welcome back, class

Today feels quite like a Monday, but it's good to realize that tomorrow is really over halfway through the week...er, something like that.

I had a swell day back at school. I had a difficult time falling asleep last night and that made it hard to get up as early as I wanted. Yawn. Anywho, I made it to school about 6:45 and got loads done. On my drive over, I realized, what I had planned to do today was not going to happen (I lacked the energy to teach and felt the students would probably be a little weary from break). You see, I was supposed to teach relative pronouns (I'll give you a giant hug if you comment me and tell me what that is...without looking! Hey, I'm a teacher, after all!) today, but I had the whole epiphany thing on the ride over and instead had them read a short story. I disguised the short story thing as actually important by telling them that on their CRT's, the majority of the questions are reading comprehension; by reading today and answering the questions, they practiced comprehending literature. I think it was a better plan that relative pronouns, but I'm all ready and amped (as amped as one can get about pronouns) to teach that concept tomorrow. When my day involves teaching grammar, I know it'll be a long one.

Lots of exciting things happened to some of my students over the weekend. Here I'll share my favorite (favorite story of the day, that is): The only boy in my journalism class is a big fan of a certain band...Avenged Sevenfold. He's not shy about his obsession. He's a fun, quirky kid who plays the drums on any hard surface around (I swear, one day I will take the sticks out of his hands, where they permanently reside, and bust them over my knee!). He has one half of his hair dyed black, the other half bleached blond. I admire him for his uniqueness. Today he saw me before school started and said he had a secret to show me in class. When 3rd period came around he showed me his secret: a tattoo of A7X (apparently, the abbreviation for Avenged Sevenfold. His friend gave him the tat over the weekend. This show and tell brought about another experience in which a girl in my class showed me her tattoo of her name she recently had done on her shoulder. Wowzers. I could tell they weren't entirely professional and they both told me that their parents don't know yet, but that they were super "stoked" about the new art. He kept putting his leg up (his tat is on his ankle) on the desk admiring it. I laugh in my head.

I said something funny today in 5th period that I was quite pleased with. Yes, I'll brag a bit about my clever moments since they are so few and far between these days. I was having a challenging time getting the kids to quiet down, after all, they had just come back from lunch. I was screaming basically (but because of my cold, sounded a little less threatening) and telling them to be quiet. I tried flicking off the lights, which helped a tiny bit. Finally I paused and smiled at the rowdy group of kids, chuckled, sighed and said (hint, this is the funny thing): "Wow, I sure missed you guys!" They all laughed...and those not previously paying attention got in on the action, too. They knew I was having a difficult time and then the rest of the day they were great.

Tomorrow the relative pronoun lesson, then pronoun antecedent agreement (without looking, anyone tell me what that is??) Then Friday and into next week, we'll be learning prefixes/suffixes and studying the 20 words on the 8th grade commonly confused word list. Less than 3 weeks away from CRT's.