Today was a pretty good. The kids really dug the science lesson this morning on how energy acts upon simple machines. I took my homemade "Incredible Machine" up to school which demonstrates a chain reaction involving 5 of the 6 simple machines and the kids really got into that. It's really not all that incredible, more like a "semi-incredible mediocre machine" but the kids enjoyed it. It uses a Hot Wheels car and a Wolverine action figure. I'm finding that any way you can make a lesson unique by bringing in memorable objects really helps a lot. Like when I did an experiment showing that water is more dense than oil I used Juicy Juice instead of water and that really stuck with them as well.

In the other class that comes to me for science and reading I was just blown away by this little girl today. She's been really worrying us because she hasn't done much and has had bad grades but today she was the star of the class. During reading she read really well and with a lot of inflection and comprehension of the mood etc.. and then in class she had all these fantastic questions and observations. Maybe she had some coffee this morning or something.. I don't know but whatever she's on I hope she gets more of it.

I had so many kids that didn't bring back their homework today. That's bums me out when I have so many kids that do that.

Today my kid who is probably my "toughest nut to crack" had the worst day he's had so far this year. I ended up having to send him to the office. It was just one thing after another and the final thing was putting soap in a kid's eye at the handwashing station.

Today I was observed by a person from the organization that I did my teacher training through. That was VERY encouraging because she gave me a really good evaluation and had lots of compliments for me. She said that she's seen a lot of teachers and can tell what's going on pretty quickly in any given classroom and that in my classroom the kids were on-task, enthusiastic and learning was maximized. That was really a day-brightener. That thing with the soap in the eye happened when she was there and she said that I handled it very well and in a way that was least disruptive to the other kids. Cool. Good to know I'm doing relatively well.

For the month of October we're doing this thing where someone puts a little treat in your box and then you pass it on and put little treats in three other people's boxes and so on... Someone put a little bag of candy and these fake hillbilly teeth in mine. They're not just regular hillbilly teeth though...one of the teeth kind of dangles as if it's really loose..like it's hanging on by a root and about to fall out. They're pretty gross but I think the kids will get a kick out of it when I throw them on during class. I need to wait for the right time.

Well, that's all. I'm out.