grading portfolios

Sadly, it's only Monday and I am already quite sure I'm ready for the week to be over.

It's going to be a killer week: Parent Teacher conferences are Tuesday and Wednesday. Basically, enough said.

Last Friday I had to post mid-term grades by midnight. I had this brilliant idea to have my students create Anne Frank portfolios, instead of a test, as their big mid-term. I also thought these portfolios would be simple to create (seriously, a matter of stapling several pages together), but it still took them 2 days. On Friday I brought home a stack of said portfolios about one foot high and had a grading party. I began grading at 4pm and did not complete the process until 9:30pm. Then I had to spend another 45 minutes posting the grades online. The portfolio was good for the kids, but harder to grade than anticipated. I will probably use portfolio's again but I will not wait until the very last minute to grade them!

Today we started a poetry unit. I'm teaching them some terms and then we'll start reading some Holocaust poetry on Wednesday. We made super cool foldables for the poetry terms. (A foldable is several papers put together--folded--to create a little booklet)

The poetry terms were met with somewhat positive response from the students. Not too many complained and when asked their own personal definition of poetry, only ONE student out of 130 said," BORING!" (Which is a big improvement over last year!)

While I was grading on Friday I 'watched' two movies: The Jane Austen Book Club and Across the Universe. I can't say I really, truly watched the first one, but I'm here to tell you that Across the Universe just might be a new favorite. I love the Beatles music, the story, and just the aesthetics of the film.

Saturday I had a Primary Quarterly activity. It was, as I like to keep them, simple. We were in, out, and done within an hour and the kids seemed to have a good time. It always feel so nice when those are over, though we are already planning our next one in April.

On Saturday night I had the opportunity to go see my Primary secretary in my most favorite play, "Sinin' in the Rain." She was great playing the part of Lina Lamont, the ultra-annoying actress partner of Don Lockwood. It was fun to see this different side of her.

I'm basically just hanging out tonight and enjoying my last night of freedom this week. (Technically Thursday won't be bad at all because 1)no more PTC and 2) J-Dawg is going through the SL temple for the first time and it will be awesome! Also, I don't have school Friday, so that always makes it a little easier!!!