(busy day) Thursday

Fact: DisneyWorld Orlando has four main parks: Magic Kingdom, EPCOT, Hollywood Studios, and Animal Kingdom. It also has two water parks: Typhoon Lagoon and Blizzard Beach. There is also Downtown Disney (which includes DisneyQuest an indoor theme park).

Fact: Driving restrictions in Mexico City:

• Monday: no driving if license plate ends with 5 or 6.
• Tuesday: no driving if license plate ends with 7 or 8.
• Wednesday: no driving if license plate ends with 3 or 4.
• Thursday: no driving if license plate ends with 1 or 2.
• Friday: no driving if license plate ends with 9, 0 or a letter.
• Saturday and Sunday: All vehicles may be driven.

Fact: Rabbis can marry. In fact they are encouraged to do so.

I can’t remember if there were any other questions left dangling by the end of the day, if there were, please ask them in the comments at the end.

A slow start to the day for me, as the sixth grade had computing followed by Spanish, I used that opportunity to mark three sets of books and upload the grades into the computer. However, this was to turn out to be the calm before the storm. As a group we got through a huge amount of work: maths was double bar charts/line graphs; English was grammar (double negatives and contraction) and a spelling quiz; geography turned in the history of South Africa, we’re up to 1961. At this point some of us became overwhelmed. It has been an excellent week so far. The behaviour has been good, concentration has been high. I’d like to say it was because everyone has been having breakfast. However, some of the students still haven’t quite worked out the lunch side of the equation. It will come. Also, last night seemed to a late night for some students – having left their computer homework until the last minute (you’d think we’d never talked about punctuality this year) – so there was a certain amount of tiredness creeping into the classroom by the last lesson. So I decided that we would read. Some heads fell into books, and I could see eyes struggling to stay open. It is a good job that tomorrow is what it is, followed by five days off school. A chance to catch up on sleep.

I haven’t mentioned homework notebooks this week because I’ve been holding my breath, not daring to break the spell. Monday night, all books signed. Tuesday night, all books signed. Wednesday night, I’m sorry to say that two books were not signed. Grrrrr!

Something New: Stephen Hawking says there are aliens and they are not friendly.

Favourite Moment Of The Day (FMOTD): I wasn’t really listening

Overheard this morning:

So my dad asks me what I think my life would be like in 15 years time. And I told him that I didn’t know. And so he started to talk about jobs and finances and this and that. And so I just started to listen for a bit and then think about something else and then listen a bit and then think about something else.

So what was he saying?

I don’t know. I wasn’t really listening.

Made me laugh.

Attendance: All present

Homework:

• Reading Log: Just bring in the number of pages read.
• Story: Write a blog post. Comment on blogs
• Reading: This is not an option. You should be reading 20 minutes every night.

Tomorrow:

• Enter at 8:45am
• No backpacks
• Lunch in a paper bag (everything disposable)
• Picked up from CECUT at 12:45pm

(learn something new) Wednesday

I love learning. I love learning new things. The world is a huge place, full of wonders and mysteries, and there is nothing I like better than to discover new things, or find out that something I thought I knew was totally wrong. One of my favourite television programmes is QI (Quite Interesting). This is a quiz show that is based around facts that we all think we know, and yet it turns out that we are wrong. Last night I was watching an episode where they talked, amongst many other things, about the thorny devil lizard which drinks with its feet. Amazing! This led to a whole other branch of interesting information, which I cover in my FMOTD down the page. However, this morning I learnt a lot about lizards (oh, where is Jose Manuel when you need him?).

The maths lesson was a bit of a mess. It was individual photograph day, which meant that pupils were in and out for most of the lesson. We covered Spreadsheets, in as much as we cover spreadsheets in maths. It was more about the position of cells, and interpreting the data held within. In Science we moved on to a new topic: Forces. After doing drawings of kites, marbles, bowling balls, and wardrobes, we finally arrived at Friction. There are three types of friction: static, sliding, rolling. And it was here that I, Mr.Kay, managed to make a huge mistake – not just a normal mistake, a mistake that was built on a previous mistake. The previous mistake was: the pyramids were built by slaves. Today I made that false statement worse by saying that: Egyptian slaves built the pyramids by rolling the blocks on tree trunks. Fortunately, this statement was followed by recess.

