For My Most Faithful Reader

This one's for you Marjo.

I was thinking the other day, "How can people from Oregon or similar places-aka hippies-stand to be teachers? We singlehandedly destroy rainforests because we use and waste so much paper every single day."

I couldn't come up with an answer or a solution. I personally try to recycle as much paper as possible, but there's still lots that goes to waste.

I guess the way that I know that I'm not completely destroying our earth is that I do only run a fully loaded dishwasher. And because of that, I can sleep easy tonight. 

#sobored

So, when you go on a mission, you tend to miss out on a lot of things going on in the real world. You know, like the super important pop culture type things. McKensey and I have had lots of conversations about some of the things that we miss and how we don't get them, or better stated, how we think it's ridiculous and not a good kind of ridiculous.

One of those things is hashtags. You know, those things that used to be known as the number or pound sign. I'm waiting for the day when the automated phone message woman tells you to "enter your pin and then press hashtag." 

Anyways, I understand the purpose of hashtags for Instagram, but I think it is pretty hilarious. Instagram is one of those things that I missed getting on board with because I was on a technology fast as a missionary for more than a year, so maybe I wouldn't think it was so funny if it wasn't for that. And maybe I'll join the Instagram crowd when I decide to finally jump on board the smartphone train. But until the potentially possible day that happens, I will use hashtags as nothing but a joke. Something to laugh about. A medium to express my ridiculousness. A way to prove to myself that I am still indeed hilarious.

#homealone #roommateisincanada #tiredofwatchingvd #wenttowalmarttwicetonight #timetopullouttheicecream

Poor Choices=Less Dodgeball

Whew. What a week. Sometimes being a teacher makes me rethink being a parent one day...and then I remember that I only have to deal with one that age at a time (ok, maybe 2 tops; still beats 24 by a long shot).

Hmm what awesome stories do I have to tell from this week?

Tuesday I was so mean. So the bell rings at 8:55 for the kids to line up outside. We're supposed to be in class working by 9:00. We have specials at approximately 9:10. During that interval, ideally we do morning math in my class. The concept is simple, really. There are three review math problems on the board. Students are supposed to come in, do their lunch choice, put away their coats and book bags, then sit and quietly do their three problems. It shouldn't take more than 5 minutes to do the actual math problems. Realistically we should be done and be able to go over the problems before 9:10, right? Ha. Wrong. At least with my kids. But I'm sick of it taking until 9:20 to be able to go over morning math, so I've found a solution that works at least on Tuesdays when we have PE. This past Tuesday it was about 10 after and kids started pointing out to me that it was time for PE. "Are we going to PE now?" I announced to the class that we weren't going to PE until everyone has completed their morning math and we have gone over it. Well, then they started to buckle down and work on it, but some of them were still waiting to see if they could really get away without doing it. Oh, don't worry girls, I know your trick of copying the answer from your friend. No, I won't check you off until I see all the work done on your own paper. Oh, and by the way, you need to be in your own seat; I never gave anyone permission to sit anywhere else. FINALLY at about 9:20 everyone got checked off and we were able to quickly go over the problems. We get lined up and head to the gym. We're not that far from the gym if we cut through the cafeteria. Well, I was at the end of the line with the stragglers and while we were still in the 6th grade hallway, I could hear my kids entering the gym, screaming, yelling, running around like crazy people, and putting scuffs on the floor on purpose (as a former custodian that really gets me). So when I enter, I stand there patiently in front of the steps of the stage where they are supposed to be seated quietly upon calmly entering the gym. Finally they get the fact that we're not starting any activity until they give me their attention. It is then that I calmly announce that the way they entered the gym was completely unacceptable and they needed to line up at the door because we were going to go back to class and try it again. By the time we were finally able to quietly and appropriately walk to the gym, we had 5 minutes of PE left. I did let them play dodgeball which is their favorite, but they wasted their time making poor choices. I was pretty pleased with myself and being mean though. Hehehe...


