testing

so this week is going to be a rough week for the kids..... it's terra nova testing... and it's the "complete battery." it is actually as scary as it sounds. my kids have to take an hour long reading test, a 35 min long grammar test, a 70 min math test, and 40 min science test, 40 min social studies test.....

THEY ARE DOING THIS ALL IN MY CLASS.

i've had to bribe them beyond belief to get them to be quiet and work haha

it's made me realize that we really test our kids too much.... i mean who really wants to sit and take standardized tests all the time!??? i always hated them.

i guess i need to figure out a better way to invest my students in them.

on a different note:

today was an interesting day for another reason besides testing.

one of my students ran into my classroom after lunch today, started dancing and actin a fool, and then slipped on some paper that was on the floor. it was like amovie, his feet came out from under him, and he fell, i think his head might have hit the table, but i don't really remember, but his head def hit the floor--HARD. he continued to act a fool on the ground, and my worry went out the window, until he came up to me about 15 min later saying "ms b, i think i'm sick" and he was tipping his head back cause he had vom in his mouth.

not good.

some craziness happened ( i had to watch a class for a hot sec and my student as still in the bathroom.....)

and then we went to the nurse. ... in the end mys tudent came back to my class and the end of the day he seemed normal....

an incident report was written and a call home was made, tomorrow iwll be interesting to see how he feels.

all in all a stressful day, on top of which i sat at the tfa offices for 3 hours.. BOO.

pictures!

hey guys, here are some pictures of my classroom. pictures of the kids to come soon.

this is the front of the classroom--up above the chalk board are my kids goals and visions above their hand prints, which is them reaching for their goals. haha. my big classwide vision and big goal is to the left of the kids on poster board.

see the hands and "we are always reaching for our goals"

the back of the classroom with our class library and my desk in the left hand corner.

this is one of the sides of my class, with the stellar student wall (for student work that made mastery--80% or better) and my words and terms wall

stellar student work!!!

the "this is why i'm hot wall" is my student shout out wall. i'm going to start taking the kids photos and putting them on the wall.

class rules, rewards, and negative consequences. below the chart paper that says "what does respect mean to you" all my kids have signed a poster board saying that they agree to the rules 100% of the time. we did that on the very FIRST day of school!

the respect thing was part of what we did yesterday to talk about the crazy ish that has been going on.

anyways. that's all for now

also, i know everyone is just falling over with disbelief that i've updated so much.

a blog update twice in one week!???

lord.

today was ROUGH DAY.

i generally start of monday, wednesday, and friday with a temperature check. that means i have the kids circle up and tell the class 1-5 how they are feeling. five they could do cartwheels across the room and 1 they want to curl up in a ball and hide. they know, and i continue to tell them, that they need to be RESPECTFUL and listen to their classmates, which means NO TALKING. however, they lost the privilege of temp checks for the forseeable future because no one would be quiet. i think we got through about 3 students today. it was a bad start.

then, to make my already frustrated self a little more flustered, the PE teacher was out, so i lost my planning period (where i had a bunch of stuff i was planning on doing) as i needed to watch the kids in the gym.

then, when we get back into my class (15 min late, cause neither me nor the other teacher had a watch), one of my girls had to leave my class because she was shaking she was so mad at another one of the students. i believe she probably would have hit him if she had stayed in the classroom (she went to the 8th grade classroom, this is one of the reasons i like the school i teach at, because this can be an option)

then of course, we have a fire drill. that is chaotic in itself.

when the one girl came back in my classroom after the fire drill she sits with her back to me (one of many drawbacks of round tables) and ignores me for the rest of the period we have together (which doesn't sound like we have a lot of time together, but on mondays i actually have my kids for one hour in the morning, planning period, and then two hours before lunch, so we did still have about 45ish min left at this point).

my literature lesson starts off with kids again talking and talking and talking and i couldn't get their attention. i am sad to say i lost my temper a little bit and yelled quite a bit. it did however get them on track to do their work and most of the class turned in their work.

i have to say, one thing i don't understand--why would you NOT turn in work? especially when the work is groupwork? i have a student who will consistently sit there and talk to his table mates (another drawback of round tables) and not actually write down any of the work i ask. he understands it, because he tends to get some of the higher grades on his assignments, but he has a bad grade in my class cause he has so many zeros for his classwork. he really frustrates me, i think because i really do see his potential and i think he's probably one of the nicest kids in my class.

