Sigh

Tomorrow is going to be a challenging day.  I found out that I will be having a new student who barely speaks English.  Apparently she can read and understand English, but struggles with speech.  Honestly, I'm not even sure what language she speaks. At first I wasn't worried, because I am technically a reading teacher- that one thing she is good at!  However, she still has to understand what I am saying in order to grasp the concept I am wanting her to learn.  This will absolutely be an adventure- hopefully a positive one!  Even English speaking students would struggle to come into a class after 5 weeks, so I know she will have to work extra hard.  She will work much harder than I will, I am sure.

On a more funny  note, today we discussed characters and characterization.  Because of my love of Disney and all things child-like, I immediately took all of my examples from Disney stories.  For instance, I asked them to name the "main" character in Aladdin (Aladdin, duh :).  When I asked them for the "minor" characters, they listed off the appropriate characters: Genie, Jafar, Jasmine, Abu (the monkey), etc.  During my fifth hour, this conversation happened:

          Student 1: "That monkey was a Jew, right?  Because of that thing on his head?"

          Student 2: "No, they wear Hanukkahs!"

Sigh.

-Mrs. Combs 

Nerd Day!

This week is homecoming week, and Monday was "Nerd day!"  While I hesitate to call people nerds, it did result in tons of awesome costumes!  When I first entered the school, the first 5-6 teachers I saw were NOT dressed up.  I thought that I was going to look ridiculous and like "that teacher" who is crazy.  Luckily, a good number of other teachers ended up participating, so I wasn't alone.  Here are some of the highlights of my outfit....fanny pack and all!  I wish I had pictures of all of the teachers together- some of the others' outfits were so awkward/awesome it was hard to look at them. 

P.S. Does anyone need a fanny pack? I've got one for sale! :)

WANTED

          Lately, it seems as if once students leave my classroom, they never think about it again.  This is obviously not a good thing- especially when it comes to homework!  As I entered grades this morning, I realized that only two out of sixteen students in my first hour turned in a certain assignment.  The frustrating part is that I spent nearly five minutes each day discussing the assignment and reminding them to complete it. I've decided that instead of yelling at them, I'm just going to walls with these notices:

Hopefully this does the trick.

           This week, I decided to take Wednesday off from Language Arts and focus on 9/11.  There are only a few students in my classes who were even alive when it happened, so they really had no idea what happened, or how much of an impact it made.  We briefly went over what happened and looked at some newspaper articles that came out during that time. Then, in order to focus on the positive aspects, we watched The Man in the Red Bandana.  It is such an inspiring story!  I was able to use it to discuss our Great Expectations, and show the students that it's important to practice being helpful, courteous, and kind, NOW, so that people will remember us in a positive light.

          Unfortunately, portions of the story are very sad, and I had approximately ten soft-hearted girls who left my classroom looking like they suffered their first breakup and lost their favorite pet all in the same day.  One girl sobbed so hard that I almost had to take her out of class!  She told me, "I'm okay...they are happy and sad tears at the same time!" The moral of this story, is that if you are ever in need of a good cry, just stop by my classroom! (Wait...........)
 
          Next week is Homecoming week, so I'm going to be dressing up with the students.  Pictures will follow!

-Mrs. Combs