Today was a day of silence. Ms. J made a comment to me that Mr. E is concerned about how much the 5th graders talk when they're not supposed to, especially during tests. I guess my ability to tune out pretty much anything is a blessing and a curse. So this morning, I gave the 5th graders a talk about the importance of staying quiet during tests/while the teacher is talking. They did a great job in the morning... then they lost it a little bit in the afternoon. We'll keep working on it.
It was pretty disheartening to have the 2nd graders barge into the room (when there was a "Quiet Please! Testing!" sign taped to the door). Their whole math class was filled with blaming others/accusing classmates of cheating, wiggling around in chairs (some of them lost the privilege of sitting in a chair for class), and 5th graders asking them to please be quiet.
Our ITBS for today was all about math. We did parts one and two and then squeezed in the computation section instead of doing English today. The first two went great! Everyone finished all the problems on the test with time to spare. The last part, computation, was a little different. While the majority of the class got right to work doing the mental/paper and pencil computing, the one 5th grader who doesn't like math fiddled around, looking off into space, rubbing her eyes, etc. I'm really glad she went to the bathroom before the test, otherwise she probably would've asked to go to escape doing it! She did okay on the first two parts, probably because she could use a calculator and didn't have to think too hard. Still, she got most of the answers completed in the time period. She scared me because she only had 6 done out of 30 by the time we reached the halfway point on the timer.
Since we squeezed in that extra test, we were a little late to lunch. I was going to call down to Mr. E's room and tell him to go ahead of us, but I didn't want to disturb their class if they were testing. By the time we went to lunch, the 7th and 8th graders were already in line! Not a big deal. Mr. E was surprised to see us going to lunch so late. Then the 7th and 8th graders wanted to know if we were going outside for recess (I thought we went over it this morning before the bell rang... sending someone to check for mud outside). The 8th grade boys told my 5th graders we'd be playing softball at recess to practice, so they all wanted to call parents to bring their gloves to school since they didn't know. That's always tricky business, letting kids call home in the middle of the day. You don't want the parents to be bothered, especially if it's not important. I ended up letting one of them call and his dad dropped off his glove.
At lunch, all the boys made a huge fuss about going outside! "But we don't have our gloves with us today! Can't we go inside for recess?" Augh! It made me want to pull my hair out! Mr. E was right there with me. He said, "Oh, so what we should've said was that we're going inside for recess; then you'd be begging to go outside for recess." Then the boys complained, "There's nothing to do!" Inside I was shaking my head. When I went to school we always went outside for recess, no matter what.
We ended up going outside for half the time. The girls wanted to play on the playground side. I have no clue what the boys wanted to do. I told one of the girls to talk with the rest of her class to figure out which side we would go on. Someone told me the playground side. So that's where we were going to go. Then half their class came up to ask which side we were going on! It was super windy, which made the temperature pretty cold, especially for 7th and 8th graders trying to look cool in their sweatshirts. I made them be outside for 10 minutes and then we went in the gym for the rest. The boys put up a fuss when I asked them to stay at half-court for basketball so the girls who didn't want to play could have space to do something else. You'd have I asked them to give up a kidney! Mumbling and grumbling all over the place. Recess is definitely not my favorite class.
My box of books came yesterday, just before I packed up for home. Now we have a bunch of new picture books to add to our class library! I can't wait to share them with the 5th graders, though I might wait a few days since we're testing this week. Eh, maybe not. They can read them if they finish their tests early.
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