Major catch-up
Ugh, sorry, was hardly online at all this past week, and because I've been trying hard to get off screens at a decent hour and get to bed, I hardly had any time after the kids went to bed, either. We were in NJ for the long weekend (kids had off Fri for inservice and Mon for President's Day), and somehow I wasn't online at ALL except for checking email on my phone, so I not only didn't get to post, but I also had skip=80 waiting for me once I finally logged on, Monday afternoon.
So, uh ... I was Two's math teacher last Thurs, a post I had accepted several weeks in advance. Unlike the previous time I subbed for her - half day - I actually got to do math for most of the classes. It wasn't instruction, just going over the homework item by item, and walking around to help with pre-assigned classwork for the remaining time, but it was certainly math I understood and could explain as we went. The pre-algebra kids are doing actual algebra at this point, solving for X in multi-step equations like 3x + 7 = 6x - 2. The other kids are learning how to combine terms without solving anything yet, so things like: 3x + 7 - x = 2x + 7. Or -4x -2x + 6 = -6x + 6 or whatever. There were set-ups that were both easier and harder than that, as well, but you get the idea.
Behavior varied wildly; the pre-algebra kids are, as you might imagine, pretty well-behaved. The regular kids were a big mix. Some classes were mostly fine, and others had too many PITAs (like my 8th period class). It didn't help that the schedule was all schnatted up due to a planned pep rally at the end of the day, but I actually had to threaten to keep my 8th-period kids from attending unless they got a grip and behaved better. As it was, we were the last to arrive.
And then there was Two's class. They were taking a test on mathematical properties (identity, distributive, commutative, associative, inverse). The learning support teacher actually administered the test; I was just one of the people walking around and helping where needed. First, she put the test on the ELMO (like an overhead but you don't need transparencies - it's awesome) and went over the instructions and read certain parts line by line for clarity. This was to help those kids with reading problems. She spoke super slowly and clearly for those kids with auditory problems. And there will be a WHOLE 'nother post about that, separately. But, anyway, I wasn't responsible there, nor was I responsible for the one language arts class this teacher has, because they were taking a test there, too. I just had to administer it and answer any questions along the way.
The pep rally was ... silly. They were introducing the boys and girls basketball teams, the upcoming wrestling team for the high school, the cheerleaders performed, the step team performed, and then four pairs of teachers "sumo wrestled" in these suits. Students had essentially elected said teachers by putting money into jars, and whichever teachers got the most had to wrestle. The teacher I was subbing for actually was one of the ones doing this; she and another teacher got out of their training session early so they could come and wrestle (the math teacher won :-D). It was pretty damn funny to watch, I'll say that. But kids talked SO much over the announcers for most of the other things that you really couldn't hear. Oh, and the cast of Pirates of Penzance, Jr (this year's play) performed "Modern Major General" but the miccing wasn't good so you couldn't really hear that, either. Thankfully, once the rally was over, there were only a couple of minutes left for kids to go back to class and grab their stuff, and then school was over.
So, that was last Thurs. Oh, and also last week: Our eldest niece, K - the one with the now-almost-two-year-old boy - texted me to ask if I might be willing to help prepare food for when she and her bf got married. And just ... sigh. We all HATE her bf. He smokes, he swears a blue streak - even in front of his son - he's got a temper, he was an absolute uncooperative bastard during the almost-year when they were separated and sharing custody of their baby son - and just ... ugh. We knew he'd given her a promise ring over the summer but we were all still fervently hoping that they would split up (again) ... and now they're planning an actual wedding. For October (right near their birthdays - they're only a day apart in age). And so far, I'm the only one who knows - I guess she's only slowly breaking it to the family, so I can't even rant to anyone yet. Why do women pick bad boys? Seriously.
Our weekend in NJ was pretty low-key. Will worked on his resume, we looked at flooring samples at Home Depot (replacing both bathroom floors and the laundry room one, too), and I honestly don't even know what else we did. It's not like we were lazing around every minute, but I swear I cannot think what we did to occupy more of our time. There were a few errands, and we saw Kung Fu Panda 3 but that was about it for achievements. I read a lot of Uprooted at night, though. Oh, and Valentine's Day: Will gave me roses early, so I transported them to NJ with us. Otherwise, we just exchanged cards and I made homemade waffles for everyone, which were, apparently, very tasty. :D
Kung Fu Panda 3 was cute. Will's the big fan of the series, but the rest of us were happy to go along. I liked this better than the second one. There was a big message about Who Your Family Is, and how that relates to Who You Are. Two didn't say anything about it, and MiniPlu slept through part of the movie (oops) so I can't really ask her her thoughts. I thought it might have been a little upsetting for them, but neither said anything. Otherwise, the story was its usual fun self. If you've liked the first two, then you'll like this one, as well, I think.
