We tried a new way of picking rounds for Daily 5 today. I had everyone choose all four of their morning rounds before going off to work on them. It went okay. The students who wanted to read to self all morning had a great time... uninterrupted reading! The ones who changed to word work or work on writing or read to someone had trouble remembering which round they were doing. But it was only a matter of reading what was written on the board. Eh, maybe we'll try it again.
This afternoon's lab took a while to get started. My chameleon was upset that someone else had her fancy mechanical pencil and demanded that he give it back to her. I had found it lying next to one of the computers earlier this week (not even yesterday!) and put it in the "Sharp" container. She didn't even notice until today and then she raised a stink about it. Tears and everything. They were supposed to be partners for our science lab. Ha. I made them work together anyway and moved another person over from a different group. But in the meantime, everyone else was throwing in their two cents (more like five cents, if you ask me) and messing around with each other so you could hardly hear. Maybe that's why my throat is sore. So Chameleon Girl took a break for a long time, tried to come back to tell me something, went back on break when I wouldn't listen to her, and finally joined her group, with more meltdowns to follow. She had missed the first part of the lab and didn't know what was going on. Then she wanted a turn dripping in the ammonia. Then... you get the idea.
But once we actually got started, the lab went smoothly. They were doing a titration involving vinegar, red cabbage juice, and ammonia. The red cabbage juice looks bluish/purple, but it turns red in vinegar (acid). We add a base to it (ammonia) to get it to turn purple (neutral) and finally green (base). Last night I experimented with the amounts so the smell of ammonia wouldn't overpower them, cutting it with water. It still was quite pungent. A lot of my students held their shirts over their noses the duration of the experiment. But they got it done and cleaned up in record time... and then came graphing the data. It took them a while to figure that one out. I wanted them to work in groups to do it, but everyone wanted to go solo. So I ended up explaining how to record the data on the graph over and over and over. Mrs. B was around to help explain, but the students didn't like hearing they were doing it wrong and chose to ignore her suggestions. Then I came around and made them change their work.
We didn't have time for recess after that, but I let them run a few laps around the gym and that made life a little better. I feel like I'm going crazy trying to keep track of all the forms that are supposed to be coming in to school. And half the kids I'm missing them from keep forgetting them at home! Even their homework! Two kids have their handwriting from last week to turn in, but it's always left at home. Science fair projects too. Hopefully they'll all remember them tomorrow and they'll walk into the classroom tomorrow with their memory work memorized and can rattle it off and ace it. Yeah, keep dreaming.
Anyway, I'm off for my weekly night of correcting. All I really want to do is eat some chicken noodle soup and read a book. Maybe if I get all my correcting done, I'll have a little time to read...
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