Focusing Folder

Well, the Focusing Folder is coming in handy more than just during Daily 5.  The Janesville girls are changing in my room and some are a little shy about changing in front of the other girls.  They are taking turns changing behind the two cardboard folders.  And they're admiring all the different seats in the classroom.  And Joe.

Later, after the game... we lost all three B squad games, but they played pretty well.  My room now smells like perfume which is giving me a headache.  I'm not sure if I have allergies or am just fighting off a cold, but my head has felt stuffed up all day.  Others are fighting off colds/sore throats, so it's not just me.

Today the 5th and 6th graders had trouble focusing... So. Much. Blurting.

We had some frank conversations about not talking when I'm trying to teach.  It didn't work.  We tried playing the No Talking Game, but that didn't work either.  So I started writing "Blurt" tallies on the board every time someone talked out of turn.  I probably should've been stricter on the tallies, but sometimes they talked when I wasn't talking (down time between teaching something).  We'll work on it tomorrow.

The 7th and 8th graders weren't a whole lot better. We had hearing and vision screening today (7th and 8th graders first) and I was told to send the kids down at a certain time. But they didn't have their papers. So while we rushed around finding their papers, they created chaos.  You'd think after all these years they'd know better, but they were loud and shoving and broke one of the pairs of glasses.  It fell on the floor and someone stepped on them.  And then I got chewed out by the helpers.  So we all went back to class, I chewed them out a bit, and they settled down.  We got through one slide of the powerpoint when the nurse told us she had the papers.  I don't know if anybody else's class had such troubles or if it was just mine.  It seemed like it took forever and everyone was discombobulated.  Probably because we were the first ones to go.