World of the Wilsons: Reading Rocks Kick-Off Day

I may have said it before, but I'll say it again, I teach with some of the best girls ever! They are some of my closest friends, and they make going to work so much fun! Teaching is great by itself, but when you get to work with girls that encourage you, laugh with you, cry with you, vent with you, and understand exactly what you go through each day in the classroom, it makes teaching that much better!

Every year at our school, we have a theme for our Accelerated Reader program. Last year, our theme was "Wild About Reading." Everyone decorated their doors to look like something from the jungle and when the kids got their picture taken for the "Wall of Fame" they wore cute safari hats. This year our librarian polled the teachers and we all decided that this year we wanted our theme to be "Reading Rocks!" We thought it would be a fun theme for the kids. Little did we know how much fun it would be for us, too!

Our kick-off day was Friday, September 14th. On that day, kids and teachers were supposed to come to school dressed like rock stars and start reading and testing on their A.R. Books. I hadn't really planned on doing anything crazy that day because I knew I'd have to take Eli to school that morning. Wednesday night before our kick-off day, I get a text from my friend Torri asking all of us if we wanted to dress like KISS for kick-off day. I immediately thought she must be joking, but I quickly learned she wasn't! Not everyone wanted to do it, but the ones that did started making plans on which KISS character they were going to be and what they were going to wear. I called my friend Dara to see if she had any rock star attire I could borrow and she did! I was able to borrow a leather vest, some black jeans, and some boots. After Dara's, I went to the store to see what else I could find to complete my look. Thankfully, Halloween make-up and costumes had just been put on display at all the stores so I had plenty of help in transforming into KISS.

I knew that I'd have to get to school early that day, so I begged and pleaded for Josh to take Eli to school that morning. I just couldn't drop my baby off looking like KISS. Thankfully, Josh agreed :) I didn't want to scare Eli so I warned him that Mommy was going to look a little different the next morning. I told him I was going to dress up like a rock star. He wasn't too sure what that meant, but the next morning after I put my KISS makeup on he got to see. He loved it! He laughed, smiled, and thought I looked really funny. I'm just thankful he wasn't scared to death of his own mother!

Before he and Josh left to go to school, Josh took some pictures of me in full KISS gear. He couldn't believe I was going to school like this..neither could I!

I couldn't wait to see the rest of my girls at school. I left the house early so I'd have a few minutes at school to help anyone that needed help with their costumes. Everyone looked GREAT! We couldn't stop laughing and giggling at ourselves! No one can say the 1st grade teachers are boring :) Our students thought we looked awesome and believe it or not, a few of them actually knew who we were . Of course, all the adults knew who we were so we had a steady stream of traffic come through our hall during the first 30 minutes of our day to look at us and take pictures of us. We were actually swarmed by paparazzi :) We took lots of pictures and then headed into our classrooms. Can you believe we actually gave tests looking like this? The kids weren't too crazy and after the initial shock of seeing us in costume, they were just like normal. It was such a fun day!