Sunshine!!!!

I think Spring might actually be here!!! It's supposed to be 67 tomorrow and 70 on Wednesday! Yay!!! I'm not excited about the rain on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, but I'll take it as long as it's as gorgeous as they claim it's going to be!

I'm getting a bit nervous about the character sketches my students are going to be writing this week. I hope I'm setting them up correctly for it. It's just that there's so much information and they have so many choices. It might be easier to just give them a character, but then that doesn't give them any freedom. We'll see. I'm sure they'll be fine.

I was at school till around 4:30 today working on stuff for Pigman by Paul Zindel. I feel pretty good about it and I think it will be interesting for the kids. I also think they'll like the activites we do with the book. Now, I wish we could figure out something fun for Adam of the Road. Maybe I'll work on revising that unit this summer. Hey, it'll give me something to do!

I'm going to be a snake charmer in my dance studio's production of La Bayadere. I get to work with the 3 and 4 year olds in their snake dance. I'm really excited about it! I'm not going to do a whole lot - mostly just do the dance with them so they don't forget the steps, but it'll still be fun. At least I get to perform on stage again!

I should go to bed. I've been really tired lately and I don't really know why. Maybe it's because I actually have to get up on Saturday mornings now to go rehearse with the little ones, and I don't get to sleep in. Who knows.

I'm excited about sunny days and warm weather!

Thunderstorm!!!

I like thunderstorms. There's something about the pelting rain, the booming thunder, and the incessant lightening that is just amazing. Of course, I like being inside when they happen. I was out running errands today and happened to walk into my apartment a mere 15 minutes before the sky unleased and rain came down in buckets (ooooh, look at that figurative language!). Then, 15 minutes later, it was over. Fortunately, we were not in the really bad part of the storm and there were no tornadoes near me. Then, the sun came out. We haven't seen the sun since Monday, but it was gorgeous after the storm.

School's been pretty uneventful. Tomorrow I'm going to plan Pigman with one of the other teachers. That will make me feel much more confident about two weeks from now. Right now, I have no idea what I'm doing with that novel.

It's supposed to snow tomorrow and Saturday. Blah. However, next week is supposed to be sunny and in the 60's! I'll believe it when I see it.

That's all for now. CSI is on in 5 minutes!

I hate computers!

I know my post yesterday was practically last Thursday's post. I apologize. Here's a new one...

I hate computers.

My printer and I have been fighting for over an hour. I thought I finally got it to work, but alas, it has decided to still act stupid. I am hoping I can figure it out so I can print pictures from the poetry cafe. I guess we'll see.

Wish me luck.

Poetry Tests!

I really feel like I actually did something correct and worthwhile with this last poetry unit. We had a test last week, and I'll be honest, I was a little worried that my kids didn't "get" it. However, all three of my classes had an average of 42 out of 45 points! Therefore, I can conclude that my students actually learned something, and I actually taught them something. Now I just need to find time to sit down and figure out what I did in order for me to repeat my successes next year. Yay for me and for my students!

We're starting clauses (basically sentence writing, again) and character sketches this week. They seemed to get the clauses today, so I hope they do ok with the next stuff that's coming up. The character sketch stuff should be interesting. Their final project with it is an essay analyzing one of the characters. I'm still trying to figure out the logistics of writing the essay and then having time to rewrite another draft. I know some students will have no problem with finishing it in one day and then being bored with it on day 2, but then I have the problem of me having time to grade them and then get it back to them to do another draft. It wouldn't be so much of a problem except I took a personal day on that Wednesday, which just kind of messes things up. Oh well. I'm sure it will all work out. No use in worrying about it now.

It's finally starting to get warmer, although it's still supposed to be rainy and yucky the majority of this week. Spring is slowly on its way.

One of my students today told me he actually enjoyed coming to English class this year. That's what makes it all worthwhile. :)

Snow and Poetry

The last time I checked, it was April. I don't think you should get snow in April. I know some states do and it's just a fact of life, but in Iowa, I don't think you should. I'm tired of snow. I'm ready for Spring and green stuff and sunshine and birds chirping. This snow stuff needs to go away. Of course, it's the heavy wet snow that soaks everything you are wearing and leaves you freezing cold. Blah. I think it may have stopped by now, but that doesn't make things any better when it comes to my frozen feet. I hope it all melts away by tomorrow...

On a brighter note, all but 5 of my 55 students did very well on the figurative language test today! It seems that the majority of them finally understand what similes, metaphors, onomatapoeia, hyperbole, and alliteration are! Yay! It makes me feel good that they actually learned something!

We're starting character sketches next week where they have to find character traits and show the strenghts and weaknesses and motivation of the character. We're also going to be working on dependent and subordinate clauses, as well as simple, compound, and complex sentences. Oh yay. We'll see how all of that goes.

Tomorrow is our poetry cafe! Students will bring in food and drink and then share their two favorite poems with the class. They will have an assignment with it, of course, but it should be fun. My co-teacher came up with it. I think it's a great way of celebrating the end of the unit!

We got new computers for our computer carts today too! Yay for us. Unfortunately, the first class that got to use them didn't really have a chance because the internet went down. :( Tomorrow I hope they will all work!

Here's hoping for no more snow!

Rain...

I woke up this morning to my bed shaking due to the thunder. That was a very interesting feeling. On the way into work, my pants got soaked. Needless to say, it was a great way to start out a Monday.

Fortunately, the day did not turn out that bad, despite the fact that all I wanted to do all day was take a nap. Most of the students had their poems finished, and we had a pretty good time with the poems we were working on today. They were supposed to write an alphabet alliteration poem - in which every line has to have an adjective, noun, and verb that begin with the same letter. They were coming up with some pretty crazy lines, but it was very fun! My principal came in 8th period for a "walk through," in which I was just going around and helping students, so we'll see what he thought of that. I'm sure it was fine. I feel bad because I don't have a lot of student work up on the walls right now, but we haven't really done anything lately that required poster work. Oh well.

I'm going to be sad when poetry is over. I'm not really looking forward to doing character sketches and sentence writing. I know they need it. I just need to be more positive about it. I know it will turn out fine!

I'm supposed to take tickets for the HS track meet tomorrow. It's supposed to be cold. I hope I don't freeze.

More Snow

I really dislike snow.

Perhaps I should say I really dislike snow when it's at the end of March and I've just been through a winter where it snowed every other day and was bitterly cold. I've had enough snow and I'm ready for Spring to be here. It hailed this morning and then snowed all day. It looks like it's stopped now and it may actually be melting off the cars, but I'm still tired of it. I think we're supposed to get more yucky weather this weekend as well. Blah!

On a lighter note, this week at school has not been too bad at all. Of course, it's only been 3 days back, but the kids have been really good. We had a guest speaker who talked to them about figurative language in poetry and did a really good job of pointing out examples and making it clear what the imagery in the poem is. I hope the kids got something out of it.

I'm going to be sad when the poetry unit is over. This is the one unit I feel really confident about and I really like because I actually know what I'm doing! I always just feel like I'm playing "catch-up" with the other units. Next year will be better because I'll be more comfortable with everything.

As much as this week has been good, I am ready for the weekend. I really look forward to the weekends when I can just sleep in and not really worry about anything. I really love the weekends when I have nothing to grade!

Here's hoping for warmer weather!