Eeek!
There was a mouse in the sticky trap in my room today. I was the only one who saw it. I emaild the secretary and ttold her. Then I moved the podium in front of the trap and went on with life. A little more queezy than before. And I never looked to see if it was removed. I have a substitute tomorrow. I hope it was taken care of. Otherwise, someone else could stumble upon it (not literally, its in a corner) or see (smell?) it. I am a horrible person.

And we had an immigration walk out today. 35 kids. We were told to keep all students in the rooms during 5th period. I just wonder if those students understood why they were walking out or if they were just following a crowd. I think I know.
- posted by Alicia @ 5:08 PM |

 
Research
Tomorrow will be the last day my students have had to work on research projects. We have spent three weeks on research and it has been different than I expected. I love research, personally. My thoughts on teaching research are varied. My big research experience comes from my high school APLAC paper written on breastfeeding (that was fun to share with my students) and from anything I did in college. When teaching the whole research process, part of my wanted to slow down and teach it very well. The other part just wanted me to get done with it. This part also realized that these are ninth graders and it doesn't have to be a college level paper. The final product in this process is not a paper. Well, it is a paper, cut out and posted on a poster.

I have enjoyed seeing the little light bulbs going off during class. I have seen students finally realize what parenthetical documentation looks like or say to me that they cited something, so they wouldn't be plagerising. I have convinced several students that it is not always best to start a paragraph with "This paragraph is about" and "I think that" has no place in a research paper. Then there is the clarification of topics. One of the possible topics is Elizabethan Music and Dance. For several weeks I have been trying to convince a certain student that the this is not about what Queen Elizabeth's favorite kind of music is and how she likes to dance in her spare time.
- posted by Alicia @ 7:01 PM |

 
Books of 2006: Various
I'm going to the library tomorrow to return library books. At leats 1800 pages of books. But none of real quality. Just fun reads. When I get my Barnes and Noble gift card in the mail, I'll go buy more quality stuff.
- posted by Alicia @ 9:45 PM |

 

My flowers for being the New Teacher of the Year. (They are currently wilted, dead, and in the Trash. But they were beautiful and immortalized here)  
- posted by Alicia @ 11:11 AM |

 
Spring Break!
I am so excited to be on my first Spring Break as a teacher. I had been bracing myself for the day before vacation all week. It turned out to be calmer than I had expected, so that was great. On Thursday, I got a visit from our technology person. A week before, she had been in the break room talking to another teacher about a need for a teacher to go to a training day for using some pocket PCs that we have. I said, "Awesome" before I knew what I was saying, and the next things I knew, I was signed up. So on Thursday I got the new toy to use and play with. That is my homework for Spring Break. To play, download, practice, and think of how this could be used in my classroom. I am very excited.
- posted by Alicia @ 9:07 AM |