Lucky Leprechauns!

St. Patrick's Day is not a Guatemalan thing.  Unless, of course, you work at an international American school.  Which I do.  
Welcome to my morning.  It begins with walking outside to my line of students to take them to class like we do every day.  Only this morning, two students are crying.  Day hasn't even begun, and I have crying kids.  Oh boy.  The girl was upset because she didn't wear green and a boy pinched her really hard.  He was crying because he asked her to forgive him, after he realized she was crying and upset, and she said no.  I quickly rectified that mess and instated a no pinching rule.  Luckily, things were pretty smooth sailing from there.
We also had a special visit from a leprechaun!  Yep, a Leprechaun came all the way to Guatemala from Ireland, just to play some tricks on my class. Well, that's what my students believe at least.  (I told my host mom about this, and I'm pretty sure she thinks I'm a heathen for instigating belief in mythical creatures.   But it was fun nonetheless.  I won't mention the time a few months ago where a student asked me point blank in front of the entire class if I believed in Santa...) 
I had been doing this thing all week where I would move a shamrock to a new place in the room, and they would have to come in each morning and try to find it.  Well, when they came in  this morning I told them that I had hidden the shamrock after school yesterday, like normal, but when I came in the morning it was GONE!  And a note was left in its place.  The note was a poem (yes, I spent entirely too much time orchestrating this little game) which basically said he was a leprechaun and they would have to keep their eyes out for clues, blah blah blah. 
Fastforward a little bit to PE, where they received a second poem and their first clue which initiated a scavenger hunt.  They loved it.  Only thing I didn't think through was just how excited they would get.  As soon as the clue was read and they figured out the next location, they all started screaming and running.  Like crazy people.  Instant chaos.  I don't know what I was thinking when I assumed they would just line up and walk quietly like normal to the next place.  So I was left to chase them down in shock and mutter a quick apology as they screamed right past the director of the school.  I caught up to them as they banged on the door of the teacher who had the next clue, who just so happened to be teaching a class.  He knew they were coming though, and it was a high school teacher, so I think he and his class all got a kick out of seeing the kids so excited.  But before he read the next clue, I made sure to correct my wrong and told them the we were going to walk together to the next place and not scream. 
A few clues later we were led back to our classroom, where there was a final note, our returned shamrock, and a pot of gold (aka- gum wrapped like little coins)  Which, by the way, I almost ruined.  I had arranged for another teacher to come and deposit the prize in our classroom while we were scavenger hunting.  I had told her that I would knock on her door as a signal that we were leaving.  But in all the excitement I forgot to knock!  I remembered right before the last clue and had to stall so there would be enough time for her to leave it.   All in all, it was so fun to see how excited they were. 
It was a half day, and I spent the second half having parent teacher conferences. For over 3 hours.  Yep.  That's a long time to be talking to parents.  And its a little intimidating.  But it went pretty well.  I'm glad it is over though.  You can learn a lot about why kids are the way they are from spending 15 minutes with their parents.
Tomorrow is another half day.  It is Family Day at school which means all the parents and siblings come for games and activities and food.  And it also starts the weekend of the 50th anniversary of the school.  There are going to be tours of the school, which means my classroom will be on display for all kinds of alumni and past teachers.  And then Saturday night is the big formal dinner.  I'm sure there will be pictures over the next few days.  I'll try to make it a goal!