My Third Day

Well considering yesterday students moved around and sat by their friends I had to make a new seating chart. The students got me a little distracted with seating requests and it took a lot of time to get everyone where I wanted. I had to chop my lesson big time. I spent about twenty minutes going through letting students choose what they wanted to buy and estimate the total cost to see if they had enough money. I put Ipod shuffle on the list, harry potter book, and a few other things. Other students added Ipad, ATV, Wii, guitar, and some other expensive technology. I didn't let them buy the Ipad since it cost more than our budget. The class ended up choosing to buy a guitar, video games, and Ipod shuffle. I hope it was an engaging lesson that helped them learn estimating. It got a little rowdy, but I think it went well. I probably should have saved this activity for tomorrow because their is an assembly tomorrow. This activity would have been great on the assembly day and the day before a holiday.

However the students did not write anything down when we were deciding on what to buy. I am just so used to college students and hard working high school students who will write anything that goes on the board. I forgot that 6th graders have not learned to copy everything. I am trying to keep them organized in their math journals as much as possible, but it is hard. I started them on the homework, but I don't think it will get done. I am going to have Friday be a short quiz and then time to work on homework. I will go around and monitor students on that day. I ended with them gluing in the wordle sheet which may have been a bad choice. Since I had to clean stuff up. I thought to save it for last because then when they are checking out at the end of the period anyways they are doing something mindless. Then as I was planning to use every minute of the period the fire alarm went off. I think that means not everyone got it glued in their journal or lost it when the fire alarm went off.

I don't think this fire alarm was planned. It was most likely pulled by a student or going off for other weird reasons. I remember at either college or one of my schools the fire alarm went off because the wires were acting haywire because of dust or something in the wiring. The kids jumped and it was a little chaotic after the alarm went off. I grabbed my jacket real quick and ushered students out of the classroom. I was the last person out of the room and made sure everyone was heading outside. I followed the crowd until we got outside where I was led astray. Some classes or teachers forgot that we had to cross the street for the fire drill. However I learned the hard way where the students need to stand during a fire drill. This alarm went off during second lunch and so some students were having lunch when it went off. There was confusion among students where they should be and confusion among teachers as well. I kept the class calm and settled during the fire drill. Some  boys started playing what looked like scoop and were almost running in to the class behind them. I tried to squash the game, but I couldn't. However I did warn them whenever they got to close to hitting other students in the class.

So today didn't go nearly at all how I planned it since I had to spend so much time on the seating chart and then the fire drill. I am worried that my transitions between activities are not good and I just can't get my sixth graders to do what I want. I found myself repeating directions a lot. I am worried that the students are not getting anything out of my class and will fail the next quiz. I can't spend much time on estimation and the homework though. I have to move on to adding and subtracting decimals. I am really scared that I will not see improvement on my post test. I think I have discovered that I am not really cut out for middle school. Everyone seems to not really want to teach middle school, but when they start they end up loving it. However I am the exception to this rule. So I am doing my best and trying to learn from my mistakes. I am putting on a good face and trying to make decimals as exciting as possible while making sure my students are actually learning.

Also this whole full week teaching thing is draining. I had trouble getting out of bed this morning, but knew I had to. Thank god there is no school on Thursday so I can sleep in and get lesson plans done.