Homework is not optional in the 3rd grade.

Dear 3rd graders,

Here is a list of a few things you might not have known about 3rd grade. Maybe I forgot to tell you this information during the first week of school, or maybe you never learned about this in second grade. But this is how things run up in 3rd.

1. Homework is not optional. I know you said you have to go to church after school so there wasn't possibly any time for you to do your work, but school ends at 2:20 and you probably go to bed at 8:30. Church is not 6 hours long.

2. We have math homework every night. We have reading homework every night. Please don't ask me 8 times during the day, "Do we have math homework tonight?" Yes, we do. Every day. Until June 11th.

3. You may not take a running leap as we walk down the stairs as a class, in order to jump down the last 5 steps in a single bound. Maybe you like to do that at home, but there are 6 kids in front of you in line, and if you land on one of them I'm in big trouble.

4. When someone tells a story to the class about their old school named St. Mary's, it is inappropriate to yell out, "That's like Bloody Marys!"

5. Similarly, when I'm reading a book to the class, and I get to a funny illustration with people kissing on a roller coaster, it is not ok to scream with utter disgust, "They're making out!!"

6. I spent a lot of days in our classroom this summer, carefully figuring out how to set everything up. They didn't even pay me! See that poster that you're peeling off the wall during my math lesson? It took a long time to make and put up on our walls. If you draw on it or peel it off the wall, you won't be having recess today.

7. And on the same note, you'll be losing recess if you spent the entire lesson pinching the boy next to you. This isn't kindergarten.

8. Please, please, please be nice to your teacher. There are 27 of you. That's a lot. Your teacher is tired.