Classroom Pet Peeves ~ Linky Party

Alisha at The Bubbly Blonde is having a linky party about classroom pet peeves. Since I'm back at school tomorrow (maybe today IF I can get my husband to come help me hang butcher paper) I thought I'd participate.

One of my pet peeves are untied shoe laces. First graders should know how to tie their shoes and if they can't, they should have velcro. I firmly believe that this is a skill a 6 year old should have and I make it clear to parents that it is an expectation. For this reason, I do not tie shoes. It sounds mean but if the kid has untied shoes, he will have to be a problem solver and learn to tie his own :)

Another pet peeve is parents who come to conferences and once I give my spiel, have NO questions. Zero, zilch, nada. I know this is typical of our population, but I believe that parents should take an active role in their child's education.

My last pet peeve is all things pencil. Everything about pencils annoy me. "I lost my pencil, someone took mine, it's not sharp, the tip is broken, the eraser is missing, someone chewed on it" etc, etc, etc! I don't know about you, but I'm given 2 pencils PER student for thewholeentireyear. The rest I personally supply and even after the "we respect our tools" talk, the kids manage to bite, chew, hide, lose, hoard, break and everything short of devour the pencils. Sigh.

These are my pet peeves, link up and tell me yours!