My whirlwind of a day!

Let me just take you through this whirlwind of a day.  

We started the morning finishing up our "My Earth Books" that turned out pretty stinkin' cute...  We've read several "Earth Day" books and talked a lot about taking care of the environment.  You can find my Earth Day unit on TPT!

In Math, we have started multiplication.  My poor kids want to skip straight to memorizing multiplication facts, but I have had to explain several times that we just aren't going there this year, ha!  They want to be big kids so badly! We just started working through my "Multiplication Situations" unit.  Here's a little "model" we made today.

I had a bunch of stuff for the kids to choose from like marbles, cotton balls, jingle bells, jewels, beans, macaroni, foam shapes, and more!  Then, they wrote a story problem to go with their handprints/what they were holding.

And then, all of the cuteness came to a sudden stop.  We had been warned of severe storms that were in our area, but we really thought they were going to pass over us.

3:15 comes and it's time for dismissal.  We start releasing the kids to their cars (maybe 10 cars actually leave the parking lot), then the tornado sirens go off.  All students and teachers were asked to go into immediate lockdown.  So, dismissal came to a stop.  About 10 minutes later all of the parents leave their cars to also come in and take cover.  Talk about a crazy afternoon.  We hear that the storms have passed and different areas/schools in our town have been hit.  Around 4:00 we begin to dismiss students again.  Thankfully we got most kids into their cars and out of the building.  About 10 minutes into our 2nd dismissal we have to take cover and go into lockdown again.  Seriously, crazy!  Around 4:30, all was clear and we were able to go home after completing our 3rd dismissal!  This was after a lot of worry, tears, frustration (from parents), phone calls, and much more!  PTL that our staff remained cool and collective.  Our main priority was definitely keeping our kiddos safe and calm!  Nothing like having over 500 students plus teachers plus their parents all locked in the building!

This picture was taken right outside our school building (by someone much braver than myself!):

This is just a glimpse of the devastation that occurred in the neighborhood where my sis-in-law teaches and where my best friend's house is.  It truly looked like a war-zone.  Thankfully my sis-in-law is safe and my friend's house was untouched!

We are so thankful that our home, family, dogs, etc. were untouched.  Please keep the families who have lost so much in your prayers.