A Walk to the Park

Today's activity was using vectors on maps and talking about distance and displacement.  Honestly, I feel like this would have been a stronger activity earlier, but what are you going to do.  It makes vectors more relevant to their lives, especially when you add a story to it.  Which I always do.  I spent most of  the day with one student in particular.  She's having a difficult time with the language and so taking directions for her is hard.  Giving directions to her is no picnic either.  But little by little, we got her there.  Overall this class has a lot of bright students, some with more drive than others.  The GATE identified boy just could not care less.  His work is becoming sloppier, and I know it's because he needs more of a challenge, but what can we do to challenge him without giving him significantly more work than the other students?  I suppose we could modify it so it's more challenging, but I don't know exactly how that would work with the language thing.  

I feel like half of my dreams are in Spanish now.  Or the Chinese I hear every day on the bus about exiting through the rear doors.