Wednesday, March 21, 2012

Odds & Ends

The odds and ends of my day, otherwise known as an unfocused blog post.

1. Resignation: See the papers in this bag?  All need grading.  This is what I am doing tonight.
Yup, I have fallen behind in grading. . . again.  If you have read my blog for any length of time, you know that this is my Achilles heel.  It is the one responsibility of teaching that I just dread doing.  However, tonight IT'S ON!  Which translates to I've put it off as long as I dare and have to get most of it done tonight.

2.  Peeved:  Every Day Math Tests!  Yes, they irritate me.  The tests tend to have "creative" questions.  Things that ask the kids to create a problem that involves x, y, and z but equals less than this but more than that.  Great for higher level thinking, but a nightmare to grade.  I literally have to solve 25 different multi-step problems to grade these tests.  Each friend creates their own.  What's worse it that many of the tests have more than one of these types of problems.  They take forever to grade!  And, yes, there is a nice stack of them in that bag. :-(

3.  LOVING!  My new Thirty-One school bag.  That one stuffed with papers up there?  I love it! I just got it last week.  It is the perfect size for school papers. The fabric is a laminated nylon, so it cleans easily.  It has four room pockets on one side, two on the other, and mesh pockets on either end.  The handles are also long enough to sling it over your shoulder comfortably.  This one is the "organizing utility tote." On their site, it is $25. I love mine!  I have no connection to Thirty-One, but I will tell you to go buy one of these for yourself.  You will love it!  I'm thinking of getting another in a more summer-y pattern.

4.  Munching:  Since I have all that paper grading to do, I've decided on the dinner of champions.  Peanut butter toast!

5.  Sad:  One of my little friends was badly hurt in an accident this week.  Tomorrow we are going to make get well cards in class to send to the hospital.  Isn't it funny how attached you can get to your students?  I really want to cheer my little friend up.   I was thinking of maybe taking some silly pictures of the class with get well signs to also include with the kids' cards.  Anyone have any other ideas on how to cheer up my injured friend?

6.  Itching:  Just itching to check out all the blogs that linked up over at the upper elementary linky party!  I haven't had a chance to visit most of them yet.  It is supposed to be a rainy weekend, so it will be perfect for curling up with my computer and blog colleagues!  I see that some of you have stopped by here.  Thanks so much for visiting!

7.  Wow, Really?!  Just found out that we have an assembly next week.  It is a motivational assembly.  For some reason, this just makes me laugh.  I'm thinking when I was in 5th grade, nobody worried about motivating me to do my work.  It was just expected.  Now, we have motivational assemblies for ten and eleven year olds!  I have nothing against it.  Hey, anything that works!  I just think, my how times have changed! :-)

8.  Reality:  It was fun taking a break to blog with you, but I have to stop and get back to grading now.  See you over the weekend!

5 comments:

  1. we don't know each other, but apparently we live parallel lives!

    You should SEE the stack of papers I need to grade. It's resembling the roman ruins at ths point.

    I also had a cherub of mine get hurt on the playground this week. 17 stitches. I was on duty and held it together, but I fell apart later. I had another cherub who had heart surgery a few weeks ago. They all made him cards and he LOVED it. I had ALL the 5th grade classes make one, he had 103 cards. It was awesome. I think the silly pic idea is awesome, but include teachers and admin too, that would be a hoot!!

    That bag is to die for. I may need one.

    Hang in there... :) I love the blog... and peanut butter toast.

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  2. MMMMMM Peanut Butter Toast. Happy grading!

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  3. Maybe your injured friend would enjoy some books on loan from your classroom library? Maybe some of the kids could make fun bookmarks to go with them?

    The only reason my tote bag does not contain a similar mountain of papers is because we just finished the grading period and report cards went home. Now to tackle the two tests we've taken in the new nine weeks! Best of luck getting it all done.

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  4. I have one of those bag, too, and I LOVE it! It is amazing how much it can hold. Good Luck with the grading. Our grading period ends tomorrow and I am just about caught up.

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  5. Two of the things I love the most about this post: Your sense of humor about the dreaded pile of paper every teacher has to grade and your peanut butter toast. I put honey on my PB toast.

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