yakker tracker

Last night's kickboxing class was a major success. I imagined every single one of my problem student's face on the punching bag and hit as hard as I could. I felt quite wonderful after it was all over.

Well, today was a looooonnnnnnggggg day and I didn't feel like doing much. I feel kind of like it was a lazy day so I had students work on their compare/contrast essay (oh, the whining I heard!) and then gave them the rest of class free time. I even offered a winter word search for extra credit. There is seriously something up with the school this week; all the teachers are blah, and the students are more annoying than usual. While my little darlings were "free-timing" it away, I was busy making a wishlist on Amazon.com (under my school e-mail)!

I borrowed the coolest thing from one of the teachers. It's called a "yakker tracker," and it is a visual (and auditory) monitoring system of noise level in the room. It looks very much like a stop light. I choose how loud I will let the students get by turning a decibel dial. Then when the class gets too noise, it gives off a siren sound. I only used it for about 15 minutes in my classes today, while they were working on their essays. I was utterly amazed at what that little baby could do! My 5th period was quiet for longer than 30 seconds!! I told the classes, "it's a three strike you're out kind of thing. If the siren goes off three times, you will do book work. If it only goes of once or twice, you can have the free time." I don't think I'd use something like this everyday, but on days when I really need them to work quietly or on days when they work in groups, I think it could really come in handy. There are a few teachers in the school that have them that I could borrow, but it may be nice to have one all for my self.

We've been doing a Pot-luck lunch every Thursday in the faculty room. Usually, everyone brings something to share and we have a good old time venting about students. I've kind of slacked off lately and have hid in my room during lunch. This week, one of the teachers said she'd bring some chili. Another said he'd bring some rolls to go with it. A few other teachers offered to bring salads, deserts, and drinks. Today I took in the half-eaten bag of "fake" Oreo cookies from yesterday's brilliant lesson. I got there kind of early, so left to wash up and talk to the Media Queen. When I came back, all we had on the table were my cookies, some rolls, muffins, and a bag of chocolate candy. No chili. No salads. No drinks. It was great. So my lunch today was a roll, two Hershey's Kisses, and a "fake" Oreo.

I'm off to a play tonight...hopefully I don't fall asleep. I'm uber glad tomorrow is Friday. I created a difficult vocab test just because I don't know if my students are studying. I know, that's horrible!!!!
Happy Thursday!