Spills and Sticky Blobs

We're still close enough to the beginning of the year that I can at least vaguely recall the feeling of stocked shelves.  When the kids arrived for the new year with fresh haircuts, new shoes, and toting bags full of supplies, I stacked all of the paper towels on top of the cubbies and thought to myself,  "Finally!  This will be the year that we'll make it at least halfway through December without running out of paper towels!" 

To the untrained eye, our mountains of paper towels must have looked like a year's stash if not more, but as I gazed upon our bounty of Bounty, Viva, and Brawny, I pictured the leaking water bottles, the hemorrhaging juice boxes, the dripping glue, and the smeared chocolate pudding that would surely make quick work of these rolls in our near future.  I revised my estimate to put our restock date closer to the middle of October.

Eating both snack and lunch in our classroom ensures that we have a steady stream of containers trotting around the room, waiting to be spilled, knocked, squirted, punctured, or tipped.  And when the school lunches come with oranges, well, pretty much everything ends up sticky.

Today Dewan managed to wind up with a lap full of water while trying to assemble his do-it-yourself Lunchable Kool-Aid.  Yes, whoever decided that it was a good idea to give kids a packet of powder to pour through the tiny opening of a bottle of water was perhaps an investor in paper towel stock.  I came over to survey the damage (and to make sure this was actually water all over his pants....) and found not only a puddle on the ground but splash marks reaching two feet in any direction, and a not-insignificant amount of water on the table as well.  Not to let his drink-fixing endeavor be waylaid by the spill, Dewan poured the pink powder into what was left of his bottle of water, turning it bright red and "frooty" before dashing off to fetch the paper towels.  "Well," I thought as I watched half of the powder end up on the table, "We're due for a thorough wiping down anyway, what's a little more mess?"

Anyone who noticed Dewan's dripping pants could have easily guessed who was the party responsible for the spill today.  Last week, however, we encountered a mysterious blob of sticky gooeyness with no clear origin.  "Clean that up," I told the kids sitting nearby.  No luck.  Even after enlisting the help of the entire group, the blob remained unmoved.  There seemed to be no explanation for this curious, dark purple blob.  "Did anyone over here have blueberries today?"  No such luck.  Two kids still valiantly continued attacking the sticky mess with the cleaning spray.

"It's probably cake" piped up Ciara.  Never mind the fact that there had been exactly no cake on the menu that day, the fact that we actually never have cake in class, or the fact that the purple, gummy mystery mess in no way resembled cake.  We never did figure out what the blob was, but I'm sure we'll have plenty of opportunities in the near future to play another thrilling round of, "Guess That Mess."

What was YOUR biggest classroom spill?

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