une petite pause

today one of my students was supposed to come back from a suspension. he needed to come back with a parent. the day started with him trying to sneak back in without the parent. (unsuccessful on his part). he came back later with his mom, and during the hour long meeting that ensued, he tried to tell his mom, me, the math teacher, and the PRINCIPAL that he was in the in-school suspension room the days he was suspended, even though we have no such room.
the teachers just sort of looked at him and were like, are you for real right now? trying to put that past us???
he then said he came to school and then hid in the bathroom all day.
if it wasn't for the situation i probably would have laughed.

this is why being a teacher is cool

SNOW DAYYYYYYYYYYYYYY

for about 2 in of snow. WIN.


http://www.donorschoose.org/we-teach/614798.1330848032

and we're back!

hey ya'll

sorry i haven't updated this since i've been back!

school started on tuesday, and so far, so good. knock on wood! we're reading diary of a wimpy kid and they LOVE it, they protest every time i turn the recording off! i have also changed the way i lesson plan, and that is making my life a little bit better and i'm focusing on more things that i should be, like vocabulary!

haven't done much else since i've been back, just getting back into the swing of things. lots of grocery shopping--i feel like every time i go i come back with nothing!!

oh, i also posted a new project on donorschoose.org! this is a website where teachers post projects that they need to get funded. you can end up asking for things like computers, projectors, vidoe cameras, etc. right now my project is for reader's notebooks for my kids silent reading time. if you'd like to check out the project here is the link:

http://www.donorschoose.org/we-teach/614798.1330848032

donors choose is pretty cool. not only do teachers get the funding they need for different things, the donors will get handmade thank you notes made by the students who received the donation! it's a good website and i encourage you to check it out.

that's all for now!

ice skating

so i am currently waiting for my choc chip cookies to cool, so here is the (highly anticipated i know) story of taking one of my students ice skating.

so tfa put on this event where teachers could take up to four of their students ice skating at no charge. the ice skating rink (to my surprise) was ACTUALLY OUTSIDE!!!! so both me and my student were a TAD underdressed.

so, like i said, i was allowed to bring up to four students, but most of my kids were busy that saturday and, frankly, not all of my students had behaved well enough to be able to go, so i just took one student, one of my girls.

when i picked her up, i asked her if she had ever gone ice skating, she said no. to myself i thought "oh boy, this is gonna be interesting"

when we got there, we got our skates, laced up (i had to help her, she wasn't sure what to do at first), and i gave her my hand we got on the ice.....where she DID NOT FALL! we were pro. we were there for about an hour and half and she didn't fall ONCE! i was pretty impressed! especially when compared to the other students falling all over the ice haha.

it was a fun morning because i got to be in a different setting with one of my students, i also got to hear a bunch of the gossip going on in my classroom! (i'm happy to say i knew most of the boy-girl stuff going on! i'm perceptive! lol)

anyways

cookies are done baking (omg, cookie overload)

i need to go do something productive!

a poem

this was written by one of my students for their poetry anthologies (due today). they had to create eight original poems about themselves. this poem was written in response to my confiscation of every rubberband in the classroom throughout two days because the boys were shooting paper across the classroom (typical) and snapping each other with them (typical).

GONE RUBBER BAND

On Tuesday Ms.Brodhead took my rubber band,

she said she was going to give it back on

Wednesday but, she lied and today is Friday and

she said she was going to give it back at the end

of the day but I can’t wait that long I need it now.

thanksgiving party

so i'm not sure how many of you heard about the thanksgiving party debacle over thanksgiving break.

but here it is.

(i might be setting it up a little bit calling it a debacle, but whatever).

so i want you to keep in mind that i teach at a school that is 7-12. i teach the YOUNGEST kids. i missed the memo at halloween that there should be a halloween party, so for thanksgiving i knew i needed to do something because my kids were very vocal in their disappointment at halloween (silly me).

so i decided that the last period on tuesday would be our party time and i would bring some cookies and chips or something and we could just sort of hang out/play games whatever. WELL.

my plan of cookies and chips and juice (the full spread was cookies, teddy grahams, popcorn, apple juice) was put SADLY to shame BY EVERYONE ELSE IN THE SCHOOL. the 8th grade teacher literally cooked a whole bunch of stuff for her class (think lasagna, etc), got chicken wings, lots of pies, i mean A FEAST. (the 10th graders joined in to have this party with the 8th graders)

this feast next door made some of my kids whine to go next door and made me realize that my christmas party needs to be epic. bah. i'll have to do a sign up sheet cause i won't be able to afford it otherwise!!!

i'll keep you posted on the christmas party.

oops.

sorry yall for the lack of updates. i don't like updating when i've been having bad days/weeks/months (haha) i'm worried i'll say something i'll regret!

overall, i'm pretty ready for break. i think my kids are too. it's the last slog through till the holidays and there is still a TON of stuff to cram in. my kids poetry anthologies (basically personal narratives in the form of 8 original poems) are due monday, and of course, even though i have given my kids a month to work on these (anticipating them getting one and half done each week, plus homework), most of my kids have less than FOUR. WTF? and of course, my kids are resisitent to doing the work. we'll see what these turn out like.....

we are also drawing our unit to a close and will be taking our test next week, having our poetry slam, our christmas party (which, i will tell you about how high my bar needs to be in another post..THIS IS A BIG DEAL!!!!) and half of my kids failing math and science (not to mention my class!!!) life is CRAZY!!!

i also took one of my students ice skating this past weekend, i'll tell you about it another time too.

things to keep you hooked ya know! lol

on the upside, the tfa holiday christmas party is this weekend. i've heard its lots of fun (it is also open bar = automatic win).

try to get these posts out more often:)