A September Day in the life

7am: Wake up!

7:40am: Arrive at school. On this particular day I was all set to prep some stuff, but a parent came in to chat and I just barely got the warmups passed out before my kids showed up at the door. (Oops, I was supposed to get them before they gave up hope that I was coming for them.)

8:10am: First module, which is my 14 kid module. This year those 14 kids are pretty quiet, which is vastly different from last year’s 14. But I also have some low kids in that class, so it’s nice to be able to give more individual attention then. Today we learned functions.

9:25am: Second module, where I do the same lesson again, but with 28 kids who are much more enthusiastic about it. They LOVE functions! They especially love that I teach them to recognize them by the x values that are “cheating” on their y boyfriends/girlfriends. And they are just as outraged that the y values are “allowed” to cheat on their x boyfriends/girlfriends. Sometimes math isn’t fair. In this class, Stinson and his sixth graders filtered in to get Chrome books (I am keeper of the quad Chrome book carts this year, huzzah!), and Stinson decided to steal one of my kiddos’ lunch. Said kiddo chased him out the door and ended up on an errand for the principal after that.

10:40am: Third module, where I do the same lesson again with a different 28 kids, who are equally enthusiastic about functions. My “intern” stopped by to observe today (a future math teacher who’s putting in observation hours), and I put him to work helping me throw awesomesauce cards around the room when someone correctly explained to me that the table we were looking at was not a function, before I’d even explained it. (My kids are geniuses!)

11:55am: Lunch. I went to Subway today and got my usual turkey sandwich toasted. I mention this now because this is totally out of the ordinary for me. The toasted part, not the going to Subway part, that is a regular part of my life.

12:25pm: Prep period. A parent volunteer came in today to make copies for us, so I spent the module going through next week’s lessons and gathering the papers I need copies of. She made ALL my copies for next week for me, what a great day! :)

1:45pm: It was my day to run snack shack. No one really bought anything, probably because water’s gone up to fifty cents and non one wanted to leave the shade of the lunch tables. So I spent the twenty minutes talking with Mikayla and Sarah about In n Out (Sarah’s never been!), Chipotle, and slurpees.

2:05pm: Fifth module, which is my Algebra module. We surprised Christina, who turned 13 today, by playing Dora the Explorer’s Happy Birthday song when she came in to class late. We talked about and graded the practice problems from yesterday… finding the domain and range of graphs, not an easy topic, but they seem okay with it so far. Then we had fun making an extensive foldable about relations, domain, range, and functions. This class is actually my loudest class, which is funny since they’re also my most advanced class. Last year’s equivalent class was so quiet while dutifully doing their work; these kiddos are SO loud while dutifully doing their work. Oh, and Mr. Keough came in to pass out licorice to all my kids; I requested him to go around the room a second time so they’d be chewing and I could explain our next activity. (Like I said, they’re loud kids.)

3:15pm: Pickup in the hot, hot sun. Put 8th graders into cars, chatted with some parents, chatted with Keough about how funny it is that my Algebra kids are so loud.

3:45pm: Back to the classroom to clean up and set things up for tomorrow.

4:00pm: McDonald’s drive through for a blessed coke.

4:15pm: Home! While I was gone, we had our house cleaned top to bottom, and boy does it look and smell nice right now! Gave Chris a good bear hug and told him about my day, while he told me about his.

4:30pm: Checking emails, sending out reminders to parents, updating the class blog, etc.

5:30pm: Made some canned chili for dinner; Chris went to meet some old co-workers for drinks.

6:00pm onward: And now I’m here working away at future lessons, with Jack fast asleep on the desk beside me. Well, technically I’m breaking to blog, but in about thirty seconds, I’ll be back at the planning.