1/26/16 100 Days of School

     Today TJ's class celebrated the first 100 days of school. It's hard to believe it's going by so fast. TJ often reports that school is his favorite thing of the day. His assignment was to bring back a box with 100 things in it. Heidi helped him glue 100 fruit loops into the shape of the number 100 plus some other shapes. Today before dinner Heidi found Joseph eating the cereal out of the box. The conversation was priceless. Heidi "but all of those are coved in glue!". Joseph, "Not anymore". Oh, well I suppose that's why they make sure that glue is nontoxic. Surprisingly, he did eat a pretty good dinner. 

        On the teaching front. Things went fine in 2 classes and rough in one. In my second period class there are a couple of kids who won't show respect to the other kids by waiting to talk until called on. One girl got really mad at me when I called her out on it. It's frustrating since my other 2 classes have both gotten it and we've moved on. Two of my better students stayed back to suggest it was time to start knocking down people's citizenship grade. I ran it by another teacher at lunch and she reported that has worked for her in the past. My first thought is to write their name on the board as a warning and then start writing points off. It's not fair to the majority of the kids who are trying to pay attention to have to keep addressing the same couple of kids. 

       On a more positive note, I took my seventh grade class to the computer lab for the first time. Many of them have been struggling with concepts that should have been learned before now. We got the kids set up with a website called Khanacademy.org. It has videos and questions to work and helps the kids to learn at their pace. We had all the kids working on different things and I just walked around and helped. I can be added as a "coach". That allows me to see what students have been working on and where they are struggling. I'm hoping it will help the kids get up to level so that we can move on and learn new things. One student asked if we would be going to the lab in the future. When I said "probably yes" she cheered and I think some of the others did too. That was a positive experience.