The Tale of Mr. Muffin's Misplaced Homework ...

So there I was, teaching my sixth-grade class about the wonders of photosynthesis (seriously, who doesn't get excited about how plants breathe and feed themselves? It's like magic!) when a little paper airplane lands on my desk. A note from... well, no name was written, but based on the handwriting and the doodles of a certain animated cat eating some broccoli, I'm pretty sure it was from Billy, who loves drawing anything with anthropomorphic food characters... The note read something like this: 'Mr. Muffin (that's my nickname... yes, I'll admit that one is less than stellar), do you think we could have a quiz on the next chapter tomorrow instead of waiting until Friday? Please?' ... Now, in all fairness, I should mention that I've always believed in giving students fair notice for tests and quizzes. But here's the thing... Billy tends to get so caught up in his doodles and daydreams that he sometimes forgets about assignments and deadlines... So instead of replying right away, I did what any conscientious educator would do: I decided to wait until lunchtime when all my students were out of the classroom. And then... I accidentally knocked over a water bottle, causing it to spill all over my homework stack. Oh, the horror... So there we have it, an entire day's worth of planned homework ruined for everyone because one clumsy mistake by me led to soggy papers and crumpled assignments... In retrospect, maybe I should've just been honest with Billy and explained why quizzes can't be pushed up a week. But no... I was too busy feeling bad for myself about being the teacher who isn't as organized as everyone thinks. Anyway, now my classroom smells like damp paper and marker ink (not pleasant)... And I have to come up with another way to assess their knowledge of photosynthesis without any of our original homework... Sigh... So much for maintaining a flawless reputation. Guess it's back to the drawing board, figuratively speaking, that is.