Wednesday, March 13, 2013

Trials and Tribulations

PTL last night, plus another meeting afterwards didn't get me home until 10:00pm last night.  Then I had to lesson plan for the 7/8th grade science so I didn't get to bed until 11:00... something that happens once in a blue moon.  This morning during breakfast, I realized I forgot to make a worksheet to go along with the lesson, but I figured I would have enough time to make one at school.

I noticed right away that something was wrong in my classroom.  My whiteboards weren't in their normal places, yes, the big ones that are screwed into the wall.  And then I noticed the new TeamBoard that had been installed at the front of the room.  Sigh.  I wish the IT guys would've told me they were coming to install it.  I could've moved everything out of the way for them, but no, they were still mad at me.

Heavily sighing, I made my way to my desk, and that's when I discovered I didn't see my calendar on the wall.  And then where were my Spanish vocab flash cards and the cans of student names and other posters I had had in the front of the room?  Answer: they were scattered in piles around the room.  Not on my desk where I would be sure to find them, but on my students' desks and chairs by the computers.  So that took extra time to get straightened up.

The whole time I was straightening up, I kept thinking about my students' reactions to the board when they arrived.  All of them would want to touch it and try it out, but it is hooked up to my computer, so everything they do on the board shows up on my computer screen.  Imagine having your mouse fly all over the screen while you're typing; you can't get anything done!  So I was scrambling to get as much done as I could before the bus came, but of course, today the bus dropped them off super early.  And then came the questions.  I compromised by saying we'd try the board out right before lunch because I needed to use the computer.

In other notes, my student's science projects are due tomorrow.  There is a class ice cream party scheduled for tomorrow as a reward for answering the Challenge of the Week correctly enough times, but I told them if they ALL didn't bring their science projects to school, we wouldn't have the party.  Hopefully that is incentive enough for them to bring their projects to school completed.  Now I just need to go get the ingredients...

After school, one of the girls who doesn't have computer access stayed after school to work on her project. Of course that meant I didn't get much accomplished, but we worked together on what things to put on her board and I helped her put together her report booklet, so I'm pretty sure she'll have hers finished by tomorrow.

This morning, Joe the tortoise was up and moving around.  He was actually not buried under his pile of dirt, so my students enjoyed watching him.  One girl was super excited that she could pet him on the head and he wouldn't go into his shell.  It's times like these I'm glad we got a class pet.  I still haven't seen him eating, but since he doesn't move around a lot and his food dish always seems less full in the morning, I'm pretty sure he's doing okay (probably eating at night or before I get to school in the morning).

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