Monday, May 14, 2012

Just another manic Monday....

7 days left.

I CAN do this. 

With the aide of Panera iced coffee, which is new and fabulous by the way, and lots of dark chocolate squares by gosh by golly, I will survive the last seven days. 

Today was just not a good day.  I was on cloud nine on Friday because my sweet little kiddos came back to me, and I was so, so, so happy.  Well, today was a drastically different story. 

Today we started our multiplication unit, and I was pumped. Pumped.  Typically, second graders are so excited to begin multiplication, just like cursive, it makes them feel oh so grown up. Side note about cursive I still have lets say about 14 letters to introduce before the end of the year.  It's a good thing they like it and a good thing they are quiet doing it, because we have a lot to do! 

 We started with arrays, and I was thinking all day, "Oh, I got this.  I got an engaging activity that will get them up and moving, which is essentially during these crazy sauce final days of school, and it will be fantastic."

It went a little something like this. A version of scoot/move about with a multiplication fact at each table with tools to make the array, and all they had to do was create the array, and then record the equation and the product on their recording sheet. Brilliant right? I thought so too...

But it failed, horribly.  Okay, in all reality 2/3 of my friends did great and I should probably award them with big ole gold stars but then those 1/3 that couldn't handle it, just couldn't handle it.  In fact they broke Brutus'  leg during this activity. Yeah, my kids broke Brutus' leg.  I've had him since high school.  I'm so sad and so is Brutus.  He can no longer stand up, or sit up.  Anyone know where to order chairs custom made for college mascots? I need one....

Brutus in happier times modeling for our new document camera.


So halfway through the activity, we cleaned up, and stopped what we were doing and did an activity I found on Smart Exchange instead and then they did cursive in complete silence.  I was NOT a happy camper.

Tomorrow we're trying arrays again with this little activity from Amy Lemons.   Bless you, Amy.  Bless you.


My fingers are crossed that it goes much, much better because right after math tomorrow, I get to miss my planning period to supervise my student council kids serving punch and cake at our volunteer appreciation reception.  I'd really love to not show up all stressed out crazy sauce...

On a positive note, my students won the boxtops challenge.  Meaning we get an ice cream party on Wednesday (yay!) and I get a $25 gift card to a store of my choice to use in my classroom! I'm leaning towards Michaels but Target and Office Depot are pretty stiff competition.

What part of your day would you do over if you could? Leave me a comment telling me what it is below! Obviously mine was math, hands down.

5 comments:

  1. Can I please just tell you thank you for posting this? Both the cute lesson AND the honest look at your kids' behavior! I love love love teaching blogs but one thing that always makes me self conscious is that they never seem to have behavior issues! I am moving from third to second next year and am loving all the blogs I am finding!

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  2. Sending positive thoughts for a better tomorrow! I'm your newest follower and all I could picture while reading this was the first scoot game I ever tried. Long story short, I forgot to factor in the extra wait time that some problems would need. Whoops...lesson learned :) Stop by my blog for a visit.
    Storie
    Stories by Storie

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  3. Sorry to hear that your multiplication lesson didn't work out the best. I hope that when I come to introducing multiplication that it goes good - but with my 2nd grader, maths isn't really her best subject - so I think I might need some good ideas for when the time comes. It was good to read your post as it will help me to navigate a bit better.

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  4. This message is fascinating. Zoe

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