Goofballs

My last class, though they are rowdy at times, is chock full of personality.
One of the smarter kids (he's no genius, but he's on grade level, which is above the rest of them) was gone for a couple weeks, and returned the other day.
So today, this girl at his table, seeing him raise his hand, said in a whiny pleading voice, "Miss, make him stop that! He knows everything!"

And after school, we were talking about genre and stuff. Someone brought up Sherlock Holmes, thinking he was a legend. I said, "No, he's a fictional character. Does anyone know who wrote those stories?" Blank looks. So I prompted, "Sir..."
And a boy raised his hand and said, "Tony Hawk?"
I put my head down, because really, there are no words.

Sigh.

Anyway, it is Friday! I actually just now remembered. No woo-hooing here, just a relieved sigh. I woke up today feeling like I'd been run over.

Like I think I mentioned, my throat has had a little tickle lately, and I've been rather sneezy. So the last couple days I took an Airborne, just in case. Since they say you're supposed to take it before it starts, to head it off a bit.

So today, instead of the full-blown beginning cold--you know, very sore throat, congestion, etc--it felt like the end of the cold. Sore around the chest, feeling unable to fully breathe, and sore in the back (though that may be separate from working out; it feels achy rather than sore, though). My throat feels rough and sandpapery; I can talk and stuff, but it's uncomfortable. And I've got that congestion-related stomach ickiness, which is weird considering I'm not actually congested.

All this makes teaching--covering two classes and a real third coverage, plus after school--no fun at all. Therefore it was a great idea to use a recent set of Scholastic Storyworks magazines for the coverages: reading a nonfiction article about a kid who raised money to build a well in Africa, and constructing a response paragraph using their outline. Good activity, and related to test prep!

For my real classes, I used some scaffolded worksheets to practice cause and effect, and author's purpose. For the warm up, I wrote this question: What happens when there's an earthquake underwater? I made a chart about tsunamis using arrows and rows, facilitating them through the steps of what happens (earthquake-->large waves. large waves-->flooded land. flood on land-->people move to higher ground, or drown; things washed away). Then I asked, what's the relationship between all these events?

I handed out a worksheet and together we charted the events for the first passage. Then I set them loose to chart on their own and complete multiple-choice questions.

It actually was a productive test-prep day, for me feeling so crappy.

But it's Friday. PHEW.