened around Christmas time. One of my students had brought in a small snow globe she wanted to share with me. As she was sitting down, the snow globed dropped from her hands and burst on the ground. It was quite fun sweeping up both glass, water, and glitter.
The second time it happened during our school’s annual food drive. The bags were stacked on my back table and we were all sitting in a circle sharing our reading. The items in the bags were not balanced properly. Suddenly a jar of Prego sauce rolled slow motion style off the table and crashed with a red splat all over the floor spraying a few of my students.
The third time, one of my students had set her unfinished lunch drink, a Snapple, on her desk. While we were shifting into our next activity, someone bumped into her desk, which in turn caused the bottle to slam on to the ground.
The fourth time it happened during our morning read aloud. I had a cute squat vase filled with marbles and pink fake flowers by my turn in bin. One of my more agile students accidentally knocked into my not-so-stable table and sent my flower vase flying. This time I not only cleaned up glass, but marbles too.
The fifth, and hopefully final time, happened just this past Friday. I had a picture frame with an adorable drawing of a flower from a former student placed on one of my bookshelves. One of my mellow boys plopped himself a bit aggressively into his reading chair, which smacked into my rolling bookshelf causing my picture frame’s glass to shatter all over the floor.
As much as I hate cleaning up glass, at least these events have given me something to slice about.
Learning Through Living 
I love how each glass-cleaning incident tells a beautiful story about your unique group of students and the things that bring us joy. At every turn the glass AND something you were cleaning up painted an amazing picture of your daily experience. What interesting landmarks to think about as you look back on your year. I hope this was the last of this kind of post for you, and yet I could read more.
Isn’t it funny how each class seems to have some kind of theme about it that hasn’t happened with any other group of kids? This might be your “glass class” in your memories! Great description of clean-up trials and tribulations–hopefully this will be the end of that that theme in your classroom!
I enjoyed getting to know a handful of students through this post and I especially appreciate the cause/effect pattern you masterfully used.
It’s all grist for the mill, right? As Morgan said, it also paints a great picture of a warm and inviting classroom full of eager movement.
Your mini scenes of each glass shattering moment…hilarious. I’m sorry, but I couldn’t stop laughing at the end of this! Love it 🙂