Monday afternoon it snowed a couple of inches - made for a fun drive back from NJ, especially as Will was pulling the trailer on his pickup truck. I had the Subaru, so we had to drive separately, with me just following him home. He fishtailed a couple of times on the highway, but, thankfully, not too badly. We skipped gymnastics that night, though, and, alas, because the snow turned to ice overnight, and the super-ridiculous-warmup that turned the ice to rain was a little slower arriving. And so school was cancelled on Tues - our last "free" snow day. Of course, by late morning everything was pouring rain, just rain, and the roads were fine. But I guess it was pretty icy earlier.
So - no school Mon for holiday, no school Tues for ice, regular day today and Fri, but the middle schools have a half day tomorrow for conferences. So, yeah, my kids will have 2.5 days of school this week. :-P
Two links before I go: Ugh, ugh, ugh. When will everyone realize that transgender people have BEEN using their gender-appropriate bathrooms for YEARS. It gets more attention when it's a child because often his/her peers are aware of the change when it happens mid-school-career, and are more likely to freak out over the change (which is why Two refused to use the boy's bathroom in 5th grade, even though he was allowed to, and still will only go in middle school if nobody else is in there at the time). But as for adults - we've probably been using bathrooms alongside transgender people for ages without noticing a damn thing. There have been, as far as I know, absolutely zero cases of men pretending to be trans women for the sake of molesting cis-women in said bathrooms (or locker rooms). Just ... ugh.
Belatedly: Which Disney character is most like your sweetheart? Cute quiz/meme thing. I got Hercules: Your sweetheart has the strong, heroic drive of someone who’s bound for glory, make no myth-take. (Will likes to envision himself as the knightly hero in some ways, so this fits pretty well. Don't know about the "bound for glory" part, though. ;-) )
And, adorably: Someone built an actual Weasley clock. Pretty awesome. :D
So, uh ... I was Two's math teacher last Thurs, a post I had accepted several weeks in advance. Unlike the previous time I subbed for her - half day - I actually got to do math for most of the classes. It wasn't instruction, just going over the homework item by item, and walking around to help with pre-assigned classwork for the remaining time, but it was certainly math I understood and could explain as we went. The pre-algebra kids are doing actual algebra at this point, solving for X in multi-step equations like 3x + 7 = 6x - 2. The other kids are learning how to combine terms without solving anything yet, so things like: 3x + 7 - x = 2x + 7. Or -4x -2x + 6 = -6x + 6 or whatever. There were set-ups that were both easier and harder than that, as well, but you get the idea.
Behavior varied wildly; the pre-algebra kids are, as you might imagine, pretty well-behaved. The regular kids were a big mix. Some classes were mostly fine, and others had too many PITAs (like my 8th period class). It didn't help that the schedule was all schnatted up due to a planned pep rally at the end of the day, but I actually had to threaten to keep my 8th-period kids from attending unless they got a grip and behaved better. As it was, we were the last to arrive.
And then there was Two's class. They were taking a test on mathematical properties (identity, distributive, commutative, associative, inverse). The learning support teacher actually administered the test; I was just one of the people walking around and helping where needed. First, she put the test on the ELMO (like an overhead but you don't need transparencies - it's awesome) and went over the instructions and read certain parts line by line for clarity. This was to help those kids with reading problems. She spoke super slowly and clearly for those kids with auditory problems. And there will be a WHOLE 'nother post about that, separately. But, anyway, I wasn't responsible there, nor was I responsible for the one language arts class this teacher has, because they were taking a test there, too. I just had to administer it and answer any questions along the way.
