Finally had my first Monday today and it was successful!

Friday is constitution day and today I'm told our 4th graders are all supposed to memorize the preamble. So I've gotta do that on top of trying to catch up to the other classes in social studies. Not looking forward to it.

It's really amazing the kind of response you get in activities that really engage the students' minds. Today I started them doing these posters where they each take an aspect of Texas and make a poster about it in class. Then they'll present the poster to the rest of the class, in effect (or in theory I should say) teaching the rest of the class about their subject (and thus getting this social studies chapter done very efficiently). They really dove into it and seemed to enjoy it and everyone took part. I wish I had the time to come up with those kinds of activities for everything. That's the thing...not enough time.

I have this one space cadet kid who secretly cracks me up. He's constantly just completely immersed in his own world. Today though I couldn't help but start laughing as I watched him go through this routine of playing with his nose, taking his disposable paper towel back to the line with him after washing his hands and then going through this whole slow motion basketball slamming sequence at the trash can when he realized he'd brought the towel with him. It's funny but at the same time it's so challenging in the classroom because he never pays attention. Today we had the counselor come and do a special presentation and the whole time the kid was playing with his eye and trying to look at the inside of his eyelid.

Oh man, I just remember I have this parent night for my class coming up on Thursday. I've gotta be ready! Most of all I've gotta get my desk cleaned off so I don't look like the sloppy slacker that I am. Today the assistant superintendent of the school district randomly walked into my classroom during class! I'm glad I had them doing something productive!

Anyway, I've gotta go now. I've got things to do.