April Fool's Day

I don’t like April Fools’ Day…I love it! It is so fun to pull simple pranks on people. I don’t do anything hurtful, just mischievous. This year I started small: just pointed to the floor and said to children walking by, “Be careful!” They looked down and I said, “April Fool!”

Prior to the children arriving yesterday, I set my big plan of the day in motion. I left a note for the school secretary to call my classroom at 10:15 AM. At the prearranged time, the phone rang. “Hello. What? If you say so. Thank you,” I said into the receiver. I told the students we had to evacuate the school but not to worry. We were going to the high school to wait for their parents to pick them up. The best thing, I continued, was the milk shake machine in the high school cafeteria. We’d have a treat while waiting.

So we packed our bags and put on our coats. We walked to the cafeteria. My students sat at a long table and looked at me expectantly. I leaned forward and said, “April Fool!” They were angry, which I expected. Nobody likes to be made a fool. I had also lost their trust. I knew I would have to do something to gain it back. I decided to tell them we were having a pizza party after lunch. I knew they wouldn’t believe me, which they didn’t. But that was the point.

Meanwhile, the kids pranked me. They put on band aids dotted with red marker and told me they got a really bad paper cut, used red marker on facial tissues and told me they had a bloody nose, and hid under my desk. They tried to get me to look out the window or go out into the hallway but I didn’t fall for everything they did.

With some help from a coworker, they got me--twice. When I got back from ordering pizza, they were sitting in the wrong seats, pretending to read silently, trying not to giggle. We had a good laugh and got back to work. Soon it was time for lunch and I reminded them to not eat too much as we were having pizza after. “Yeah, right,” they all said, very skeptically!

After lunch we settled in and played a game of division bingo. When the secretary came in the door with a large pizza box, their eyes lit up, their jaws hit the floor, and then they yelled, “Yay! We really are having a pizza party!”

At the end of the day they got me again. My coworker told me the principal wanted to see me in her office. Those words struck doom in the pit of my stomach! Was I in trouble due to my hijinks of the day? I reluctantly went into the office and asked where the principal was. The secretaries jumped up from their desks and shouted, “April Fool!” They were in on it too, apparently!

When I got back to the classroom I told the class, “You got me good!” We enjoyed a good laugh and all agreed it was a fun day. It was a welcome relief from the tension of our high stakes testing and as some kids said, “This was the best day ever!”