Psycho

That title pretty much sums up class today. 


My kids were SUPER chatty, way more so than usual.  Before school they were yelling across the room, distracting each other from saying memory.  Some of the girls spent time decorating the classroom: putting up the nativity set, throwing tinsel on the tree, finding homes for our random other decorations.  I like it much better for them to do it all!  There's something so homey about a lit up Christmas tree.


In religion, we did popcorn Bible reading.  So anytime we had to look up a verse, one would read it and then popcorn the next verse to someone else.  One kid really wanted to read, but he was being obnoxious about it, so the boys kept popcorning to everyone but him... even the girls!  He did get a chance to read... at the way end much later than he'd wanted to.  My kids had so much fun doing this, they asked if we could have religion all morning and just keep popcorn reading Bible passages.  And they were actually serious.  Huh. 


We did not spend all morning on religion, though we did take a little longer than normal.  We had so many little catch-up things to do.  I have about five assignments on the board that one or two people for each haven't finished yet.  And they still didn't get them done!  Instead, they worked on a project a little, then switched to something else, and then worked on a different thing, or pretended to work on it.  I don't know.  The people in question were clearly not using their time well.  Ergh! It's hard to keep so much straight!  Midterms are next week...


Our hymnal angel project got started today.  Since we had program practice in the afternoon, I had been planning to give them recess time instead of art and we'd start the project Monday.  But they were so crazy this morning that I gave them the choice: shape up and get recess this afternoon, or stay acting the way you are and we do art/science/social studies.  Well... they shaped up a little, but not nearly enough.  So after math, they sat quietly in their desks while I passed out their social studies tests, then we went over how to make the hymnal angels.  I told them I'd give them one more chance (oh I'm such a softie!) to earn their recess back; no complaining or whining or rowdiness and we could go out after dividing the pages of the hymnal so we could start our project Monday.  Okay. Deal.  So they earned their recess. 


Another interesting thing: the 3rd and 4th graders came in to hear me talk about El Salvador.  The 7th graders were also in my room at the time, but they'd already heard about it last year (though I had new pictures).  I only had a half an hour to talk... I went over by five minutes.  But the kids had so many questions! And they were good questions too!  I wish we would've had more time.  The 7th graders were interested too, though they weren't nearly so curious.