Who's Got the Button?

Setting: "A" Day. Beginning of 5/6 block. Right after lunch.

Most of the students are in the classroom, getting settled and starting on their warm-up. The timer that I have going after lunch each day shows that class begins in just under a minute.

Enter: student of interest.

Student: Ms. G! Can I got to the FACS room? My button popped off!

I look over and see him walking like a cowboy, with legs widely straddled, trying to keep his pants from falling down. Needless to say, I could barely keep myself from buckling over with laughter at the sight.

I let him go down to the FACS room and started class. He came back not quite 10 minutes later with pants properly held in place with a proud look on his face. His comment when entering?

"I sewed the button all by myself!"

:)

Binary Clock

So I got this really awesome clock from my boyfriend during winter break. It gives the time (hours, minutes, and seconds) in binary. I put it up in my classroom during first hour yesterady. It's been driving my students absolutely crazy for the past two days (my whole goal with it). :D

They keep asking me what it is. All I've been saying is that it's a clock and that it tells me the hours, minutes, and seconds. I also tell them the time by reading the clock (never deal with the seconds, though).

The kids then ask me, beg me, attempt to bribe me, into explaining how to read it. I refuse. I let them know that it's up to them to figure it out and that the clock will be up for the rest of the year. If they don't figure it out by the end of the year, I MIGHT be nice and tell them. Probably not, though. :P

During 5/6 block today, one of my students asked me about the clock. I gave her the same explanation as always. Five minutes later, she exclaimed, "Ms. Grivna! I think I got it!!" I had her come over to me and tell me the time and then explain how to read each part. She didn't know that the pattern had a special name, but she totally had it figured out. I explained to her about binary and asked that she let others discover the pattern for themselves. She's not the kind of person to blab the fun secrets to others, though. She likes to watch people squirm while she sits back with all the info. hidden away. :)

I wonder how many more kids will be persistent enough to figure out my fun new toy of a clock. :)

Full Moon

Okay. First and foremost, I KNOW that technically there is no proof that people lose it/go crazy when there's a full moon. I never believed in that stuff anyway. Then I started teaching.

Since school started this year, the dynamics of my classes change as time goes on, ebbing and flowing throughout the weeks and months. That happens every year. I do 8th grade lunch duty this year, though. Every once in a while I've noticed that the kids are a bit more active and more nuts than usual. I commented on an unusually crazy day in September to one of my lunch supervision colleagues and she said that it made sense, seeing as how there was a full moon. I just smiled and inwardly rolled my eyes, not believing she bought into that connection.

The same thing happened the next month and the next.

Today I had the enjoyable chance to talk to one of my angels in lunch and let him know that if he could not learn to control himself during lunch (i.e. - sitting down in his own seat instead of in the lap of another student, walking around the lunchroom instead of running and leaping over objects, eating his food instead of throwing it at others or stealing other's food...) I would find a nice, isolated spot for him to enjoy his lunch in every day. Two separate tables were kept to clean up the lunchroom - usually there are none, or maybe half a table. The kids singing happy birthday to their friends were screaming the song. Oh, right. I forgot to mention that these groups of kids singing the song contained about 40 kids (no joke - I counted one of the groups) surrounding the table of the birthday kid.

My best class could not focus today (granted, it was right after the crazy lunch) and my last class today took the cake for insanity. I kicked out four kids. FOUR! Two missed the first half of the lesson and two others missed the second half of the lesson. My throat hurts from trying to talk over the kids to get their attention (bad, bad habit that I've been trying to curb, but just wasn't able to today). I first tried just waiting for the kids to realize I was waiting for them to pay attnention before moving on. That usually works really well. Not even close today.

By the time the bell rang at the end of the day, I was exhausted both mentally and physically. I went to msn.com to check my e-mail for any important things I might need to check on right away before heading home. There, on the front page of msn.com, was a link to an article about tonight's full moon and how it would appear to be larger than any other full moon in the year. The old belief that full moons affect people's behavior came rushing back to me.

I'm starting to believe that there's something to that belief.

I'm going home to nurse my sore throat with some hot chocolate and a good book.

Race to the Theorem

I'm in the middle of my 7/8A geometry class right now. Seriously.

We've got a lot of new theorems today. Like, 11 of them. Two sections, 11 theorems. Wow.

I have my classes write down all the theorems and postulates we learn so they have them easily accessible while they do their homework and take their quizzes, instead of needing to flip through their book every time they're trying to find a theorem to use.

The kids don't really enjoy this. At all. But they've started to see the use in it. Yay.

Today, the kids started to make writing down the theorems into a competition. As soon as they finish writing down a theorem and underlining the important words, they sit back and say, "done!" We're getting through these things in record time, even with me waiting for them to stop talking between each theorem.

It's a fun atmosphere in here with this. I hope my other two geometry classes have this much fun with the theorems tomorrow. :)

I Thought of You

First hour this morning during worktime, a student looked over at me and said, "Ms. Grivna. I thought of you this weekend!" My thought was, why?

Backtrack a bit...

Today was the first day back to school after a five-day weekend for the kids (teachers had school yesterday) due to the state education conferences, so many families took trips. The student who thought of me went to NYC with her family. They went to see the musical "Legally Blond." She said that their seats were quite high in the balconies and they had a perfect view of the pit. And that's why she thought of me, with all of my community theatre pit stories. What a sweetie. :)

Week of Wednesdays

Yesterday (Tuesday) I welcomed my last hour class with "Happy Wednesday, everyone!"

Everyone stopped talking and gave me the weirdest look. They were confused.

I again said, "Happy Wednesday!"

Again, the looks. This time, the students were beginning to get worried. Has she finally gone insane?
One brave student voiced her classmates' thoughts carefully. "No, Ms. Grivna...today is Tuesday, not Wednesday."

My response? "No it isn't. It's Wednesday! Yesterday was Wednesday, today is Wednesday, and tomorrow is Wednesday. I love these weeks!!!"

And slowly, lightbulbs began to go on around the room. The kids started shaking their heads in disbelief, their thoughts easily read on their faces. Wow, she is such a dork.

I love three day weeks. :D

Naming Properties

If you don't know the answer, make it up! At least, that's what a few of my students have been doing with naming the multiplication properties for their latest math test. One student came up with a partricularly good property in place of the actual "Multiplication Property of Zero": "anything times zero = zero property". I think I'm going to change the name of the property to that! :P

Personally, I'm waiting to see how many PoO's (Property of Opposites) I get next chapter.