Four Weeks Down, Four Weeks to Go...

...until 2nd Quarter. :)

Diligently checking papers while Joash watched rather than helped

This week did not involve:
1) Rain days
2) Day off
3) Crazy children


Sorry, I forgot what I do for a living! Crazy children remained crazy. I have reached the conclusion that I need to be stricter. The kids told me that I'm not as strict as the math teacher or many of the other teachers. I told them I'd work harder to be strict and give out demerits. I gave out 3 demerits on Friday for no homework. By now I could have given out about 10 no homework demerits and multiple behavior demerits. I prefer to motivate with positive rewards... like the much-liked "Brownie Points" that were introduced this past week.



Brownie points work like this:
When the ENTIRE class does a good job for something (e.g. all following directions quickly and quietly, all snapping to attention at the signal, etc.) they get a point on the class tally. (I was afraid the score would get erased every day so I started keeping track in my binder, but apparently the kids are ready to pounce on any other teacher who dares get near to erasing the points on the board.) Once they reach 10 points, I bring in brownies for the entire class. This was greeted with rapturous delight, cheers, and many examples of lack-of-self-control that did nothing for their getting a class point.

Random picture from Sunday to break up the monotony of this post.

Since it's so hard for them to get brownie points as a whole class, I also have the class divided into rows. If an entire row does a good job, they get a point. Five points equals 5 merits each for that row. Ten points equals another 5 merits and a book donated to their classroom library by yours truly. (This announcement was greeted with children not raising their hands asking for certain books that I had read to them in class. Guess who didn't get a point.)

So far my "smartest" class has the least amount of class points because they are very excitable and very prone to lack of self-control or enthusiastic but uncalled for outbursts. They're a fun class, but they are crazy! My first class is full of behavior-conscious girls who are extremely strict with everybody else and they have the most points across all three sections. The middle class has a good number of row points but they struggle a bit with their class points because there are some socialites in that class.

"Excuse me, this is not social hour" is heard frequently in that class.

And another random Sunday picture for the same reason as mentioned above.

I really need to start writing down things the kids say/write. They are so weird sometimes. I tend to write the daily funnies on my status on FB because it's faster to record it there. Here are some examples:

Write a complete sentence that does not make sense: 
The micro-organism burped up the universe. 


Write an example of a thank you letter.‎
"Dear Lebron James, I hope you will go to phillipines so I can meet you. Please give me allowance everday atleast $200 and why did you lose against Dallas. "
(Not to mention that he didn't even follow directions)


You may read or draw when you are finished. -- Me
"But I don't want to read OR draw. I just. want. to. daydream............" 


On Thursday, we had review games for almost the entire 80 minute period. It was exhausting. I had a headache and a sore throat after the first class. By the last class I was dying. I went home, finished grading, and went to bed at 8. The kids loved the review games but the teacher hated it. Glad some people enjoyed it, though! I have lunch duty on Thursdays and Fridays and one of the kids from the class before lunch told another kid from my class after lunch that he'd have fun because "It's ALL games!!! Just one worksheet and GAMES!!!!" 


I gave the first long test on Friday. It was a beautiful 40 minute period of silence. I decided to give a test every day... until it took me 4 and a half hours to grade all the tests. The first period was purely test-taking. The second period was supposed to be about writing. The writing project that I had hoped to finish in the second week is still not done. Most of these kids can't write to save their lives. They need so much help. I tried teaching them how to "show" rather than "tell" in their sentences. They were very confused. Here is an example of one such fail:


I told them that a telling sentence would be: The Eiffel Tower is big. 
A showing sentence would be: The massive Eiffel Tower loomed above me, making me feel like an ant as I gazed upward. 


Then I gave them some telling sentences and told them to give me a showing sentence instead. The first two classes had no idea what to do. The third class gave me this for the telling sentence, "Disney Land is fun":
"Disney Land was FREAKING AWESOME!!!" 


.............Fail. 


Ok, I admit, I am not known for having a poker face and I laughed at all of them which made them all laugh and consequently resulted in more demonstrations of lack of self-control by calling out. Double fail. 


After school on Friday, I went to Starbucks and graded papers for 3 hours while waiting for Kemi and Gian to come for their final prenup photoshoot with Joash. Joash teaches at a college near my school and we get out around the same time, so he came and sat around while I bored him to death with my constant grading. The good news is that I got two classes graded and logged into both my grading sheets while waiting. 


I'm teaching the advanced group of Junior Writer's Guild for academic club on Tuesday. One of the topics we'll cover is about blog writing and what makes a blog interesting. In this post, I have demonstrated what makes a blog long and boring. 


Without much further ado, here is a picture of the amazing shelf on wheels that my dad made for me. I can now use my desk at work!!!