Teacher still out sick, got the call last night to return to class. No wonder she's out - I've never seen so many children who like to pick their nose...Spent quite a bit of time asking them to please get a tissue and wash their hands before they return to group. Also took sanitizing whips and washed down desks while they were at Discovery. Wiped down faucets and counters and doorknobs and pencils.
Morning work took some collaboration. Even those students who whip through their work without question got stalled while trying to calculate travel times. They were required to read a table graph that lists destinations that show time left and time arrived and they needed to calculate the length of time it took to travel. This was a bit much for these second-grade minds. And because everyone works at their own speed, some moving ahead and some getting caught up deciphering reading, it is a constant interruption of "I need help", "I need help", "can you help me with this?" "I don't understand" ...phew! I am reminded that managing second graders is a bit like herding cats - you get one focused and the rest run off somewhere...a full day is spent rounding them up again!
In the afternoon we returned to the Frogs and Toads again, this time coloring the beautiful frogs. The tree frogs with their bright red eyes and orange toes, the Fire Bellied Toads with their green backs and red bellies, the poisoned frogs - bright yellow and red and blue, and the more traditional Lily Pad frogs. We had so many books to look at and so many frogs and toads to talk about. There is even a frog with translucent skin - you can see its organs! What a great afternoon.
There was only one incident of tears ... a little girl who felt she was not being listened to (my fault!) She felt she didn't have a chance to tell me something - she had already told me about 10 things, but I should have listened to one more interruption. I apologized, told her I was sorry she felt she didn't have a chance to share with me, and she was happy to take a moment to take a breath and then refocus. All was good.
We ended the day with high fives and I asked them each to give me a one-word summary of how they think the day went - "Stupendous!" "Awesome" "Great" "Pretty good" "Super".....smiles all around as they headed off to Media-Computers before they went home to their families. Even the teacher (me) was smiling at the end of the day!
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