NaNo Edits

Our first day of editing our stories actually went pretty well.  They seemed receptive to the idea of editing and a bunch dove right in.  Today our focus was on combining sentences so there are various lengths and the writing flows better.  I wish I would've glanced over more of their stories first.  Most of my students have difficulties placing periods, so their sentences are longer as opposed to shorter.  So our first topic should've been on chunking sentences.  Oh well.  There's always time tomorrow.  I'm still getting the hang of this writing workshop thing.  I wish I could watch a teacher in action so I'd know if I'm doing mine right.  I know there are things I could do better... it's just hard to know what to change.


Joe buried himself today.  There's a chance of snow tomorrow and a chance of freezing drizzle Wednesday night/Thursday morning.  Lovely.  My kids are all like, "Yeah! Let's have a blizzard!"


The IT guys installed the Promethean software on my computer yesterday, so I was able to use it today in class.  Ugh, I've forgotten so much since my technology class at Bethany.  I used to know how to do all sorts of things on it.  Now I have to feel my way around it and test out different things.  Time is what I need.


Still down one student.  The second one came back at noon and he's out playing basketball right now.  I have one sixth grade boy who hasn't wanted to eat lunch these past few days.  He was being super obstinate and the last time I tried to force him to eat lunch (earlier this school year), it was a bit of a fiasco.  Not a battle I wanted to fight.  So yesterday when he first declared he wasn't eating lunch, I emailed his mom to see what she thought.  She said, let him skip, but remind him he wouldn't be able to eat until after school.  So he didn't eat lunch.  Today he said the same thing, so I didn't mark him down for hot lunch.  But then he complained about being lightheaded and revealed he hadn't eaten any breakfast... so I emailed his mom again and she called and convinced him to at least eat a little bit.  He ate a tri-tator and some mandarin oranges, but hey, it's something. 


It bothers me that they don't eat!  Some of the other sixth grade boys have only been eating salads/fruits/vegetables because they don't like the main meal.  It drives me nuts!   A few will take a pb sandwich, which makes me feel a little better.  But still.  How is that going to last them all day?