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!