Wednesday night McKensey colored my hair dark brown. Kind of a drastic change. On Thursday morning I had half the class start to ask me if I was the substitute. If only I had pulled a
Miss Nelson and dressed up as an evil substitute to whip my kids into shape. I think next week I'm going to have straight hair and draw from its power to be mean Ms. G.

Another funny moment from yesterday. We're starting a unit on argument writing and so we started by having a mini debate about the amount of homework they have. Of course the vast majority whined about how they have "way too much" homework. (Uhh, these kids have NOTHING compared to what I had when I was in 6th grade.) Well, I have one student who just moved to America from Armenia like six months ago. He was trying to argue that we don't have enough homework. He told us that he used to have so much homework that he would come home from school and have to work on it until like 10 every night. The kids all just kind of stared at him in disbelief. Then the mean girl of the class who was sitting next to him looked at him and said, "Ew. Is that why you moved here?" And it was actually really quite funny. And he laughed too so it wasn't mean.

Well, in case you were wondering, there isn't anything much better than spending a Friday night catching up on grading assignments from the past two weeks. It's ok though because then I get to binge on ice cream and Vampire Diaries. So it's pretty much a win-win. Definitely beats going on dates or having a social life every time. (Oh the life of a first year teacher...is it almost over yet?)

What do you catch in YOUR net?

Funny 6th grade moment of today:

We are starting our surface area unit and so I made these handy props to use in my intro lesson today:

You may or may not know, but the bottom one is called a "net." Basically a net is a 2-D breakdown of a 3-D shape. It's easier for kids to see how to do surface area when they can break it down and see all the surfaces that they need to find the area of. Well, I was explaining to them that it was called "a net, like n-e-t" (not Annette like one of the girls was thinking I was saying..."That's my neighbor's name!"). Well, then I tried to give an example of a net, "Like you use to catch..." "Fish!" "Yes! Fish! Or butterflies, or..." and they proceeded to shout out examples of things you could catch in a net. That's when the boy who was sitting right in front of me said, not too loudly, "Or girls." Everyone in the classroom just kind of stopped short like they were like, "Whaaa?" And what do I do? I burst into laughter. I could not stop laughing. A lot of the kids were like, "Wait, what did he say? What's so funny?" And all I could do was shake my head and continue laughing, trying so hard not to let the tears that were pooling in my eyes trickle out. Anyways, I finally gained control and tried to continue. "Yes, so it's a net, like the kind of net that you use to catch whatever pe--I mean things you want...." "You were about to say people!" And I lost it again.

Here's my million dollar question: Does that make me lose my credibility as a teacher in their eyes? I sure hope not. Because I like moments like that.

Oh goodness. It's only Monday.

Oh, the Adventures of 6th Grade

Wanna hear the dumb things that my kids did today?

1) We had to take a reading quiz where the kids had to fill in the blank with a correct word from a choice of 3 words. This particular quiz was 3 pages long. The copy machines at my school are controlled by the devil and I ended up with copies that had page 1, 2, 3, 1 stapled together. Easy fix. "Okay guys, you do page 1, 2, and 3, and then on the back it's the same as page 1, so you DON'T have to do it." I had at least 3 kids come up to me and say, "Miss G, this page is like the same as the first one, do I have to do it?" or "Miss G, I just realized that I did the same page twice. Is that okay?"
What I say in my head: Yeah it's ok, you just wasted your own time and brain power. If you'd have listened to me you would have know you didn't have to do it. 
What I really say: "Yeah, I told you already that you didn't have to do it."

