Happy opening day of deer season here - thank goodness it is on Saturday although we still had many gone yesterday headed to "camp" early.

What a week - so much good - so much I'd rather forget...

After the wonderful Monday beginning, Tuesday was also a "good" day. We started off in the auditorium to see the dress rehearsal of the high school Veteran's Day assembly - I was reluctant to go, to give up seeing my 1st hour math class for a day, thinking the kids would not be really all that impressed. THe presentation was outstanding - my class was outstanding - I was so amazed and awestruck by their intent attention. Maybe the fact it was high schoolers up there helped - I'm not sure. THe rest of the day, the kids seemed subdued.

Wednesday, woooo..... a day to remember - my principal popped in last hour Tuesday to ask about observing me Wednesday. I said sure, we were headed to computer lab. So it was all set - he'd come observe 2nd hour. When 1st hour Wednesday went well, I was pumped. We were using Excel to create computer generated graphs from spreadsheets, the first time most students had ever done this. 1st class listened, followed along, did extremely well. Better than I had hoped.

2nd hour - the observation...small class, usually a pretty good group, even given the fact this is the inclusion group. It was easily my most horrifying hour of my all 10 years in the classroom. THe kids were chatty to the point of just plain loud and rude - they were not following directions - several kept going ahead and getting lost - others were always so far behind, I could not keep them caught up without losing all the others so it was a constant battle of slow down/speed up. The spec ed teacher comes in about halfway into class- she was also shocked at their behaviors.

It would have been a frustating hour anyday - but knowing my principal was there watching, made everything seem just futile.

Thursday - no school - blizzard came thru Wednesday night - we really only got a few inches of fresh snow but the winds were horrible and the electricity was out for 7 hours.

Friday -a new day - I rethought my lesson plans for the next couple of weeks after losing a day of school, knowing I will be gone to conference next Wed, Thur, & Fri, and then THanksgiving the next week... we took surveys (the ones the kids had typed on Monday)

Great day- they were organized, quiet, on task! They even had time to start tallying answers. Now next week they will take their data, make circle graphs, bar graphs, pictographs, etc... They seem to really be enjoying it so far - I know it is better to use "fun" data than the stuff the book has - YUCK!

I must go wake my college freshman daughter- we are off to shop on this opening deer season day. It's 100 mile each way to the nearest mall so it will be a long day; best get going.