Stupid day
So I had to go to school today, despite the rain and nearly freezing temperatures. I was quite disappointed.
Within minutes of arriving on campus, Brooke, our team lead grabbed me and let me know we had a problem. See, Mary L., our math teacher is at a conference this week. Merry H., the fifth grade Humanities teacher lives about an hour north of Roswell, up where schools were closed on account of snow. We thought we had a sub coming for Mary L., but we couldn't get one on such short notice for Merry H. It was very possible that it would be just the two of us running the middle school today. We also knew we'd have absent and tardy students trickling in all morning. So we had to go into emergency back up plan B.
I took sixth and seventh for a combined homeroom/ Morning Meeting. The sixth graders grumbled quite about having to "share" their morning with the seventh graders. "Let's do Silent Greeting so we don't have to talk to them!" Though, I think their grievance is against specific students, who incidently, make the adults crazy too. Its not the whole class.
After Morning Meeting, the seventh grade went down to the computer lab to work on ALEKS, a math software we subscribe to. (We are the only school in GA that uses this, which boggles my mind, because its so awesome.) Sixth grade is presenting at Comunity Circle tomorow afternoon so we were rehersing.
Sixth grade is studying poetry right now, to go with their study of the Renaissance. Its a slight stretch, but it works. We're doing diamante poems right now, which is a format that I swear was invented by English teachers to teach parts of speech, but they are short and structured and a good starting place for poetry. Anyways, they've been polishing their poems all week and we finished our final drafts the other day, which were copied neatly onto 11X17 sheets of paper and illustrated. I'm laminating them tomorow and we'll hang them up in my room.
I decided that sixth grade would present their poems for CC, since they turned out so well. I told them that reciting or reading a poem isn't like reading a story. You have to strike a "poetic" pose and over emote. I demonstrated what I meant and REALLY hammed it up, John Lithgow style. They giggled, but got the point.
After awhile of playing around with the concept, we ended up with a dark room, with a spot light (my desk lamp) shining on a chair. The kids could use or ignore the chair as they wished. Some read their poems sitting, others put a foot up, or ignored it. We're going to have the sixth grade sit around the presenting poet and pretend to drink coffee and snap their fingers after each presentation tomorow. Its absolutely adorable and awesome.
Seventh grade came back after an hour and we presented for them. They were very impressed, I think. One girl demanded to know if we had really written the poems ourselves. I think they realized that I had a set a very high bar for the sixth grade's writing and that I was going to do the same with the trickster tales we are working on in that class.
Sixth grade went to the lab after that, to work on ALEKS. I played team building games with the seventh graders, until they had to shit all over it. Well no, ONE kid had to shit all over it and ruin it for everyone. So we ended our morning with a ten minute discussion about how throwing crayons isn't just disrepectful to me, its disrepectful to the entire class that now isn't allowed to have because of one person's actions.
Then I had back to back meetings with Ros, our school designer, which I'll talk about later.
Lunch was crazy. Second and fourth grade is selling chili this week as a fundraiser. Because of the weather, we had to cancel recess. There was a cricket. Oh, and seventh grade had earned a pizza party and out of uniform day because they had the highest participation in the annual fund drive. Loooovely.
For the afternoon, we concocted a new plan. Merry had finally arrived and she wanted all of fifth grade. I have no idea how she fit thirty five kids in her tiny closet of a room, but she did. Brooke took sixth grade for the afternoon for science and a social studies activity they could do independatly. Seventh grade was supposed to take a test for me today. Brooke thought it would be great if they took it in Mary L.'s room with the sub and left me free to have planning, since I hadn't had any. I would take them back after they all finished and we'd work on our folktales.
Well, they finished they test in twenty minutes. Sigh. So we wrote for about forty minutes and then did the next section of History Alive!, which, thank god, wasn't one that required a crazy amount of prep work to do. They were mildly obnoxious for the afternoon. I like I., I really do, but she needs to stop being so goddamned DRAMATIC about everything. Also, I don't care if that's her favorite seat in the room. She can't sit next to K. and K. can't move, because she sprained her ankle and thats the seat closest to the door. Quit being a 13 year old girl and find a new seat.
Dismissal was crazy, but we got them out alive.
Presenting at Community Circle is rough enough on me (and the poor class that has to perform) without putting up with another classes bullshit. We have a guest speaker tomorow. If they pull this bullshit in front of her, I will motherfucking murder them.
