Stressful or Successful Sixth Grade Experience?

I don't know why, but sixth grade seems to give me the greatest challenge in keeping my frustration in check.  Something about the age of the students, something about the way the girls roll their eyes at me when I ask them to focus on their work, something about the way the boys get up to walk around or the way they yell out "what????" when I ask them to refocus.   Phew, I'm usually pretty tired when I come home from a day of sixth grade - I'll bet the kids are tired, too!
     Morning assembly - I think is is meant as a way to have the kids greet each other, have them connect, to participate in saying good morning, share some aspect of their life, engage in a morning activity.  However, I also find that having them move their desks and chairs around in order to create a "circle" also stirs them up a bit and creates chaos.  Why do all that moving around for 15 minutes of organized activity?  I don't understand.  This particular morning (their last "free day" before MCAS), the kids chose to forgo morning meeting. Instead, we did a more casual morning share of information, they chose to sit in small groups and talk with each other for a bit - some played chess, some played checkers, some did writing activities, some quietly read.  I found this gentle beginning to their academic day to be a better way to send them off to class.  They seemed to enjoy it (it was their choice) and I found it to be better all around.
     Science class was interesting, I enjoy watching the light bulbs go off in their eyes.  We were discussing clouds and condensation that can cause dew and/or frost.  They hadn't ever thought about why you can breathe on a car window and get fog...Some of them even ventured up to the classroom windows to breathe on them and create fog to write in. (and no swear words, not too bad!)
     And again with the math!!  Seventh grade, fifth grade, and now sixth grade - I'm going to be so confident in my math skills that I may even want to retake Statistics - NOT!!  Adding and subtracting fractions, finding common denominators, multiplying fractions and creating simplified fractions, aahhh, what lovely memories!  It really was the best part of my day, though, sitting at a small table with three sixth grade boys who didn't understand how to simplify fractions and I worked with them in this small group.  How great to hear them say they understood...I can see why so many people love to teach, when you see that light bulb go off and you know you've gotten through the fog, what a wonderful feeling to know you've helped someone learn something...Pretty good!