Thank you, Black Eyed Peas.
Or whoever wrote “Boom Boom Pow.”
You have made it even easier to explain onomatopoeia to my students.
And they probably now officially hate the song because now all they are ever going to think about when they hear “Boom Boom Pow” is…ONOMATOPOEIA.
This is one of my few posts that is unrelated to teaching. I’m sure someone can relate it to teaching and figure out how to implement in the classroom…but this is far from my concern right now.
As some of you know, I moved far away from friends and family recently. I don’t get to see them anymore, which makes me extremely sad.
However…thanks to my wonderful built-in webcam on my Mac and free services like Skype, I’m able to video-chat with them.
Last night was a first. There were three of us. We all wanted to do the video-chat at the same time together…like a video conference call, I guess.
Thanks to one of my tech-savvy friends who found TokBox, we were able to do this. It completely and utterly made my night.
So FYI to those of you who want to chat it up with a group of friends you don’t get to see very often…TokBox works.
Call me optimistic.
Call me overly-hopeful.
Call me naive.
I don’t care.
But when I taught 6th grade for three years, my students had a semi-understanding of figurative language before they came to me. Granted, it wasn’t much, but they had an inkling of an idea of what it was. For three or four weeks, I would teach them more about figurative language. By the end of the year, these kids were figurative language experts.
I asked my sophomores and freshmen to give me an example of figurative language today.
Blank stares.
I asked for an example of a simile.
Blank stares.
I asked for an example of a metaphor.
Blank stares.
This was the point where I took several deep breaths. How is it that these sophomores don’t know what my sixth graders knew???
I took a “Mental Health Day” on Friday.
Then I went on a mini-vacay for the remainder of the weekend.
It. was. beyond. wonderful.
I returned to this:
*Sigh* I love my incredible students.
Attention all substitutes: I have a love-hate relationship with you. I hate you because you treat my students like crap. I love you because those same students you are mean to, appreciate me so much more when I come back. 
P.S.
Turns out that email from the assistant wasn’t a big deal. All she wanted to tell me was not to believe anything my sub said about my classes. They were good. Sub = wacky. Let me tell you, though…my heart skipped a few beats when I first read the email.
A conversation with one of my lovelies at the Homecoming Dance:
STUDENT: ”OMG, Miss Cheese, do you like my dress?!”
ME: ”It’s very pretty.”
STUDENT: ”It’s Vera Wang!”
ME: ”Mine’s Old Navy.”
Apparently I had a bad hair day today.
STUDENT: ”Miss Cheese, your hair…you look like Medusa today.”
Gee, thanks.
Hey, at least he learned (and remembered) something about Greek Mythology!
After Thanksgiving, I’m going to read Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde with my sophomores. I’ve never read it before, so I’m in the process of reading it and writing my unit plan.
We all know how mature 16 years olds are, right?
I’m currently reading the last chapter of the book. I don’t have it with me, otherwise, I would directly quote the book for you. There is a part of this chapter where Dr. Jekyll is explaining the fusion of the two characters. The author uses a specific word in one sentence to further explain the phenomena. This word is going to cause every single one of the 66 sophomores that I teach to crack up hysterically laughing. They will automatically assume the word means one thing, and one thing only. 99% of them won’t even realize it’s not spelled correctly in order for it to mean what they would like for it to mean. So, then, it will be up to me to explain that the word means something completely different.
You may be asking, “What’s the word?”
Let me tell you:
fagot: a bundle or bunch
I’ll let you know how this plays out soon.
First off – sorry it’s been a week. This chick has been b-u-s-y.
Secondly – I encountered a new situation tonight. It caught me off guard, and made me laugh a little.
My lovely students have a paper due tomorrow, and they are supposed to submit it through Turn It In. By the way, this website is completely new to me…I’m still learning how to use it. Apparently, so are my students. When I got home from the gym tonight, I checked my personal email account. Expecting not to have many emails, I was surprised to see that I had a couple of Facebook emails notifying me that Too Hot to Trot and Cleopatra sent me messages on Facebook.
I am used to students finding me on Facebook. I have my privacy settings set so they cannot see much of anything on my profile. I am NOT used to students finding me on Facebook and sending me messages about…their paper.
“OMG I don’t know how to use turn it in! What do I do?”
“I can’t sign up for Turn It In…I don’t know what to do. I promise I did the paper. Write me back! Hurry!”
These kids don’t really use email. Their means of communication (outside of text messaging) is Facebook.
There’s no way I’m the only teacher this has happened to…I’m not complaining. I just think it’s a little funny.
Speaking of kids that I have accepted “friend requests” with…these kids, while not able to see much more than my profile picture on my Facebook page, have the audacity to make their Facebook status say, “english paper….ughhhhhhhhhhhhh” and “this paper sucks” like I won’t see it. Or maybe they know I’ll see it. Who knows.
Anyone else encounter this stuff?
Presenting a demonstration speech, Chronic Absence (this child is NEVER in school), blows my mind…and the rest of the class:
CHRONIC ABSENCE: [end of speech] “So that’s how you play soccer. Are there any questions?”
17 GOING ON 10: [raises hand] “How is the Cheese School’s soccer team?”
CHRONIC ABSENCE: [not skipping a beat] “Shitty.”
Sigh.
I have a love-hate relationship with Teacher Workdays.
3 Reasons I love/hate Teacher Workdays:
1) Silence. I love Teacher Workdays because it’s quiet in the classroom. No headaches. No excuses. No brattiness. No screaming kids. No non-stop chatter. Silence. I hate Teacher Workdays because it’s quiet in the classroom. No laughter. No chattiness. No one to talk to. Silence. I love having my students in the room. Not only does it give me someone to talk to all of the time, but it provides endless amounts of entertainment.
2) Accomplishment. I love Teacher Workdays because it gives me time to play catch up: grade papers, write lessons, clean up, organize, etc. I hate Teacher Workdays because I get overwhelmed and never feel like I accomplish any of those “catch up” activities.
3) Adult Interaction. I love the opportunity to interact and talk with other adults and not teenagers. I hate this because one of two things happens: the adults never shut up or they talk about miniscule, mind-numbing topics. Or both. More often than not…both.
Why do you love/hate Teacher Workdays?
