Flying Solo

My cooperating teacher was out to a workshop today (New York state, changing the math core again), so I was "on my own"... with the usual assortment of TAs, plus the science teacher next door popping in to make sure everything was going okay when the TAs left for lunch.

Actually, it went more smoothly than I had any right to expect. First block was prep -- got everything for the day completely ready with tons of time to spare. The two modified classes were pretty well-behaved, which is remarkable considering the "hot-spot" student in each class reportedly got off to bad starts in first block. During "advisement" time, two kids were on field trips, two were signed up by another teacher, leaving me with one easy-to-manage kid, plus another who dropped in because their regular teacher was off with the field trip. That same field trip meant my third block class (the 8th graders) turned into another prep, and fourth block was the 6th grade -- they had a test.

My birthday yesterday was nice enough, considering it's the middle of the week and I had to teach and all. My coop. teacher made chocolate-covered strawberries! That was really nice of her. The kids enjoyed signing (not singing) "Happy Birthday" every time they saw me. And I made them figure out my age by solving a single-variable equation (a good review).

I'm very tired, because I still don't manage to go to bed early enough, considering I have to wake up at 6:00. Next week is Spring Break -- hopefully I'll catch up on sleep and a few other things.

Tomorrow, I get to teach one of the modified classes about volume. They've done all right with perimeter and area so far. Hopefully the little boxes I made out of inch-grids (during all that prep time) along with some one-inch cubes will help make the idea concrete enough for them to grasp.