Thank God that Halloween was on a Friday this year. I don't know what I would have done if I had classes today. It was a crazy day, but that is to be expected on one of the most sugar driven, chocolate consumption, candy riddled days of the school year. Weeks ago, I signed out the laptop cart. I knew that it would be a crazy day and I wanted to have something to keep some semblance of order in my class. Once I arrived at school yesterday I went upstairs to check it out of the library. Notice I said upstairs. My class is on the first floor. I signed the cart out of the library and proceeded down the hall to the elevator, pushed the button and waited, and waited, and waited. Finally someone told me the elevator was broken. " Are you kidding me? " Insert big groan and some expletives muttered under my breath here. As I tried to figure out how I was going to finagle getting 30 laptops downstairs, I ran into the teacher whose room is directly above mine. I asked her if I could park the cart in her room and have the students come up and get them. Thankfully she said yes!!! Whew, problem solved, so now I wheeled the cart down to her room and plugged it in. I went down to my class to wait for the kiddos to arrive. Last Friday we were supposed to have the "Run For Hunger". Every October, our students collect nonperishable food that is donated to a local food bank and then spend one Friday running the mile. Prizes are given at each grade for the top 15 runners , both boys and girls, with trophies to the top 3 runners at each grade level. Yeah it's a huge deal, but well worth the effort. Well last week it rained, so you guessed it, it was postponed until yesterday, Halloween. That means a crazy mixed up schedule. No problem. Part of being a teacher means you are flexible and go with the flow when there is a schedule change. First period was "normal", well as normal as a class can be on Friday, October 31. This was my advisory class. After the Pledge of Allegiance and morning announcements, I went over the day's schedule changed with the class. I let them know that the "Run For Hunger" would be right after advisory, and their lunch would be at 11:30 instead of at noon. I also had to explain, much to their dismay, that the "Run For Hunger " took the place of their gym class . Insert student groans here. Once we had the schedule taken care of the schedule we took a class picture in front of the classroom door. It was decorated like a mummy. Next we played a group juggling game that the kids have dubbed the "Bean Bag Game". Lots of laughter, lots of giggling, lots of flying bean bags, ok getting a little wild...time to end the game and color some Halloween papers. Afterwards I escorted my class down to the gym, wished them good luck and went to take my prep period. I watched the kids run by my window and silently cheered them on. While I was prepping for the next week and the kids were running the mile the custodian became the skunk whisperer. Yep that's right the skunk whisperer. He corralled a skunk and tried to keep him from getting spooked as 300 seventh and eighth graders ran the mile around the building and over the course to the finish line. You can't make this stuff up. You just can't. I made it back to the gym in time to see the girls get their awards. I was pleasantly pleased to see several of my girls in the top 15. Unfortunately I was too late to see the boys get their awards, but still proud of the boys form my team that placed in the top 15. After a few minutes of chaos and confusion while students went and changed out of their gym clothes, we finally managed to get back to class. I marched my class upstairs to get the computers from the fifth grade class, they thankfully were gone to do their run. I was glad I did not have to interrupt their class. My first class was seventh grade. Student logins did not work. I had to use my login on every computer. It was time consuming , but I managed to get them going pretty quickly. The students have been learning about the geography of Mesopotamia. Today's assignment was to create a Thinglink ( see a previous post "Look What I Learned Today" to learn more about Thinglink), an interactive image. They did a nice job for the first time with this assignment. Some still need to finish them, but the great thing is they can do it at home. First class ends, and second begins. Ten minutes and then it is lunch. We didn't even open the computers. I wanted to make sure that I could conserve the battery life of the computers since I was not running upstairs to plug them in only to get them in 25 minutes.
Lunch, back to class and started on our Thinglinks. Same as last class relatively quiet, and students engaged in their projects. Finally, the last two classes of the day. Eighth grade was using the computers to research battles of the American Revolutionary War to create their projects, narrative battle maps. I realized too late that they could have completed Thinglinks too. Instead they were making posters. Oh well, live and learn. By the end of the day, the battery life was running extremely low on the computers. I had the students log off and shut them down. We meandered up the stairs to put the computers in the cart and return the cart to the library. I had a few minutes to chit chat with the students about Halloween and tick or treating. Still happy to see that they are still excited about getting dressed up in a costume! There was an air of excitement in the air as I prepared for dismissal with my homeroom. It was a crazy day full of bumps, chatter, schedule changes, surprise nocturnal animals making a daytime appearance, broken elevators and sugar, but I wouldn't change a thing! |
AuthorI am an empty-nester with two boys, a husband and a passion for writing, creating and teaching. I teach 7th and 8th grade Social Studies in Massachusetts. I am a self proclaimed history geek and proud of it! In my spare time ( Spare time, ha ha that's a joke! ) I enjoy photography, reading and hanging out with my family. Archives
February 2022
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