Option C

No one was psyched to go back to school today.  Nope, not even me.  However, after two cups of coffee and a department meeting, school was back in session.

During the morning, I teach five hours in a row, and fortunately, four out of five went absolutely smoothly.  I have never had such a quiet, focused group of kids!  Because we attempt to use a data teams system, we pre-test and post-test most of our main topics.  Today, my kiddos took a pre-test, and then silently read chapters from their novel.  It was lovely.  I actually got some work done while they read.

Then there was 5th hour.

I've finally figured out how to deal with the spaced out kids, the ADD kids, the ADHD kids, the kids with terrible families, and the kids that smell funny.  What I have yet to figure out how to deal with are kids who have some sort of emotional disturbance whether from medication or "natural" causes.  Please let me know if you have any tips!

Some background on this kiddo:

1. His good days are GREAT days.
2. His bad days can ruin an entire class period.
3. He is the muse for my August 23 blog post.
4. He has a great arm.  I clocked one of his pencils at 75mph the other day!  His glasses aren't as aerodynamic, so they only registered at 35mph.  Still, not shabby!
5. If you have any papers that need to be destroyed, he's your go-to guy.
6. He really is very sweet when he wants to be! 

Apparently, he was already somewhat worked up when he came into my class, and the pre-test I administered set him off.  After several thrown pens and at least three destroyed answer documents, I had enough and recorded his actions on the referral sheet.  Throughout the hour, he continued to destroy things, kick the desks, talk out, and disturb the class.  I've been instructed to give him options when he gets upset.  His final options were A) Go to the office by himself or B) Wait for the assistant principal to take him.

He chose C) Run out of the school.

Luckily, he was mostly bluffing, and stayed on school property.  It was an exciting time, though, and I am very grateful for the teacher across the hall.  She helped me to find a male teacher to bring him inside while I watched both of our classes and kept an eye on the escapee (an impossible task). Even though it added some spice to the day, I do hope that this is my first and final runner!

-Mrs. Combs

Yo Mama

"Your mama's so fat that...."

Yep.  I actually encouraged one of my classes to create these on Friday.  It was either a stroke of genius or a horrible mistake.  I'm going with genius.  There really was a method to my madness, though.  I had momentarily run out of good examples of hyperbole (an extreme exaggeration), and was searching for another example or two, when I realized that these obnoxious jokes are the epitome of hyperbole.  Thankfully, I wasn't being observed, because I'm not quite sure how it would have looked on paper..."Teacher encouraged students to make fat jokes about other students' mothers." Hey, at least it was affective!  I had to almost chase this kiddo out of my room.  He didn't want to leave!

Some of the gems I heard were: "Yo mama's so fat that she fell on your TV and made it a flatscreen," and "Yo mama's so dumb, it took her 2 hours to watch 60 minutes."  Precious, aren't they?

Obviously, many things have gone on at school since my last post, but I simply haven't had the time or motivation to post them.  On Friday, several funny things happened, although this one was my favorite (Apologies for the repeat, Facebook friends.): 

During my morning auditorium duty, I asked a little outgoing jock to move away from his friends because he kept hopping seats.  When he was in his assigned seat, I playfully asked him if he was lonely.  Without missing a beat, he started singing, "Nobody knoooowwwwsss the trouble I've seeeen!"

I only wish I was that witty!

-Mrs. Combs

...then I will go to Burger King

I realize it has been a while since my last post.  Apologies.  When Kyle said that we would have an extra hour today due to Daylight Savings Time ending, I knew I had to seize the opportunity.

I feel as if all I do is grade.  Grade grade grade.  It is getting out of hand.  When I am not grading, I am counting box tops, documenting negative student behavior, rewarding positive student behavior, emailing parents, calling parents, documenting parent contact, repairing books, attending meetings, making seating charts, pre-testing, post-testing, analyzing data, hounding students for late work, and - most importantly - consuming large amounts of Ramen noodles.  They don't teach you how to handle all of this in college.  Fortunately, I do know how to put together a bogus online portfolio (Am I right, Crystal?).

All this being said, I still love it!

I love grading tests and finding that my "D student" made an A.  I love calling parents and telling them how their child showed amazing character that day.  I love analyzing data and seeing the progress that a student has made.  I love spending a lunch period in classroom eating Ramen while helping a student with his history project.  It's a pretty great job!

Another thing that I enjoy is being able to let my kiddos be creative.  My Pre-AP classes recently created book covers that were supposed to showcase one specific genre or subgenre.  Whether they nailed it or were way off base, their pictures and creativity always make me smile.  Here are a few gems I received:

 I would not mind an alien invasion this adorable! Cute Sci-Fi for the win!

I think someone might read the Percy Jackson books.  Great example of a myth.

 This is just creative!  An informational text over his favorite sport.

 Of all of the animals to add wings to, she chose a giraffe.  They already have a height advantage...

 I had to google this next one.  I had no idea what a "dubstep launchpad" was.  Clearly, I am aging.  On another note, his question mark and magnifying glass were perfect images to portray the mystery.  Proud teacher here.

I have highlighted my favorite parts of this one. Sounds like an interesting fairy tale!

Even though they have drawn awesome pictures, I know that both of my brothers could draw better ones!  This is one of my personal favorites from Jonathan, that still hangs on my wall.

Goodnight everyone,
-Mrs. Combs

A Garden Full of Bears

This week, we dove headfirst into figurative language, beginning with idioms, similes,and metaphors.  When we discussed similes and metaphors, I asked them to create their own as we went along.  They were given prompts and asked to complete the comparison.  For example, "America is like..." or "My sister...".  The comparisons they made were quite...interesting.  Often, there was no rhyme or reason for why they compared one thing to another.  We are still working on that.  At least this phase was entertaining! Some of them astound me with their depth, and some of them concern me.  Either way, enjoy these gems!

     America is like a garden full of bears. (No explanation given)

     My sister is as cool as a badger. (Again...no explanation)

     My brother has a brain like a walnut. (Ohhhh burn!)

     America is like a steak. Some parts are "cooked" and "developed," while some parts are uncivilized. (AP kid, of course :)

     America is like milk....it goes bad fast. (Hmmmmmmm....)

     My sister was a donkey on drugs.  (This raises several questions...)

     My house is as long as 2 giraffe' s necks.  (6th grade logic)

     My house is cleaner than Best Buy after Black Friday.  (Genius!)

     America is like a ghetto because bad things happen every day. (Truth)

Even though we haven't quite mastered figurative language, I am very proud of their quarterly scores!  The test they took on Friday is not only a benchmark of their learning, but is somewhat indicative of my teaching.  I am not sure how much my teaching had to do with it, but my 91% of the students in my 5 classes were either satisfactory or advanced.  If there were time, I would hug all 90 of them.  Well, at least the 75 of them that turn in homework on time.
    
Til next time!
-Mrs. Combs

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