Take cover!

Yesterday my resident teacher gave all the students Jelly Belly Flops (the funky shaped rejects from the jelly bean factory).  She intended to do a lesson on circle graphs with them, but when it wasn't going well, she announced that they could stop and EAT their jelly beans while Miss Runyan introduced the next math lesson.  SABOTAGE!  Yes, please give them a cup full of sugar as I try to teach them how to find the area of a triangle.  Jelly beans were being traded, thrown, spilled all over desks, pushed up noses and smushed into the carpet.  Then the sugar-high hit....a child literally stabbed another student's math book with scissors!  Needless to say, he lost his jelly beans.  In all the chaos, I took some deep breaths and, incidently, my nostrils flared....the student in front of me saw this and said, oh so dramatically, "She's gonna blow!  TAKE COVER!"  To that student...thanks for keeping me laughing in the chaos ;)

Student teaching...

Being that February is almost over (how did THAT happen?!) I'll digress from the New Year's Resolutions (my car is a mess again and instead of getting organized...I'm blogging).  Here's some highlights from student teaching:


My first evaluation was awful.  At one point I literally saw her shake her head at me and take notes on while my heart sank and I pummled through the lesson.  The first thing she did was compare me to my student-teacher friend from next door, "Now, you're not Tony...he's really engaging and motivating..."  She gave me all 3's "even though some of them should really be 2's" she said.  Yeah, I cried.  2's are failing.  Fast forward two weeks and I rock the evals with 4's across the board!  Conclusion: don't teach math in front of her again.  Seriously....give me anything else.


Also, students will do just about anything you ask if you agree to speak in a British, Irish, or Russian accent for them.  My students are in a perfect line in the morning, follow rules, and do their work....all in exchange for some silly accent.  Love it!  


We recently took the class to see Ballet de Folclorico (Columbian Folk Dancing) at the local theater.  It was great right up until the last number, which was less like folk dancing and more like a Vegas Showgirl Act.  The girls weren't topless, but take away the tassles and they would have been.  The super low cut skin tight bottoms didn't help.....these are 4th ad 5th graders!  The boys went CRAZY, high fiving and snickering....then I realized the boy next to me was playing with his junk, shifting his body around, pulling his leg up to hide what he'll hear all about in the school-wide Boy Talk next month!  What were these people thinking?!  When we had to write about our field trip back in class the boys said, "Miss Runyan, what was the name of that last dance?!  I really liked that last one....and the costumes....I really liked the costumes!"  So, to all my friends who had little boys this year:  give 'em the boy talk early and ask about the field trips they're going to at school!  LOL.