What to do?

When like 95% of your students are on a field trip?

OK, well that's a little exaggeration but also kinda not. My 5th grade numbers were reduced from 25 to 15. So what do to? We spent first period doing some review. We were going to listen to music but they argued so I put the kibosh on that. After advisory, we went to the gym and had spelling races. I would give them a word, they'd race to their whiteboards, spell the word (correctly, hopefully), run back to me with their whiteboard and if the word was correct, get a new word and repeat. We had a slight breakdown when the kids looked out the window to see big fat white snowflakes falling from the sky. It had been raining, but the temp dropped enough to turn it into snow. It's all melted but they had a momentary freakout.

Then since we still had time, we played capture the flag. But really it was capture the white board. Meanwhile, I had a talk with the kid who wasn't allowed to play because of disobedience. He was pretty pissed but I told him not to leave and he did so that's that. Don't mess with me. The kids were so hot from running around that we popped outside for a few minutes to cool down and then settled down to some School House Rock action. They sang along with "Conjunction Junction". It warmed my heart.

My 6th grade classes are even sparser. There were 4 kids in my 4th period and we listened to the Bruno Mars Pandora station while they worked on their propaganda posters. I don't have high hopes for the other classes. Today is a lovely, lovely day.