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.