Correcting

Wow! What a tidal wave of comments! I can really feel the love. Thanks for the cookie feedback. I think the next step is to see if we can track down some shortening. That might be a little more predictable and grease the pan better, too.

Today was great at school. I only taught for a total of one hour and fifteen minutes. Most of the time was spent in a 45 minute math lesson that involved nothing more than teaching the kids how to correct an assignment in class.

The first challenge was how to pass your notebook ahead one. They all got confused and tried trading and passing all at once. We got it sorted out, and then we had to work on waiting to ask questions until after I've read all of the answers.
I said it I don't know how many times.
I made them repeat it.
I read the next answer.
Carlos raised his hand.
"Carlos, when are you supposed to ask questions?"
The whole class responds "AT THE END!!!!!"

The next step was wading through all of the repeat requests. We talked quite a
while about listening carefully the first time. Otherwise you get lots of:
"Yes, Starlin?"
"Number 15?"
"0.03. Valerie?"
"Number 15?"
"I just said that, Valerie. 0.03. Brianna?"
"Number 10?"
"125. Anthony?"
"Number 15?"
"You weren't listening, Anthony. Starlin and Valerie just asked. 0.03. Carlos?"
"Number 10?"

AAAAAAAAGGHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It's okay, we're learning. It's their first time. Next time will be better. I'm reworking my math class in my plans for next week, and I'd like to move toward more stations. One station for practice/review, one for correcting(so the students will need to be able to do it themselves), and one for the new lesson. That way I only have to worry about 8 students and their individual needs at a time.

Also, an interesting cultural thing I learned during math: in most Latin countries, a check mark on your school work denotes a correct answer. Incorrect answers are symbolized by an X. It really threw me off at first, I was walking around, seeing a sea of red check marks all over these papers, and I thought I had completely failed on the first math lesson. Then we figured it out. The kids were freaked out when I told them that in America a check mark means your answer is wrong.

The last part of the day was in developing some writing topics for the future and read-a-loud. I'm reading them The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe. Most of them have seen the movie, but the book includes a lot of different details, and they are really enjoying it.

Tomorrow is another day of my music/drama elective with the kids. I don't have much planned. We'll just have fun mostly, I think. See if we can work on a couple songs, but I'm mostly just keep things light. It's the end of the day, and it is hot, so you can't expect a lot of hard work from them.

Well, it's about teacher bedtime. Thanks again for all of the comments and prayers, everyone. 'Til tomorrow!