AuburnChick's Adventures

Week 15 began, and I had a lot planned…

Though I was eager to put into motion the plans I had prepared, my first and second period classes had to wait.  We had a field trip…my first as a teacher!

My school district had obtained a grant to bring in Doc Brown, a renowned speaker in corporate and education circles…

Doc Brown was in town to talk to local students about bullying.

He was dynamic and held the audience spellbound.

His “Real Talk” made real sense, and my students are still talking about him.

When we got back to school, I still had three classes to teach.

I started working on similes with my 6th graders, and I also gave them their new vocabulary words…

We also started working on flash cards…a studying skill that I hoped would help them improve their grades…

My 9th and 10th graders worked on grammar.  Joy, joy.

I can honestly say that I despise participles after the last couple of weeks of working on them.  In fact, I spent a good portion of Monday evening studying how to teach participles.  It was an exercise in frustration, and I felt badly for my students.

Tuesday reared its head a little too early for my taste.  I gave pop quizzes to my 11th and 12th graders.  They were not too pleased.  They had not read chapters 7-12 of The Scarlet Letter, and many of them did poorly.  It was difficult to have a discussion about these chapters with unread students.

I pushed through though.  I think they learned their lesson.

The rest of the day went by in a blur.  I honestly don’t remember much about it, so that’s probably a good thing.  I do, however, remember struggling through the verb lesson with my 10th graders.  I had not prepared the night before, and my lack of preparation showed through.  It was awful.

I think I learned my lesson.

On Wednesday, my students were greeted by this board…

Before classes started, I added a bit more information…

When my students came in, I handed out the following information packet…

My students will be writing a literary analysis essay.  I am so glad it’s not me.  Those days of writing stunk to high heaven.  But, it’s a necessary evil and will help them on their journey toward college.

Although I had all of my seniors, I only had half of my juniors.  That’s three kids, folks.  One of my students asked me, “Mrs. AuburnChick, don’t you know about the 50% rule?  It’s where if 50% of the class is out, you don’t teach.”

Yeah.  Right.  That went over like a lead balloon (hey, a simile…where are my 6th graders??).

I told him, “Well, Principal R has the #1 rule…if there’s only one student, you teach.”

So, I taught…four chapters.  The students who were there benefited greatly.  The others who stayed home to study for college tests missed out.  Choices, choices.

My 6th graders came in with the flash cards I had assigned them to make.  They told me how helpful it had been to draw the pictures on them, stating that they had really had to think about the meanings of the words in order to figure out what to draw.

BINGO.

My 9th graders took a grammar test.  It was quiet in that class.  Yay!

My 10th graders faced this board…

“M” said the funniest thing:  “Mrs. AuburnChick, you studied for us.”

“Why would you say that?” I asked.

“Because you have stuff written on the board.”

I laughed.  He was right.  I had been at band practice the afternoon before, and for some reason, sitting in the middle of that loud music, the participle thing clicked in my brain.  It was awesome, and I was excited to pass along my enlightened thinking.

Now, I don’t know if you’ve ever had a difficult concept to learn.  I’m sure you have.

Remember how you pushed through, working and working, until you finally understood it?

That’s how it was with these verbs.  We got down and dirty in Grammar Land.  We used two different grammar books and worked and worked.

Finally, as we were working through one last exercise, everything came together.

It was one of the neatest “Aha” moments ever!

I looked at my students, and they looked at me, and in a flash, we all got it.

That was when “M” said the funniest thing:  “And we’re walking,” imitating Flo from the Progressive commercials…

What made this even funnier is that I’ve quoted Flo quite a few times.

“M’s” timing was perfect, and his classmate and I shared a hearty laugh.

It was one of those priceless moments and greatly relieved us of the stress we’d been feeling all week.

Thursday was Veteran’s Day…no school.

Friday, though, was one of my favorite days…

Oh sure, call me evil for enjoying vocabulary testing day.  I can’t help it.  I know how much the vocabulary is helping my students, even if they sometimes don’t know it.

And so the week ended.  We were all a little bit hyped up because we have a week-long break so that they can celebrate Eid, another Muslim holiday.  I didn’t leave them completely homework-free, though.  That will happen over Christmas break, which coincides with the end of the second nine weeks.

Before I left for the day, I got everything ready for the Monday we come back…

Although I won’t be in my classroom during the break, I’ll be putting in some serious hours at home in preparation for the final push toward the end of the term.  I hope my students use the break wisely and get their reading done.

Week 15 is officially a wrap.  Woo Hoo!

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