lost teeth, fist fights, and fourth graders

so today was the day i taught 4th graders volleyball.
what do i have to say about it? well, to quote my doctor a couple of days ago: "oh wow."
it was quite hilarious. the moment i started the first activity, my lesson plan was out the window and i just struggled to maintain some bit of control.
a couple of the things that happened:
-a girl comes up to me. "miss stavro... my mouth won't stop bleeding." so i asked to take a look. and sure enough, the source of the bleeding was a lost tooth. "seems to me that your tooth fell out." so i sent her to the actual teacher to let him know. she then went on to search the gym for her tooth. it was never found, so somewhere in that gym is a fourth grader's tooth.
-two girls got upset over something and started fighting... throwing punches and all. so i had to step in and take care of that. tiny fists of fury, if i may say so myself.
-the class consisted of 20 girls and 5 boys. two of the boys decided that it would be fun to tease some of the girls, leading the girls to come to me and complain, leading to me needing to separating the boys.
-one girl purely just did not want to participate and sat in the corner the entire time. i tried to figure it out, but there was just too much going on.
-the only way the kids knew how to hit a volleyball was to hit it as hard as they could. so: 25 kids running around screaming, 13 volleyballs flying in every which direction. insanity.
-one thing that made it all worth it. one girl was sitting down while her group was messing around, and she looked a little bummed. so i went and talked to her and asked why she wasn't hitting with her group. she explained that she just couldn't figure out how to bump... she said she kept trying but couldn't do it. so i pulled her aside and had my helper toss her the ball as i walked her through it. she hit 5 good bumps in a row, and as i gave her a high-5, she had a super big smile. it was totally worth all the chaos that consumed about 99% of the class period.

so all in all, fantastic learning experience. it was pretty sweet to get to do that. i'm pretty sure i'll always remember it. and if i ever begin to forget it, i've got it all on tape :)

ciao