anyways. at lunch i generally have some girls who come to my room at eat lunch (actually a lot of my class has started to want to come into my room at lunch at eat). they don't always talk to me, but a lot of times they do--even after we have had a bad morning they like to come. they came for lunch today, but i said "girls, ms b needs a break today. you need to go back to the cafeteria"

then i had to sub for the ss class in the afternoon, right after lunch. the teacher had left them work to do which was good, and i wrote it on the board, there were twelve questions. most of the class go through 3. THREE QUESTIONS IN ONE HOUR. that is how much they were talking. it was hard because i wasn't super familiar with the topic so it took me awhile to be able to answer the questions. ugh. all in all, rough day.

because of this constant stream of talking--not whispering, not side conversations, literally not paying attention AT ALL--we are going to take tomorrow's lit class and talk about what's been happening. another reason i like my school--i can actually do this without worrying too much about falling behind because i always see my kids at least twice during the day.

anyways, long update. i guess i'm just venting here!

yikes.

oooh, graded the test.

not good.

life goes on..

sorry guys, forgot my camera on friday. i will bring it on monday though!!!

i will also try to post pictures of the 7th grade talent show my kids are putting on on thursday. lots of dancing, maybe some stepping, some singing/rapping, and who knows what else my kids will decide they want to do.

i also told them that if they worked hard on their narratives this week and finished them by monday we would have a publishing party a week from monday (the 27th). I said the publishing party would be like a coffee house and i would bring them juice and hot chocolate and some sort of something that isn't too sugar-filled. i think that was some good motivation.

i'm currently planning for my upcoming week on my NEW unit--short stories. our first story is by walter dean myers called "the treasure of lemon brown."

last week was a mixed week of good and bad classes. they finally understood what "text-to-self connections" were (it's a reading strategy where you can relate to something that happened int he sotry to help you understand it better) because i had them do skits about times when they were bullied, they bullied someone, or someone snitched on them. there were some pretty funny skits, one kid pretended he was like urkel with his pants up under his armpits, some glasses on, and walked all hunched over. he is also one of the smallest kids in my class--the kids LOVED it. i also had them write things that they thought they could teach and a couple of the kids wrote "i wasn't so sure about text-to-self until we started doing the skits and artwork, now i really get it!" that was a highpoint.

a low point was on friday after they took their test and i was going to have them do an activity about manners, and irony of all irony they couldn't be quiet AT ALL. i gave out written warnings all sorts of things, and we didn't get anythign done for 30 min. i finally said "if you guys can't sit here quietly for the next 5 min you will be eating lunch in my room completely silent"--that sure made everyone get quiet real fast.

anyways, i should get back to work, i promise pictures soon!!!

my kids first test is tomorrow....

wish them luck!!!

i know they know everything, but i'm nervous for them!!!

i'll keep you updated.

tracking

hey guys

i am currently grading and trying to put together my tracker. it's not going well. the upside about grading is that i can watch tv while i grade....but the downside is setting up the tracker. i have no idea what i'm doing.

on a better note, i gave my kids a quiz on friday and about half of them did a really great job! i showed some of them their grades and it made them smile really big too:)

this upcoming week is going to be pretty crazy i think. we (as in the teachers at my school) are volunteering at a place called Kidsmart on tuesday for 3 hours. this means we get to shop once a month for free--literally fill up a cart with a whole bunch of stuff for free. you can get notebooks, pencils, sometimes they have overheads, all sorts of things apparently. so that will be good.

then on wednesday its meet the family night. we'll see how many parents show up. saturday is a whole-day tfa thing. boo. my life is basically always full.

this upcoming weekend is also the balloon festival, so i really want to see them blowing them up on friday night!

anyways, i should get back to grading/setting up a tracker/watching tv

i will work on pictures for my next post!

i'm sure you're all wondering

I'm sure everyone is dying with questions about how last week went with little lesson planning---it went fine! except for at the end of the week when i had to come home and lesson plan and prep instead of just prepping. the last thing i wanted to do when i got home was lesson plan!
so because of that i will be working my darndest today to make sure i get all this weeks lesson planning done!

i'm still teaching personal narratives, i'm also having the kids write their own personal narratives. i'm excited to see what the kids are going to write about! i've made them think and pre-write for three different ideas, and i'm going to have them choose one this week to actually write the whole deal.

i'm currently planning for my next unit, which will be short stories. deciding what stories we will be reading and deciding if i like the ones in the textbook (i'm leaning towards no). teaching is a lot of prep work... no jokes.

this weekend was another not-so-teacher filled weekend. mom drove up from tejas with some furniture and now our apartment actually looks like people live here full time, instead of just some beds and a couch. haha. it has also been really nice here this weekend... gorgeous weather! too bad i am now stuck inside lesson planning! (and blogging, obvi).

anyways, that's all for now!