I Hate Daylight Screw-Up Time!

Overslept this morning, yet still made it to school at the exact same time as usual... so typical of me...

Busy week, as evidenced by the lack of posting. The two boys in the modified 5th grade class often seem like they can't get along to save their lives. One is the new boy. He comes from a very different world, so the school for the deaf has been a bit of a culture shock. He speaks fairly well, and is only now really beginning to learn sign. (Today I noticed him signing without speaking a little more often, which is a good step.)

He's had a lot to adjust to, but he isn't exactly making it easy on himself. A lot of the time he's very sweet, but then sometimes he'll go a little "tough guy" and pick on other kids. The other boy in the class has somewhat been the target this week -- more in other classes than math, apparently. So the other day, he came in and eventually let loose with a rant to me about how the new boy shouldn't be here because it's a school for the DEAF and he's hearing, he talks and doesn't sign, and he hopes the new boy gets sent to the major local mainstream program.

There's up to four adults in that class at any given time, and up to three of us spend most of our time trying to make sure those two stay apart and don't bother each other.

Mathematically speaking, things are going about as they're expected to. The 8th graders are doing pretty well -- they get a quiz next week. We counted and realized there are less than 10 class sessions remaining until their state test, thanks to block scheduling. The 9th graders took a quiz today -- not very pretty. Same old teacher dilemma -- they seem to understand so well in class, but it never shows up that way on assessments.

The 6th graders are doing great. Yesterday I did a lesson on symmetry, similarity, and congruence, and they were totally into it. Even the newer boy in that class, who just started here this year -- another who is a little awkward socially and is only slowly developing sign skills -- even he was enthusiastic. I had to keep a mental checklist to make sure I called on everyone fairly evenly -- they were all begging to be called on almost every time.

Speaking of the 6th grade, I need to finish getting ready to play a review game with them tomorrow. They get to learn Review Baseball, since they seemed interested when they saw the poster still hanging after 8th grade one day.