School keeps me busy busy. This will be a much needed weekend for relaxation!!! John has been taking good care of me. He's been fixing dinner and packing my lunches, and I love him for it! I've been trying to leave before 5pm each day. Sometimes that happens, then again sometimes it does not.

This week we're not switching classes at all. So I basically have my homeroom kids till next Wednesday. Normally I might see them for math and science. There are a handful of my homeroom kids that I will never see. I believe this is because they go to a resource teacher instead. I've been giving assessments for various subjects this week. My kids have totally forgotten math facts (multiplication times tables). I have a handful that can answer any 0-12 fact thrown at them. We're working on that a lot these days. I have math games that I had them play today to reinforce those facts. I hope its sinking in.

On a random note, I got a letter from the counselor about a student's SST (student support team) file. It asked me if I thought it should be closed. Does anyone realize I have only seen/known this child for 4 days!!! Craziness!

We tried Junior Great Books this week. For those of you who don't know what that is I shall explain. The whole class moves their chairs around the room so we have a giant circle. You can sit on the floor if you have room for that. This is so everyone can see each other. The students are given a thin paperback book, that has short fables. They are usually about 4--8 pages long. We read it once aloud (I am fuzzy how i am supposed to do this part, but I made up my own way to go about it) and the students read it again silently. The story we read was by Tolstoy, yes Leo Tolstoy. He apparently wrote a short fable called Two Brothers. Anywho, after the students are finished reading, I ask one student a question about the story. The question will be opinion based ,the answer should be supported with evidence from the story, and other students will agree/disagree with the student respectfully (by saying i disagree with... because...). The hard thing for the kids to do is not raise their hands. This is more of a discussion. The students learn that they shouldn't shout out, but wait until the person is finished speaking to add their two sense. We haven't had a chance to discuss yet, it was a busy day yesterday. I am planning on doing the discussion tomorrow. We'll see how it goes.


Over and out!