Doozy

Sigh.  Another doozy of a day.  At least I wasn't the only one who had it rough.  My coworkers reported that their students were off the walls too.


None of my kids could focus today!  Even the ones that are normally pretty good.  And they were all acting immature.  Not to mention farting all over the place.  I don't know what they've been eating lately, but it's been a bit hard on the digestion. 


One kid in my class has been writing bad words on his NaNo story.  Of course he erases it whenever I walk by.  When I confronted him about it, he said, "[the kid next to him] told me to do it!"  Yeah, but he wasn't the one who pressed the keys on the keyboard.  Mr. E had a talk with him, but it didn't help.  The kid doesn't care.  We don't have a big enough stick to get him to stop.  He's already in from recess working on his math corrections.  Half the time I forget to send him down to work on them.


Mr. E told me today that the new student never has his math done 100%.  And he didn't have his spelling done today either even though they have plenty of time to work on it during school.  Time to email his mom.  Oh joy.  I think I'm going to wait until tomorrow; I have no energy for it today.


Speaking of spelling, one of the 6th graders came to school with six of her spelling pages left to do for the week.  She brought it home yesterday, but it sat in her backpack while she finished her math assignment and by that time it was time for bed.  So she didn't get any of it done.  Then she was mad at me because I was making her stay in from recess/not play the tap game until it was finished.  We had a somewhat good conversation about how it was her choices that landed her in this mess in the first place.  She was also mad because someone tore the cover of her spelling book off.  But if she had kept track of it and brought it back to her desk after her round of word work, it wouldn't have been lying around for someone to tear.  I don't think she saw it that way though.


And then there was a 5th grader who yelled at his classmates whenever they made an annoying noise, like a weird scream yell.  And got even madder when his classmates kept doing it.  He would stamp his foot and glare at them (kind of reminded me of a ram we used to have...).  "Use your words!" was my mantra of the day.


The 8th graders begged for more recess today.  We corrected their spelling books and they didn't bring anything to work on, claiming it was my fault because I didn't write what they should bring on the board like I usually do.  So they wandered around the classroom asking to go out to the gym for some recess and then saying they were bored and completely distracted the 6th graders from their computer time.  Ugh.  Something has to change there.


Mr. E borrowed two of the 5th graders to set up for PE... right before we did science.  And it took them forever.  What I had to say was important, so I didn't want to start without them.  But we ended up having to do it anyway since they took so long.  Apparently the 3rd and 4th grade didn't clean up after themselves.


After school we met about the Christmas program again.  I finally have the parts assigned.  I was super paranoid that I gave each class too much to memorize.  Only the 5-8th grade students have speaking parts.  This year there are lots of tiny parts, so each 5-6th grader has two and each 8th grader has three.  I hope it goes okay.  We're putting together the Christmas program packets tomorrow after school.


Mrs. B (the pastor's wife) said if I stop by her house before six, she'd give me some chili for supper.  So I'm going to pack up and head out!