During recess, which meant that I was sat under the wireless transmitter (I must remember to ask that the signal is boosted), I went on the internet and visited youtube. I was looking for a video of pyramids being built – Camila had objected to my suggestion, and come up with another idea. I discovered the BBC programme: Building the Great Pyramid. This had been split into six parts and uploaded. I downloaded, and after recess we watched the first three parts. Oops. It appears that the pyramids were built by citizens, not slaves. Also, it appears that the slabs of stone were moved using sliding not rolling! You learn something new every day, and today I learnt several new things. Which makes today a good day!

Something New: The Thorny Devil Lizard drinks with its feet.

Favourite Moment Of The Day (FMOTD): Have you killed another pet?

Yesterday I heard about the Thorny Devil lizard. In order to protect itself, the lizard is covered in armour. This armour doesn’t allow the lizard to bend it’s neck and allow it to drink water. Therefore it has developed a system of capillaries (very thin tubes) around the surface of its body. If it dips its foot in water, the water runs up these capillaries and drips into the corner of its mouth. Professor Rene discovered me downloading the picture on the right, and asked if that was the lizard that squirted blood out of its eyes? Eh? It appears that there is a lizard that squirts blood out of its eyes. And if you don’t believe me, here’s a video of a short horned lizard, shooting blood from its eyes:

Of course, you should never believe anything you find on the internet, even if it is put there by National Geographic. So, I happened to mention the lizard to Miss Tere Rochin. Not only had Miss Tere heard of the short horned lizard that shoots blood from its eyes, Miss Tere’s son had owned a short horned lizard that shot blood from its eyes! And how did Miss Tere discover this fact? Because one day, her son’s lizard shot blood from its eyes. Miss Tere’s reaction to the sight? Have you killed another pet?

Attendance: All present

Homework:

• Maths: Reteaching 11-2 Nos: 1,2  Practice 11-2 Nos: 1 – 4
• Story: Write a blog post. Comment on blogs
• Reading: This is not an option. You should be reading 20 minutes every night.

(monday) Tuesday

Happy Birthday Paulina R. (back from exercising Guillermo’s credit card).

A sticky start to the day – papier mâché in art. In theory, this should mean that the glue was all over the newspaper which was being wrapped around the balloons. So, how come there was glue in hair, glue on clothes, glue everywhere?  This took time to wash off, wash out, which meant that most of the maths lesson disappeared in getting ready for the group photo. Yes, we took he group photo again, and this time everyone was present. Hurray! A group photo for graduation – a memory sealed away.

In maths we covered Histograms – although I call them bar charts/graphs – before and after recess. Once the maths was done we corrected the English spelling homework, and then into the Grammar books. Contractions, and my favourite, Negatives. In English there is a double negative, hence: No se nada would translate as: I don’t know nothing. This actually means: I know everything.

In other news, the majority of the class had breakfast! The content of lunch boxes looked better as well. Now we just have to cover our debts with the store and recess can be an enjoyable time, stress free, and energy inducing!

Yesterday was a good day for student blog posts. Do go read them, and please, do comment!

Something New: There are NO muscles in your fingers.

Favourite Moment Of The Day (FMOTD): Is it 100 miles away?

Professor Israel is away today, and I was called in to take his class for a lesson. This was the first time I had taught his class, so it meant that there had to be a moment of introduction. Although all of the children in the school know me, most of them don’t know about me. Many students don’t know that I am from England, they assume I am from the US. Today I told the second grade I was from England, a country that is “a long way away from here.” To which,to put the whole thing in persepective, one student asked me: Is it 100 miles away?

Attendance: All present (plus one goldfish)

Homework:

• Maths: Practice 11-1 Nos: 1 – 5
• Grammar: Workbook page: 84
• Story: Write a blog post. Comment on blogs
• Reading: This is not an option. You should be reading 20 minutes every night.