The pep rally was ... silly. They were introducing the boys and girls basketball teams, the upcoming wrestling team for the high school, the cheerleaders performed, the step team performed, and then four pairs of teachers "sumo wrestled" in these suits. Students had essentially elected said teachers by putting money into jars, and whichever teachers got the most had to wrestle. The teacher I was subbing for actually was one of the ones doing this; she and another teacher got out of their training session early so they could come and wrestle (the math teacher won :-D). It was pretty damn funny to watch, I'll say that. But kids talked SO much over the announcers for most of the other things that you really couldn't hear. Oh, and the cast of Pirates of Penzance, Jr (this year's play) performed "Modern Major General" but the miccing wasn't good so you couldn't really hear that, either. Thankfully, once the rally was over, there were only a couple of minutes left for kids to go back to class and grab their stuff, and then school was over.
So, that was last Thurs. Oh, and also last week: Our eldest niece, K - the one with the now-almost-two-year-old boy - texted me to ask if I might be willing to help prepare food for when she and her bf got married. And just ... sigh. We all HATE her bf. He smokes, he swears a blue streak - even in front of his son - he's got a temper, he was an absolute uncooperative bastard during the almost-year when they were separated and sharing custody of their baby son - and just ... ugh. We knew he'd given her a promise ring over the summer but we were all still fervently hoping that they would split up (again) ... and now they're planning an actual wedding. For October (right near their birthdays - they're only a day apart in age). And so far, I'm the only one who knows - I guess she's only slowly breaking it to the family, so I can't even rant to anyone yet. Why do women pick bad boys? Seriously.
Our weekend in NJ was pretty low-key. Will worked on his resume, we looked at flooring samples at Home Depot (replacing both bathroom floors and the laundry room one, too), and I honestly don't even know what else we did. It's not like we were lazing around every minute, but I swear I cannot think what we did to occupy more of our time. There were a few errands, and we saw Kung Fu Panda 3 but that was about it for achievements. I read a lot of Uprooted at night, though. Oh, and Valentine's Day: Will gave me roses early, so I transported them to NJ with us. Otherwise, we just exchanged cards and I made homemade waffles for everyone, which were, apparently, very tasty. :D
Kung Fu Panda 3 was cute. Will's the big fan of the series, but the rest of us were happy to go along. I liked this better than the second one. There was a big message about Who Your Family Is, and how that relates to Who You Are. Two didn't say anything about it, and MiniPlu slept through part of the movie (oops) so I can't really ask her her thoughts. I thought it might have been a little upsetting for them, but neither said anything. Otherwise, the story was its usual fun self. If you've liked the first two, then you'll like this one, as well, I think.
Monday afternoon it snowed a couple of inches - made for a fun drive back from NJ, especially as Will was pulling the trailer on his pickup truck. I had the Subaru, so we had to drive separately, with me just following him home. He fishtailed a couple of times on the highway, but, thankfully, not too badly. We skipped gymnastics that night, though, and, alas, because the snow turned to ice overnight, and the super-ridiculous-warmup that turned the ice to rain was a little slower arriving. And so school was cancelled on Tues - our last "free" snow day. Of course, by late morning everything was pouring rain, just rain, and the roads were fine. But I guess it was pretty icy earlier.
So - no school Mon for holiday, no school Tues for ice, regular day today and Fri, but the middle schools have a half day tomorrow for conferences. So, yeah, my kids will have 2.5 days of school this week. :-P
Two links before I go: Ugh, ugh, ugh. When will everyone realize that transgender people have BEEN using their gender-appropriate bathrooms for YEARS. It gets more attention when it's a child because often his/her peers are aware of the change when it happens mid-school-career, and are more likely to freak out over the change (which is why Two refused to use the boy's bathroom in 5th grade, even though he was allowed to, and still will only go in middle school if nobody else is in there at the time). But as for adults - we've probably been using bathrooms alongside transgender people for ages without noticing a damn thing. There have been, as far as I know, absolutely zero cases of men pretending to be trans women for the sake of molesting cis-women in said bathrooms (or locker rooms). Just ... ugh.
Belatedly: Which Disney character is most like your sweetheart? Cute quiz/meme thing. I got Hercules: Your sweetheart has the strong, heroic drive of someone who’s bound for glory, make no myth-take. (Will likes to envision himself as the knightly hero in some ways, so this fits pretty well. Don't know about the "bound for glory" part, though. ;-) )
And, adorably: Someone built an actual Weasley clock. Pretty awesome. :D