Will new shoes help me in Sixth Grade?

    Apparently, yes new shoes will help.  Or, at least, they were new to me.  Since the call came early this morning, with very little advance time, I knew I was at a disadvantage in not being prepared.  The scheduler knew this is usually a challenging class for me - "Sorry, I know its late notice and I don't like to wake you up with this!"  Because I knew it would be warm today I opted for a comfortable outfit and put on the "hand-me-down" sneakers my daughter had given me - some sharp-looking black and white with stretch laces that velcro closed...I was hoping the kids might think I was "cool" and would be distracted enough by looking at my sneakers that they would refrain from acting out  (well - at the very least, I knew I'd be comfortable!)
    Walking into the gymnasium to pick up the class, I see one girl look at the others and mouth "oh no."  Good thing I'm wearing my sneakers I think to myself!  I arrived at school with just a short-sleeved jersey.  The kids were still dressed in their winter coats...   When we got up to the classroom, they kids chose to not participate in morning meeting.  Once again I found that allowing them to say good morning to each other and to sit quietly getting caught up on the goings on of the weekend proved to be a much better way to start their day.  The other option would be to participate in an activity that would require them to move desks, move chairs, get settled in, focus, participate....I hope they liked my choice of a more gentle start to the day.
    In Language Arts they started off with a 10 minute "Free Write" that they could choose to share.  First hand up, one of the students I've had difficulty connecting with - she usually appears a little sullen.  What did she share??  That she ran away this weekend, left her house by climbing out a window, climbing over the fence, heading to a friend's house ....Oh no, no wonder she can tend to be quiet and uncommunicative (and I don't think she was making up the story...)  And another young man - one who usually chooses to speak out and interrupt - chose instead to share his writing.  It was his birthday this weekend and he got to spend it with his dad.  He had a great time and got a new "North Face" - I commented on how attractive I thought his new jacket was - he smiled proudly.
    We easily moved on to vocabulary words, a worksheet on Imagery, and a read aloud of The Cay.  A pretty good class with great participation and great discussions.  Phew!
     Science came next.  The students are studying the layers of the atmosphere and the different types of light waves.  We spent so much time talking and explaining so they could understand, that we hardly got to read the chapter that was assigned.  We only made it half-way through, but they seemed to understand what we had discussed so far.
    Two classes, and by 10:30 a.m. it was recess and lunch time.  ALREADY!  I took the time to run home and walk the dogs.  They, unlike the sixth graders, seemed happy to see me.  :0)
     Three more classes after lunch - all of them Language Arts.  We repeated the Free Write, the vocabulary words, the Imagery worksheet, and the reading of The Cay.  All of the LA groups are at different levels. Some groups just learn the vocab words, some write sentences after they've learned them.  And each of the groups is at a different reading point in the book.  It was so great while we were all taking turns reading outloud, the kids didn't want the class to end!  They asked if we could keep going.  Unfortunately, we couldn't.  They had to head to a different class, and I had to head back home in my sharp-looking sneakers to take the dogs for one more walk.  A great day.