Crack-a-lackin'

Since I bought more yoga balls last night, today was the day for cracking down on usage behavior.  We had a class discussion about what was distracting and what was acceptable.  I made a Rules chart and posted it on the front of my podium.  It already came in handy twice today!  One boy dribbled his ball and all I had to do was say his name and he put it away in the closet.  The other time was when the 7th and 8th graders came in for class. They were jacked up about the extra balls and were bouncing and kicking and dribbling, so I pointed to the chart and said, "Not allowed!" And they calmed down right away.  One 7th grader got his taken away and he fussed a bit, but I held my ground.

Here are our rules:

• Moderate bouncing/wiggling
• Use your own ball (don't ask to use a classmate's)
• No dribbling
• No kicking
• No hitting the sides
• No rolling around
• No warnings! Ball goes in the closet

I also put up charts about what to do in Word Work, Work on Writing, and Writing Workshop.  Since our routine changed during November for NaNo, going back to the old way is taking a bit more time.  They keep asking if they can do specific things during Daily 5 rounds, so now I just have to direct them to the lists posted on the door.

We did a science lab on mixtures today.  It took a lot of setup, both before science started and after I passed out the lab sheets to my students.  Still, they had fun and we were able to find a good-ish stopping point.  Now I have a large pile of dishes to do.  Two test tubes were broken in the course of the lab.  One while a student dumped out the contents into the dump container (she tapped it against the side of the glass).  The other was while they were rinsing out their glassware; somehow another broke.  Thankfully, I have a "sharps" container in the closet.  And I also have plenty of test tubes.  Still, I don't like dealing with broken glass.

Tomorrow we'll have to finish the second portion of the lab and work on our conclusions/review.  I was hoping to get to another lesson so we could have a second lab this week since next week our science/social time is going to be used for Christmas program practice.  Oh well.  We'll see how tomorrow goes.

My church doesn't have an advent services, but my farmer's church has them Tuesday nights, so I'm headed down to Truman for church tonight.  The weather is good so far! I think there's a small chance of snow and it's supposed to get cold later, but that won't be terrible to drive in.