Well, this day has been an emotional roller coaster.
This morning, I finished correcting 98% of everything that needed correcting while eating breakfast. When I got to school, I found out that the IT guys had come in the night and fixed the problems my classroom had been having with our computers! It was just like the fairy tale where the shoe elves sneak in and work their magic. The IT guy even left me a note explaining what he did. To top it off, he fixed the link on my computer that lets me access all the students documents, so they don't have to try to figure out how to send me something on the computer; I can just access it in their folder! I had just enough time at school to get our mining activity ready for MN history before the teachers met for devotions.
Then, after we met I found out that one of my student's grandpas passed away last night and my 6th grader was taking it pretty hard. One of her younger siblings was really happy because "Grandpa is in heaven now!" (this week they've been studying heaven in the kindergarten classroom). Most of my students found out before school started, so we didn't have to have the awkward conversation in front of this 6th grader and make her feel even more sad and uncomfortable. She got a little better as the day went on.
Reading time came and some of the 6th graders tried to work on their stories they've been trying to work on for the past week. We haven't been able to access the website to type our stories so they can be compiled in book form, so my students have been either typing them in Microsoft Word, or bumming around on the publishing website, creating avatars for themselves, but not actually accomplishing anything. This of course makes me very frustrated. Then they all start chiming in, "Miss H, Miss H! We need help! Can you come here for a minute!" I know I only have six students, but having all of them call for me at once is pretty draining.
Well, guess what? The publishing website still didn't work. I tried calling the company twice, but no one answered. So I had a whole bunch of 6th graders with nothing to do. The printer was working again, so I had them print their stories and exchange them with a partner. That kept them busy for a little while. Finally it was time for lunch.
Our topic for today in MN history was mining. I found a few neat YouTube videos to show the class and then we did a mock mining excavation using tweezers and a mixture of rice, ring noodles, tiny rocks, and beads. The students had 10 minutes to mine the ore from the pie pans. After 10 minutes, they figured out the value of their ore and tallied up their profit. If they weren't neat while they were mining, they were fined a $50 environmental damage fee that needed to be deducted from their profit. They were split into two groups, so it was interesting to see how each group handled their mining assignment differently.
After that was art time, which I had intended them to use to work on their illustrations on the publishing website. Unfortunately, it wasn't working, so that plan flew out the window. I decided to let them try color sudoku (like normal sudoku, but with colors). This was an absolute disaster. The game is on a website, which I should have guessed would cause chaos. Half the class knew how to do it (or thought they knew), so they went to get started right away. The other half that didn't know what was going on tried to get started, but they weren't paying attention and were only worried about finding the website. And of course there were a few students who forgot to type a letter and the website couldn't be found. This brought another chorus of whining and yelling for help. About this time, the people who thought they knew how to play finally realized they had no clue what was going on, so they started shouting for help. So I looked at my watch. Saw that it was time for math (or close enough, anyway). And asked them to log off their computers.
The room was much quieter after that.
The 7th and 8th graders had a map redo quiz on Africa followed by a study session for our test tomorrow. I feel kind of bad because they have both a science and a geography test on the same day. But I am letting them use their science notes on the test, so I feel less bad than I did originally.
After school, I finally got a hold of the publishing website people and found out that it was a simple fix. I had clicked the wrong thing when I signed our class up, so they weren't allowed to edit their pages. The guy I talked to said he'd fix it right away. Thank the Lord! Hopefully we can get this project finished and out of the way.
One thing is for sure... after this long day, I am sure glad tomorrow is Friday!
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