In The Classroom

Yesterday was a not so great day at work. My kids had been cooped up inside for two days and were going stir crazy. I spent the morning teaching the kids how to add fractions with unlike denominators, making inferences about earthquakes and typing fiction stories. My class seemed like it looked like this:

We had an assembly in the afternoon that required that the kids have partners so I thought they'd be motivated to work to choose there own partners. So as I was waiting for the teacher on recess duty to show up so I could eat lunch we talked about what they should be doing during indoor recess. (Find a game, find a spot to sit, use an inside voice, don't jump over chairs, desks, ect, and don't throw any pieces of eraser across the room.) Easy enough I thought. Well since the recess duty teacher didn't show up (there were a total of 5 non-sub classroom teachers in the building), they quickly lost their chance to pick partners for the afternoon.

I went to lunch to find kids writing on the board, which isn't ever allowed and not following what they should be doing. Argh! Well I went to write on the board and noticed that the lovely boys had written, "J is gay" on the board. Nice... Well after a discussion about how disappointed I was and that it is NEVER appropriate to write or tell someone that they're gay, one of my pet peeves, I finally sent them to specials. On a quick assessment of the room I found 10 pieces of eraser on the ground that weren't there when I left. I went to vent to my male teaching partner..again, and was told to let it go.

So I tried... and was feeling much better when they came back and went to the assembly, which went well. And I found a lovely picture on the floor that had fallen out of the pocket of a hormonal 5th grade boy. Every boys dream...