Within minutes of arriving on campus, Brooke, our team lead grabbed me and let me know we had a problem. See, Mary L., our math teacher is at a conference this week. Merry H., the fifth grade Humanities teacher lives about an hour north of Roswell, up where schools were closed on account of snow. We thought we had a sub coming for Mary L., but we couldn't get one on such short notice for Merry H. It was very possible that it would be just the two of us running the middle school today. We also knew we'd have absent and tardy students trickling in all morning. So we had to go into emergency back up plan B.
I took sixth and seventh for a combined homeroom/ Morning Meeting. The sixth graders grumbled quite about having to "share" their morning with the seventh graders. "Let's do Silent Greeting so we don't have to talk to them!" Though, I think their grievance is against specific students, who incidently, make the adults crazy too. Its not the whole class.
After Morning Meeting, the seventh grade went down to the computer lab to work on ALEKS, a math software we subscribe to. (We are the only school in GA that uses this, which boggles my mind, because its so awesome.) Sixth grade is presenting at Comunity Circle tomorow afternoon so we were rehersing.
Sixth grade is studying poetry right now, to go with their study of the Renaissance. Its a slight stretch, but it works. We're doing diamante poems right now, which is a format that I swear was invented by English teachers to teach parts of speech, but they are short and structured and a good starting place for poetry. Anyways, they've been polishing their poems all week and we finished our final drafts the other day, which were copied neatly onto 11X17 sheets of paper and illustrated. I'm laminating them tomorow and we'll hang them up in my room.
I decided that sixth grade would present their poems for CC, since they turned out so well. I told them that reciting or reading a poem isn't like reading a story. You have to strike a "poetic" pose and over emote. I demonstrated what I meant and REALLY hammed it up, John Lithgow style. They giggled, but got the point.
After awhile of playing around with the concept, we ended up with a dark room, with a spot light (my desk lamp) shining on a chair. The kids could use or ignore the chair as they wished. Some read their poems sitting, others put a foot up, or ignored it. We're going to have the sixth grade sit around the presenting poet and pretend to drink coffee and snap their fingers after each presentation tomorow. Its absolutely adorable and awesome.
Seventh grade came back after an hour and we presented for them. They were very impressed, I think. One girl demanded to know if we had really written the poems ourselves. I think they realized that I had a set a very high bar for the sixth grade's writing and that I was going to do the same with the trickster tales we are working on in that class.
Sixth grade went to the lab after that, to work on ALEKS. I played team building games with the seventh graders, until they had to shit all over it. Well no, ONE kid had to shit all over it and ruin it for everyone. So we ended our morning with a ten minute discussion about how throwing crayons isn't just disrepectful to me, its disrepectful to the entire class that now isn't allowed to have because of one person's actions.
Then I had back to back meetings with Ros, our school designer, which I'll talk about later.
Lunch was crazy. Second and fourth grade is selling chili this week as a fundraiser. Because of the weather, we had to cancel recess. There was a cricket. Oh, and seventh grade had earned a pizza party and out of uniform day because they had the highest participation in the annual fund drive. Loooovely.
For the afternoon, we concocted a new plan. Merry had finally arrived and she wanted all of fifth grade. I have no idea how she fit thirty five kids in her tiny closet of a room, but she did. Brooke took sixth grade for the afternoon for science and a social studies activity they could do independatly. Seventh grade was supposed to take a test for me today. Brooke thought it would be great if they took it in Mary L.'s room with the sub and left me free to have planning, since I hadn't had any. I would take them back after they all finished and we'd work on our folktales.
Well, they finished they test in twenty minutes. Sigh. So we wrote for about forty minutes and then did the next section of History Alive!, which, thank god, wasn't one that required a crazy amount of prep work to do. They were mildly obnoxious for the afternoon. I like I., I really do, but she needs to stop being so goddamned DRAMATIC about everything. Also, I don't care if that's her favorite seat in the room. She can't sit next to K. and K. can't move, because she sprained her ankle and thats the seat closest to the door. Quit being a 13 year old girl and find a new seat.
Dismissal was crazy, but we got them out alive.
Presenting at Community Circle is rough enough on me (and the poor class that has to perform) without putting up with another classes bullshit. We have a guest speaker tomorow. If they pull this bullshit in front of her, I will motherfucking murder them.