Kwakiutl

The IT guys came last night.  Hallelujah! They fixed my printer, they fixed the computer that didn't work, and they left the new iPads.  Oh it was a happy day in my class.  Except I'm so used to the printer not working that I keep sending stuff to the one in the office and I have to walk down to get it. 


Bells went surprisingly well today! Last practice, I had noticed a notation on the bottom of the page telling players to table-damp instead of playing the notes regular.  We tried that today and the song actually sounded like a song!!! Except the girl who has most of the melody didn't want to play her bells and that part didn't sound good.  So I'll have to work on that.  And another kid's binder won't stay closed so it's hard for him to turn his music without things getting messed up.  I'm pretty sure we're all out of unused folders too...


We had our first day of presenting Native American powerpoints.  Overall they did a great job!  We had attentive audiences for the first two... and then there was time for just one more before recess (always a dangerous decision).  Some of the boys in my class are confused on what time we're supposed to go out for recess.  On the class schedule, I have recess start at 2:10, but they keep thinking we need to be outside at 2:00.  And of course they keep asking and get fidgety and antsy... not things you want in an audience for student presenters. 


The girls could tell they were losing their audience.  They had found a video to put in their powerpoint about the Kwakiutl (kwa-key-oodle) potlatches, basically a big potluck where you give presents to everyone.  But it was at the very end, and the boys were being so rude the girls just said, "we can skip the video".  Enough of the other girls spoke up about wanting to see it (and I could tell the presenters still wanted to show it), so we took a vote to see if we should watch it or not.  The majority of the class didn't care either way.  Bingo! We're watching it.  And the most loud/obnoxious kids pitched a fit.  But we still got out to recess at our "normal" time, 2:10, and we had another fun day of four-square.