thirty points

About twenty minutes in it became apparent that today was going to suuuuuck.

Out of desperation, I told the children they would get a demerit for each misbehavior. Certain students immediately stopped misbehaving, proving that they did in fact know what was the wrong thing to do AND they were capable of self-control. Behold!

Thirty minutes later, one child had a dozen demerits. It still seemed like it was going to be a long day, at least for him. This was a whole house worth of lost student points, not one child's. Hm, which house would each child be?

I then decided that I would be Snape. I kept the following record of the day. At the end, I felt quite accomplished. All those things and I hadn't yelled once.

Gryffindor

1. whining instead of calming saying, "I think you are mistaken."
2. getting off your chair and laying across it
3. doing the thing your brother just said would be annoying
4. flicking
5. whining instead of saying, "excuse me"
6. flicking
7. dropping your pen
8. huffing, "why?!"
9. crying
10. getting off your chair to do a jig
11. crying
12. roaring like a lion
13. dropping your pen
14. claiming a task is impossible before reading the directions
15. flicking
16. interrupting what I'm saying to your brother
17. making a loud, random noise
18. not having your butt on the chair
19. doing something you know you're not supposed to do in order to make us laugh
20. doing a thing your brother just asked you not to do
21. not having your butt on the chair
22. making a continuous unnecessary noise
23. angry requests you know will not be fulfilled
24. biting the pen I'm writing with
25. sneaking away instead of telling me you're going to the bathroom
26. whining instead of waiting patiently
27. trying to write with your pen in your mouth rather than hand
28. touching your brothers books
29. laying down instead of doing work
30. breaking into song to stop a conversation

Hufflepuff

1. bursting into laughter when nothing was funny
2. asking unimportant, non-meaningful questions
3. playing with you saliva/mouth/throat instead of reading
4. playing with your nose instead of reading
5. being a mime instead of completing assignment
6. reading answers verbatim from book instead of digesting materials and reassembling it in your own words
7. crying
8. slamming body parts against things
9. slamming body parts against things
10. groaning angrily, like a pirate
11. not doing assignment: making faces at the wall
12. not doing assignment: making faces at the headmaster
13. flicking tongue like a snake when the headmaster was likely looking away
14. interrupting to ask an unimportant, irrelevant question
15. not doing assignment: making jokes from it
16. whimpering
17. interrupting to ask an unimportant, irrelevant question

Ravenclaw

1. complicating mathematical equations
2. making funny faces
3. doing again what you just lost a point for
4. doing the thing your brother just lost a point for
5. doodling
6. intentionally misconstruing instructions to be humorous
7. burping
8. stealing the table in the fashion of gradual blanket stealing at night
9. doodling
10. burping
11. burping