Well, clearly much has been happening in the classroom! I haven't had a chance to blog in ages, and you can thank a snow day and being mostly prepared (as much as I could...student work isn't as ready, but again, thank the snow day!) for Parent Conferences tomorrow.
Things have been zooming along! Kids have been writing and reading like mad! Some hilarious highlights:
- Exasperated at a student who regularly has a lack impulse-control (read - shouts out often), I told him he owed me ten minutes of his recess time the next day. Another student pipes up, "I'll stay in for him instead." I stop in my tracks and turn, "Did you just volunteer to take make up his recess time. DID YOU JUST VOLUNTEER AS TRIBUTE?!" A dead silence for a second, and then (as most of the class has seen or read Hunger Games) giggles ensued.
- While talking about a sentence where the character was dragging her feet into a school, I asked for students to give reasons why she might be doing so. I got all kinds of responses, and then one adorably quiet boy says, "she might have kneecaps". I heard "Kneecaps" and responded, that yes, she might have something wrong with her leg, or her knees hurt. He let me go on, and then said, "No, NECAPS". I bust into laughter, as I realized that he meant the standardized test - not a person's knees.
- During NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month), my students rose to the challenge and wrote over 150,000 words!! (ok, that's not funny, that just plain AWESOME and had to be shared).
- When given the choice between a read aloud that was a fantastic book and we could skype with the author about, or one that made be bawl my eyes out, the 6th graders picked the one I cried during. They keep asking when I am going to cry! Silly children. Oh trust me, it will be soon. (BTW - the first book is The Water Castle by Megan Frazier Blakemore and the second is Drums, Girls and Dangerous Pie by Jordon Sonnenblick). Also - I tweeted about the second, and the author tweeted back and is willing to skype with the class! Shhh, they don't know yet, I am telling them on Friday!
- FYI - indoor recess in winter is VERY preferable to outdoor recess duty except for the cabin fever thing the kids all have. Outdoor recess consists of lots of bored, sneaker wearing students (about 40 out of 70) wandering for a half hour with nothing to do, while the handful (15 -20) who came fully prepared with winter clothes so they could do sledding on the hill have to be watched for collisions, and the remaining try to play basketball on an icy court. Indoor recess is 20 students in my room, where I can entertain them with 7-up games or allowing them to walk laps in the hallway (with supervision).
It's certainly not all kicks and giggles and its SO much work. Most days, I am at school by 7 or 7:15am and my average time leaving the building is 5pm (any day I am NOT the last one in the building is a good evening, some days its as late as 7 or 8pm.) And then there are those days that I come home and make a wine smoothie. But, the people I work with are amazing and a fantastic support system, so even those days pass quickly and are forgotten for better days.
Starting Friday is our Winter Olympics week (leading up to vacation, which EVERYONE is excited for), so I will try to blog again soon to share the stories of the Olympics, and tell of the Sounds of Learning, a take on the Sound of Music. My class is Austria and OF COURSE, we are doing a couple Sound of Music activities! :)
Love to all, and read a book!!!
Kelly
