It's my Friday!

I love that I can wake up tomorrow after 6:00 am, and not have to be out the door by 7. Even if that still means I have an oil change at 9am.

Today was a crazy day at school. We had a school wide reward day for the students that were all-starts or honor level 1's. Of the 1,200 students I think all but about 250 of them were able to participate. I had the thrill of staying back with the naughty ones and supervising the study hall for a wing of 6th graders. All boys. Most of who probably have ADHD. And most of who had no homework to work on. It was hell. I was snapping at them left and right. Of the 9 that were in study hall, I had to kick 2 out to the intervention room. One for making farting noises with his hands after asked repeatedly to stop making noise. Another one for writing the word "gay" on every piece of paper in his notebook, then ripping the paper out of his notebook, cutting the papers into pieces, and then telling me he was going to make a puzzle out of it AFTER I said no. The final straw with him was him telling me he was sharpening his pencil by scribbling on his paper at the speed of light. Moral of this story = don't volunteer to supervise a study hall of students you've never had before.

On a happier note, we had a little bit of a fun day in my other classes. I picked up some pumpkin shaped sugar cookies. My 1st hour had to find the area of the cookie that I had traced on a piece of cm grid paper. If they got their answer within 1/2of a cm of the right answer, they got a cookie. That was enough of a motivator for 15 out of 16 students. No surprise that it didn't work for the 16th student. It was fun to watch 14 year olds get giddy about being able to earn a cookie. My 6th graders had to practice their addition facts with a partner for 10 minutes and improve their addition fluency score, then they got a cookie. And my Algebra kids, they just got a cookie for being the last darn class of the day. And it was blissful to hear them say the words, "Thank you Ms. B!"

This year I've been big on trying to have my students be motivated and rewarded for making good choices and working hard. I set up a weekly drawing. Throughout the week, students can earn kudos coupons for behaving well, getting their work done, excellent scores, and good attitudes. I'm only doing this for my 6th, 7th, and 8th Math Foundations Classes since there aren't any formal grades given in the class. Algebra students shouldn't need any extrinsic motivation, a grade should be their motivator. I draw two names on fridays from the raffle bucket--they LOVE it. If I say, "I'm giving kudos coupons to those that I see are lining up their decimal points," I get nearly 100% of them double checking to make sure they are lining up the damn decimal. And then I use the kudos as a threat..."If you are going to treat someone like that, there is no way that I would feel that's a quality in a person that gets a kudos should have."

On that note, kudos. It's my Friday.

Tomorrow is my Friday

Well, tomorrow is our Friday at school. All staff and students have Thursday and Friday off as "designated P/T Conference Days." We had our conferences this past two weeks-- so free days for us! I'm glad. It's a much needed fall breather. But on my two days off I have to: Go to DMV and get replacement tabs, get new drivers license w/current address, get oil changed, get headlight changed in car, and get my hair cut. I should be going to the dentist too--but I never bothered to make an appointment. I'm also going to go shopping at the Outlet Mall in Albertivlle. It's the shopping mecca.

Thank god this week was a short one. I don't think I could have survived a long one. Last week I was surprised that I even made it though that week, after all of the student absences and my own from the previous week with my bout with h1n1. My kids drain me. They exhaust me. Then again, which kids don't?

I'm constantly feeling like I'm throwing things together at the last minute this year. It's probably because I am. I teach 4 different classes. None of which I teach the same material in. I have pretty much alll of my Algebra 1 class materials from last year---but I'm still scrambling to revise/fix some of the note guides and create new practice worksheets. my 6th, 7th, and 8th grade Math Foundations classes are the ones where I have to create from scratch. These kids are in Math Foundations AND their regular math class. Apparently some where a long the line someone had the brainy idea that for kids who don't achieve well in math, lets give them two math classes! Hmm. That leaves me to have to have ingeniously creative lesson plans that totally switches things up, approaches things at a different angle, allows for movement, hands on, fast paced and rigorous, but not overwhelming. Phew. I will say, the kids are responding much better to the way I'm running the class than I thought that they would. There have been 2 different teachers for MF in the past 2 years, both with different styles, so the kids were used to being lax in MF class.

I'll update more on my bubbly personalities in the classroom. Time for some shut eye!

Dusting off.

Wow. I went to start a new blog, and apparently I already had one created for that email address. So I guess I won't try to fix what's not broken, and continue with this one.

I'm on my prep right now. Some times I need to just chill on my prep. My 1st hour has 16 rammy, loud, vibrant personality kids, that I need a little breather after I finish the 47 minute class with them. So that's what I'm doing... reading other blogs, drinking a diet coke, and wishing my headache would go away.

Let's see, since I've posted last I have:

• Moved into my house
• Painted House
• Decorated House
• Worked 2 jobs and haven't relaxed in house that was painted and decorated
• Worked every weekend from August 30-October 17.
• Relaxed the weekend of October 23-25
• Gotten into the routine of going to work every day again, but not the routine of waking up at 5:30am
• Tried to do teach little muchkins the routines of this-is-your-new-math-foundations-teacher-and-I'm-going-to-run-it-different-than-your-old-one

I guess this was a short post. I'll try a new one later--I have some vents to get out :)