snoozed

Today was totally a Monday. I had all these great intentions of getting up super early to get a few things done here at home, then getting to school by 6:30 so I could be fully prepared for the day. I don't ever remember hearing my alarm clock and I went to bed last night at 9:30, so if I did hear it and turn it off, shame on me! Thank goodness that Ben set his alarm (for the first time in WEEKS) at 6:45, or I may still be sleeping. I rushed as fast as I could, drove quickly, but safely, to school and got there with about 20 minutes to prep. That sounds like a good chunk of time, but for the lesson I was teaching today, it was pushing it some. When I finally got around to getting to the copy room (which usually has two copiers running), the one I needed to use was broken and there was a line 5 teachers deep to use it. I don't know how it happened, but I made all my copies with 5 minutes to spare! Go me. I did try my hardest to keep a smile on all day, and admit to doing quite well except for 6th and 7th period, when I started getting a massive headache....which magically disappeared as soon as 7th period walked out the door! Ha!

Today I taught the 10 prefixes that are on the 8th grade LA CRT's. I had to kind of a wing a portion of the activity since I wasn't able to do what I had originally planned. I had them up and moving a good portion of the period and doing some writing practice, too. Then, I made up the following game on the spot in 1st period; the kids liked it so well, I decided to continue it throughout the day. It was kind of a row-row-row your boat thing, the game being played in a round. They each had written 1 word for each of the prefixes (for example, one of the prefix is anti-...so they wrote something like antisocial). They passed their papers behind them and then they each had 30 seconds to write a sentence using the word that the person had written. It was kind of funny to only give them 30 seconds because some take that long just to see the word and get the mind wrapped around an idea. I think it helped though because they were having fun.

Tomorrow I teach the 10 suffixes for the CRT's. This one is a little harder. I had a moment of genius after school today and came up with, what I think to be, a brilliant game. I just finished cutting up all the pieces for the game and organizing student groups. It's really probably hard to explain here (and probably boring for you to read...), but I'll just say it's kind of like a matching game where the kids have to attach the correct suffix to the correct word. I'm kind of excited to see how it turns out.

I may or may not have mentioned in earlier posts, but I've had mysterious money on my desk at the end of 5th period for a few days now. Just about every day after 5th period, I walk to my desk and find a one dollar bill sitting there. I couldn't tell who was leaving the money. I felt bad spending it, but one day I was so thirsty (it was when I had the cold and sore throat) so I used one of the dollars to get a drink. Then, the other time, I was cravin' something sweet so I bought a candy bar. Well, today, the student who had been leaving the money on my desk confessed. She said she felt bad because she was hardly ever doing her work and disrupting me so she wanted to pay me back. I told her that I had spent the money and that I felt really bad about it. She said that it was ok, she wanted me to spend it wisely. I feel so bad, though, so I'm bringing her some money tomorrow to make up for it. I know, I'm horrible...spending my students money. I guess I shouldn't feel too bad about it, though, since they 'spend' a lot of my money by breaking classroom supplies, stealing my nice pens, and earning candy all the time.

Some non teaching related items tonight: I went to a weights class tonight at the gym and got my behind whipped. I'm so sore. It felt so very sweet, however, I know tomorrow I will surely be feeling it.

This last weekend, I went to the tulip/daffodil festival down at Thanksgiving Point. Here are a few pictures.