Nothing Predictable

So I have gone outside of myself and become a drill sergeant, telling my class of third graders, "I am going to break you down and build you back up again." Of course I won't and it is so ridiculous to say that it should not even have come to mind but I am dealing with a class that has a very wild temperment and seems to need their little hands held to do just about anything.
On Friday a kid went to the busses when he was supposed to get picked up. His mother sent me and the seceratary a note telling that she would pick him up but I take this as a "just to let you know." as opposed to "you need to tell him and make sure he gets to the office." I do not know if she even told him. It seems as though she would expect me to take care of the manner. In three years I have not needed to do more than say to a kid, "you do this today instead of this" and that is usually a message sent down by the office in the middle of the day.
Of course I screwed that one up this week too. A kid was supposed to take bus 45 instead of walk home because his mom was going to be driving that particular bus. I ended up running half way to his house, only to not find him and causing a complete panic by telling his mother that he got into a car with somebody, information given by a kid who knows next to nothing more than how to ride dirt bikes. So I took that pretty hard. The kid did walk home and his dad was there to let him in. All was well.
The environment in our school seems pretty good right now. A colleague of mine and I have actually said positive words to one another for the first time months, and she actually seems to want to know something about teaching besides art. Who knows though? My guess is that she feels threatened by others in the building and is trying to understand how our instructional materials work. We have bought two sets in the last two years and trying to understand them is not an easy task. One could spend an entire year using them and still not get the hang of it. My guess is that my teaching partner and I will get things down with the reading series by Christmas. The need is getting to know our kids and getting a groove with the reading while using ideas from Regie Routman, Lucy Caulkins and Stephanie Harvey to boost the reading and writing past what could be expected by the curriculum writers from HM. There are good ideas in this set of reading materials but there is minimal depth in writing and they expect a child to go from prewriting to published copy Monday to Friday. This is each week. Insane.
Besides the Daily Five my biggest management concern is getting the classroom routines in order. It is going to take time for this group to get done with their morning tasks before PE and Music in the morning. I am going to keep working on this with them and really try not to get frusterated by their ways. I need to be patient and understanding while getting to know their individual needs.