2) In the morning we played a review game for math. I read the questions directly off the test. Later that afternoon we were doing some more math review and I told the kids, "I've got a secret...the problems that I used this morning were straight from the test." "So those hard problems are on there?" "Yup. So I hope you were paying attention to how to solve them and that you'll study your practice test tonight."
Then I stopped and glared at the group in the back of the classroom that talked nonstop today. "Shh! Oh, uh, sorry Ms. G. What was your secret?" I just stared at them for a minute. Then I shrugged. "I already told my secret, sorry if you missed it." "What?! Wait! We're listening now, what was it?!" Hands popped up all over the room because some students actually were listening to what I said. "No, put your hands down. I already told my secret, too bad that they missed it. They'll never know." Then the cool kid stood up and said, "Don't worry teacher, I know the secret. You have a boyfriend!" and then he sat down. Hmm, that is a really good secret, because not even I knew that one. I did actually chuckle a a little and shook my head. "Nice try, but not the right secret." "Come on Miss G, why don't you just tell us?" "Yeah, can't we just tell them?" I stared them down. "No. I'm trying to prove the point that I find it really annoying that people think they can just talk while I'm talking and that it's ok." I got some blank stares for a second, and then I saw the look in their eyes as the understanding registered and someone said, "Oh...that's a really good idea." Umm, yes. I'm the teacher. All my ideas are good.

If I thought harder I'd come up with more, but that's all I got for now. Back to grading.

Late Late Ramblings

It's so interesting...at 7:30 I was ready to literally crash, like I did last night (I fell asleep on my computer while trying to plan and when I woke up I crawled into bed for the night). Well, no could do. So I got home at like 9:30, and was still ready to crash, but was still unable to. And, well, here I am at 3 am, still not in bed. I'm not nearly as tired as I was back 6 hours ago though. I forget how all-nighters work. It's pretty crazy. I only have 5 more components that I have to finish figuring out crap for and typing up for my JPAS portfolio. Then maybe I'll take a nap. Or maybe I'll just stay up and watch t.v. or something. It depends. I probably have at least another hour of work to do.

I thought that my days of all-nighters was over! I'm not in college!

Welcome to the profession of teaching. You feel like a glorified student forever. I'm not sure if that's a good or a bad thing. Both, I suppose.

Validation

Well shoot. There I go, saying I hate my job all this week, and then I have a day like today where all I can say is that I love my job. Well...sort of.

So, I finished my parent/teacher conferences tonight. Nowhere near as scary as I thought it was going to be. It was funny, last night during one of my breaks in my schedule of conferences, my principal popped in to see how things were going. She asked if I felt validated as a teacher after meeting with these parents. And I do! It's so crazy. Here I am, a 23-year-old woman entrusted with the education of 24 pre-teens. These parents all respected me and my opinions and the grades and scores that I gave my students. They asked me for my professional opinion on how to help their kids. I forget that technically I'm qualified to do that. Uhh...that's so weird.

It also made me realize part of why I wanted to be a teacher though. So the way I ran my conferences is I started off by handing the parent and student a copy of their report card. I had them look it over and then we discussed and questions or concerns that they had. After talking about that we did a "Student Education Plan" which is a district-wide thing. We talked about the kid's accomplishments and strengths, areas for improvement, and then we set a goal or two for them to reach before the next report card. And I really stressed to my kids that I'm here to help them succeed. I'm here to do whatever I can to make sure that they are learning and achieving all that they are capable of, because they all have such great potential. The way I felt as I was telling each kid this reminded me of the cute little pre-teacher Ms. Griffiths just starting her program at BYU, thinking I could change the world, one student at a time. Since actually teaching I've felt very little of that. It's so overwhelming and trying to meet the needs of 24 students is crazy. I've been kind of discouraged, thinking, "Why the heck did I want to do this? This is a terrible job." And yes, there is still lots that I could complain about having to do with all the politics and everything of being a teacher, but we won't go there tonight. I guess I just realized that deep down inside I do love what I do. I love those kids and I want them to reach their potential.

Enough semi-mushy stuff. There were some great and some funny moments to share from today.

