Little Limit*: There is going to be an Unicorn Apocalypse.
Me: Really? Why do you say that? Unicorns are not scary.
LL: Exactly. When they explode, they'll explode into a million sparkles!
Me: Sparkles? What about using their blood to live like in Harry Potter?
Little Prism: Hey! Haven't you seen the Chronicles of Narnia? They have unicorns that go to war!
Little Prism: Hey! Haven't you seen the Chronicles of Narnia? They have unicorns that go to war!
Me: I suppose you're right, maybe they are able to start an apocalypse.
LP: I have a unicorn! I rode it to school today!
Miss Mobius: Really? What's its name?
LP: Captain SparklePants
(some time later)
LP: You know which apocalypse I'd prefer? A Dinosaur Apocalypse, because really who can say they've been run over by a T-Rex? Anyone? I didn't think so. It should be a Dinosaur Apocalypse.
And those were the words of wisdom of the day brought to you by lovely 7th grade girls.
Looking over the last three days, I can't believe it has only been three days. It feels like I've been here at least a week already if not three (each day feels like a week because so much information is learned student wise and pedagogy wise). Before starting this week I had assumed that I would be observing most of this week...boy was I wrong. 1st hour I already started putting things into the grade book; 5th hour I was helping someone out in the hall; and by the end of the day I was creating and running the tutoring session. Talk about diving straight into the classroom!
Tuesday Miss Mobius went ahead and let me create and lead the board problems which is about a 10-15 minute chunk at the beginning of every regular 7th grade math hour where the students review previous concepts from the chapter. So in order to help make review interesting, I traveled back to my 5th grade classroom where my teacher always made it like a game show to come up and place your answer on the board. The game show is called "Why Me?" Because everyone knows that is your first thought once your name is called. While first hour was a little low on the energy, 2nd and 5th hour really had a lot of fun with it as I joked with them how I needed a theme song and a big spinning wheel. Simultaneously, the students showed growth from the day before and I was able to help out those at the board who were struggling. After I finished these games, my job was not over. I started to place myself in the classroom as another teacher that is able to walk around, answer questions, and catch mistakes. These moments have really built up my street cred if I must say so myself. Here's an image of the board problems I used:
Wednesday--Today! Today I ran that same 10-15 minute chunk but this time we wanted to specifically review five properties that the students are learning. I remembered a fun game I always liked to play--Flyswatter Bingo! Again, I made it sound like a game show and had the competition set. I also remembered to talk about setting rules with what to do with the flyswatters and what not to do and I felt the students got the point without feeling harped on. Once again 1st hour was a little hesitant but we got the goal accomplished, 2nd hour was crazy competitive, and 5th hour was somewhere in between. It was such a blast walking around handing the flyswatters to the students whether they had volunteered, tried to volunteer their friend, or even made a slight gesture like fixing their hair. I didn't have anyone become self-defiant but they all rose to the challenge. Here's the flyswatter bingo I put together:
So all in all I am honestly having a blast everyday with these kids. I must say, I am getting along well with my goal of learning all of the students names by Friday (I'd say I'm at a solid 50% if not 60% on all of their names). I'll keep you posted on how I do Friday because Miss Mobius might be testing me there.
So there you have it! There are some small tidbits to an already crazy, exciting time.
*Little will be placed in front of each student's name because a girl named Limit just isn't that exciting. I am aware though that most of the time these students are not little since they're not smaller than me...
P.S. Because we talked about Unicorns today and because this is probably the first video I saw online in middle school, I'm bringing back Charlie the Unicorn.
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