I Heart Fridays!!

Well, I had my first good day today (!!!). Fridays should be good; there's a lot of fun stuff to do on Fridays. Today we also got all of our objectives met! Who would've thunk? We got through: a practice reading/vocab test, math and language review, reading review, a fun writing activity (that I'll discuss below), a decent math lesson (I do believe), earned free time, and our weekly raffle. Though the students were rowdy, I have just rearranged their desks, so hopefully that'll cut down on the talking a bit.

So I'm super psyched about the writing activity we did today! My cooperating teacher from the spring (who was AWESOME) had come up with a fun thing to do for the 6 traits of writing ... She got paint samples from Home Depot (the ones that come about 4-5 colors on a sheet), and she cut them into individual colors/pieces. Each color has an outrageous name (like "Fluid Burgandy" or "Silvery Teardrops"). Anyway, I did this activity again today, and it was great: first, I showed the class a few of the examples. I wrote the names of the colors on the board (like "Midnight Sky"). Then, I told them to use their imaginations- that their job was to be the new namers of the colors. After a few simple ideas (e.g., "Nighttime" or "blue-black"), the ideas really started flowing. Here are some of the awesome names the kids came up with on their own (with the color in parentheses):

-wet sand (dark orange)
-storm cloud (a deep grey)
-eye of the storm (a dark blue-grey color)
-super sadness (a deep blue color)
-brown crust
-green loogey (I love that one!)
-American flag blue
-nightmare (dark blue)
-grizzly bear (dark brown)
-knock-out gas (dark green)
-foggy day (baby blue)
-golf grass
-brick wall
-Sunday knight (deep green)
-charming pink
-black raspberry
-fiery tree (deep brown)
-Neptune sea
-baby blanket blue
-midnight laughs (black)
-rotten pear (yucky yellow-green)
-green uppercut (neon green)

So aren't they awesome?! Some of these names came from students who usually don't participate in class or do their homework. I was astounded when I went through them; they've got some really good ideas there. :) Maybe MY kids should be the one naming paints after all!

Anyway, the day ended rather nicely with an extended recess (the class chose to use the 19 minutes of earned free time from the week for more recess) and a quick spelling game that the students love. All in all, a good day! I'm trying to leave school by 6 tonight, so wish me luck! :)

Dr. D. (our dubious superintendant) told the new staff to take it easy this weekend... we are NOT to do school work at least one day this weekend, so that we can relax. Even the principal approached me yesterday, making sure I wasn't working too hard. Ha! She should've thought of that before she OKed my taking on a combination class my first year! :P It's good to know people care, though.

On a final note for the week, the staff here is really good. Though the administration is a bit shady and questionable, I figure I don't deal with them enough to really worry about it. I figure I'll just do the best I can in the classroom, and the rest should mostly fall into place. That's all for now! I need to get out of here soon!