School started this Monday. Holy chaos Batman! Someone had the 'brilliant' idea to have all 8 periods yesterday in this order: 1,2,5,6,3,4,7,8. For half an hour each. In my opinion this was a disaster. One poor girl got mixed up and sat through my class twice. The sophmores are just as confused as ever. To top it off, the gas wasn't working in my classroom (still isn't) so that meant I had to stick to the less-exciting experiments instead of sacrificing a gummy bear to the chemistry gods.
I am teaching 1 AP class, 3 honors classes, and 2 chem 1 classes. My AP kids had me last year for the most part and they were crazy wound up yesterday. We'll see if the homework I've been giving them is encouraging them to get down to business. I taught my 3 honors classes today- a couple of observations: 1- I have a lot of really small sophmore boys. I don't remember so many small ones last year, but maybe that's because I didn't have as many sophmores. 2- Maybe it's just because it is the beginning of the year, but my classes have been quiet! I haven't had to take any phones away or ask the class to stop talking for the 100th time (except maybe AP). I don't remember the last time school was like this!
My kids from last year seem to enjoy coming back and visiting me. They end up in my room randomly throughout the day. I enjoy seeing them- but not in the middle of class. Tomorrow AP is doing a lab (we'll see if they remember molarity-I doubt it!) and working on measurement and nomenclature and my other classes are making Alka-seltzer rockets. I need to figure out what to have them do after the rockets.
5 comments:
ok someone at your school just wanted a good laugh with that period order because that is just stupid! Its nice to hear that they are being good so far and I'm sure the Chemistry "Gods" are very upset that they didn't get their gummy bear roast. Hopefully all will be in proper order soon ;)
Your class sounds fun! Believe it or not, chemistry was fun for me in High School. I had a fun teacher, so believe it or not, students WILL remember you and WILL talk about you in a GOOD way! :)
I will absolutely keep my fingers crossed that the good behavior will continue and the usage of cell phones in class will be minimal! I have no doubt your students love being in your class - I only ever visited the teachers I absolutely thought the world of! You are a great teacher Gretchen and will help so many kids.
you are lucky you have good classes, students who actually WANT to learn (I mean honors and AP classes). For my brother in law here in the chicago suburbs he was given all low level classes with kids who just stared at him. Anyway, I am curious about the gummy bear offering myself.
Gretch! I did not know you had a blog! Yay! I miss you, really I do. Hope the chaos at school has settled down somewhat!
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