I'm Still Here

And by still here, I mean in the classroom. This year so far has been NUTS.  Like legitimately a ton of work.  This is a short post for me to say that more regular ones shortly.  Today, all I want to go home.  I'm stoked by how much planning I got done for the week. I've really gotten into the habit of going through my little planner and typing things up and writing, writing, writing.  I grade, I write, I grade, I write, I sleep and I am so lucky to have an amazing family.  I promise next entry will be funnier.  I'm nothing if not funny.  Well, cute.  Well, spunky.  Let's just say I'm a snarky sassmaster, a title I have stolen from my boyfriend.

Like a Kettle, But Not of Fish

Fair warning, these may become less frequent.  It hppens for many reasons, but I still plan to write.  It's a nice outlet for what happens and how it makes me feel.

Right now, thinking about two things: one, planning my first activity all by myself, which I will lead 3 times, and two, I got upset yesterday.  The students came in from lunch riled up and talking over me, and so I kind of yelled to be heard over them.  I gave them a talk, trying to remain in the restorative justice theme, about my feelings and how I know they can do better and I want to see them do better.  For the most part, it seemed to work.  I don't know how much they understood, so the impact may have been tiny.  My demo teacher said I did the right thing, as did another teacher I spoke with.  I really hope I did.  The language thing can be so tough, and students love to play around with science, and it can be fun, when it's safe and directions are being followed.

Part two of my current anxiety is the activity I planned.  It's the first one I'm doing all on my own, and here's hoping it works.  I tried to focus on making it relevant to their lives and a phenonmenon that they can all relate to, which is moving furniture.  They move the chairs beneath them every single day, they push tables and desks arounds rooms.  I think it may work, and I'm hopeful.  But anxious.

Another Magical Binder Check

Today was a day of more binder organization.  Apparently across the board, teachers have been having issues with students not being organized.  Just like me at that age.  Binders never worked for me.  College suited me so much better with online homework and no worksheets or digital copies of it.  Anyway, it went better because they only really had like 8 assignments for this unit thus far.  Also, we got our planning together a lot better and were more organized, so it went faster in the later periods.   

Getting Visual

So my job was to mod yesterday's lesson plan to suit me.  I turned the page into a worksheet, which we shall call part 1.  I also made large visual aides about distance and displacement, which we shall call part 2.  Or part a and part b.  Reminds me of a good joke.  "What comes before part b...?" "PART-AAAAY."  I digress.  

Anyway, part a/1 was beneficial because it made it so they didn't have to copy everything down and have misunderstandings.  The was nice for all of us involved.  Part 2/b was awesome because I got to draw something and it eactly helped them understand easier.  And I got to talk about Superman and how he follows displacement vectors when he's trying to save people and it kind of made my day, even if it didn't resonate with some students.  Overall, it felt good.

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.

Adding Even More Vectors

Powerpoint is a weird animal.  Sometimes it's useful, sometimes it's a tease.  Today, it was fairly helpful for me.  I love in my class doing chorus responses.  They love to tell me when I'm being ridiculous, and I love when they do that.  It adds to the interaction between us.  So we did the whiteboard vector adding activity, and I must say I was impressed.  I love how they talk to each other and get help from one another, often in their home language or across cultural lines.  For the most part, they seemed to understand what was going on with adding vectors.  I think almost all of them got about 70% of the problems right on the worksheet.  The things I kept repeating were "nose and tail."  "Every vector has a nose."  "Where's the nose?"  I think I tapped my nose so many times, it may have turned reddish.

Adding it all together...vectors I mean

And the vectors go on.

My role for the day was dealing with students talking out of turn, which everyone knows is my favorite thing to do.  The students were not engaging so much with direct instruction.  I have been trying to think about it in the ZPD mindset, and I think what didn't quite get them there was relevance.  I never realized what a huge component of strong education relevance is, but it feels like a "DUH" moment.  How many times when I was a teen did I go "I just don't care?"  More than I'm willing to admit. 

Anyway, there are a couple students who have been picked as being gifted, and so they do not care.  It's finding a way to engage them in work that they feel is below them without compounding their workload but still challenging them.