We played a math game today called "Grudgeball" that the kids love. Basically each team has 10 x's up on the board. Each team at a time has a turn to correctly solve a math problem and if they get it correct they get to erase 2 x's from any of the other teams. It was so fun seeing the kids all engaged and excited, even it was to be rude and erase x's from a certain team. I had some of my kids who have a hard time staying interested tell me that they loved it and I'm pretty sure they'll be begging to play it again.

Another thing we did was for vocabulary I had the kids write either a vocabulary word or the definition on a piece of paper. Then we played snowball with them. They crumpled them up, threw them, and then picked up a new snow ball and had to find the person with the match. Well, the funny thing is that I let them throw their snowballs at me. They loved it. And I thought it was funny how much they loved it.

Last thing to share, has to do with some wonderful 6th grade boy humor. Oh, and it was me who had the sense of humor of a 12-year-old boy. In science we've been learning about the Solar System. We were doing an activity where the kids had to write a fact that they knew for each of the planets. One of my boys came up to me and asked me, "Ms. Griffiths, does Uranus have rings?" I stared at him for a moment, trying to decipher if this was a trap. It wouldn't surprise me with my kids. Even though I pronounce it Yur-uh-nus, most of them still love to claim that Ur-anus is their favorite planet. But I had a serious debate in my head about if this kid was being serious or if he was messing with me. Then I realized that it's impossible for this kid to hide any emotion, so since he asked me with a straight face, he was being serious. I answered his question and as he walked away, I chuckled to myself, "Does Uranus have rings...? Hehehe..." Don't judge. That's what happens when your only friends that you hang out with are a class of 11- and 12-year-olds.

I should have just spent the night at school

Don't worry, I love spending 14 hours at school in one day. It's magnificent.

What is actually magnificent is that our PTA got us free dinner tonight. And that they're letting us pick out $30 worth of books at the book fair.

I had all but one of my parents show up for conferences, and tomorrow I don't have as many scheduled. That will then give me time to finish getting my JPAS portfolio ready (UGH). But still on the positive side, none of the parents were even mad at me! It was great.

Fantastic thing of today: The kid in my class who is the lowest at math got 100% on his dividing fractions worksheet. That made me so happy!

I can't think of anything that was particularly funny today. My kids are driving me absolutely crazy! I need for it to be a new week so that I'm refreshed and can start new and be mean.

Maybe one day I'll have posts that are interesting again, but I'm too tired for that today.

Mid-Night...get it?

How do you know you've graduated to adulthood? Midnight=middle of the night. Ugh. My body is screaming at me that I should be in bed. Gosh, I wish. I hate report cards.


I tried so hard to think about a good/funny thing from today. Couldn't do it. My kids are punks and I'm sick of them. I'm just so ready for this week to be OVER.

Put Your Best Foot Forward...Literally

Ok, so here's something I'm going to try, for at least this week. This week is crazy. I have parent/teacher conferences, report cards, and I have to have my JPAS interview, meaning I have to have this ridiculous portfolio ready for sometime this week. Umm, don't worry, I'm planning on cutting sleep out of my life. It'll be fine.

Anyways, the thing I want to try for this week so that I don't go crazy and focus on all the crap that's going on, is write down a thing or two from the day that was hilarious or awesome in some way. So number 1:

When we were leaving the computer lab this morning, the technology specialist who happened to be in there this morning told the kids to "put their best foot forward" and keep doing good things. Well, all the way back to the room, the cool kid in the class limped, walking with his right foot normally and dragging his left foot behind him like he couldn't bend his leg. I said, "Uh, is your leg ok there?" and he answered, "Yeah, she just said to put our best foot forward, so that's what I'm doing!" That one I awarded with a lol.

Another awesome thing, my small group for math was working on dividing fractions, and they all seemed to get it! There were only 5 in the class that was still having a hard time with it, and they were able to do all the problems that I gave them and then they could tell me how they got it. That right there is one of the best things about being a teacher.