Tomorrow: Individual Photos. Gala Uniform.

(tuesday) Monday

For those of us who don’t like Mondays, today had the possibility to be great. Today we followed Tuesdays timetable. Well, that was the plan! Yesterday was a great day. The kermés was a great success. However, when I arrived, at 2pm, I could not see the floor! It was covered in confetti and eggshells. Yes, all the hard work put into making eggs was reaping its reward as 14000+ eggs were smashed on to people’s heads. There was no way that the school would be clean and tidy, and ready for an assembly on Monday morning. And so, it was decided that we would have Tuesday’s timetable on Monday and Monday’s timetable on Tuesday. I would like to mention that Señor Francisco and his team did an excellent job. When I arrived Monday morning there was he odd piece of confetti still around, but the clean up job that had been done was awesome!

Then the bad news: no Miss Claudia.

I had an excellent day. I don’t know if it was the fact that the day started off with me (and continued with me), but the students were brilliant. They settled to work quickly, they spoke English all day, they achieved a great amount, we had a lot of fun.

I could write about the Frequency Tables we did in maths, the spelling list we did in English, what we learnt about South Africa in geography. However, we did have a discussion, at one stage, about breakfast. I was amazed to discover that several students do not have breakfast. This I find incredible, in the whole “not believable” meaning of incredible. At this age, breakfast is very, very important. The more I looked into this, the more surprised I was to discover that one student, not only had no breakfast but regularly only had a bag of chips for lunch. We all drive cars and we know that when we fill up we have a choice between two types of petrol (three in the US). We love our cars, we worry about our cars, and we put the best fuel into our cars. The better the fuel, the better the car works. It also lasts a lot longer. We should do the same with our children. The fuel (food) we put into our children is very important. More importantly, we have to put fuel in! They need breakfast, they need lunch. Without any fuel, students lack concentration, the ability to work. Take it from, a teacher and a parent, there is a connection between your child’s behaviour/grades and the food that they eat. All children should have a breakfast. All children should have a lunch. That is a basic. Once you have that important base covered, then you need to look at the quality of the fuel that you are putting into your child. Are Lucky Charms the way to go? Well, they are better than nothing, but read the ingredients. Is a bag of chips a lunch? Again, better than nothing but why not a granola bar? Please, if you are a student reading this, tell your parents. If you are a parent who reads this blog, please tell other parents. I cannot emphasise enough, if you want your child to do well in school, the best possible way to give them a chance in the classroom is to feed them the proper food.

Something New: Santos 1 – 1 America. Santos are in the play offs (and so are America).

Favourite Moment Of The Day (FMOTD): Memo gave her his credit card and she’s off spending!

Yesterday, at the kermés, many of the students got “married”. In some cases (I’m looking at you Shai) they got married more than once. (But Mr. Kay, one didn’t count because it was Heriberto’s sister. So only two of them count!) In amongst all the marriages that took place in the classroom, Paulina R. had married Guillermo. At some point during the day, I asked about Paulina and if anyone knew why she wasn’t at school. The reply: Memo gave her his credit card and she’s off spending! Last Friday, in the FMOTD I said [quote]: Paulina R. is not someone you want to mess with! [end quote]. If only Guillermo had read my blog. Then he wouldn’t have married Paulina, and have to hand over his credit card.

Attendance: One absent. (off running up a bill on Guillermo’s credit card)

Homework:

• Maths: Practice 11-1 No:1
• Spelling: Workbook page: 84
• Spelling Corrections
• Story: There are a lot of stories to tell from yesterday – write a blog post.
• Reading: This is not an option. You should be reading 20 minutes every night.

Tomorrow: Tomorrow is “Monday”. Gala Uniform. Art Class.

(kermés) Sunday

Hope to see you all at the Kermés today. I will be there at about 2pm. definitely before 4pm, so that I can hear who won the egg making competition. I will not be wearing my cowboy hat, as I foolishly forgot it on Friday and it will probably be locked away. I will, however, be wearing my cowboy boots!

maria will also be there taking pictures. So, if you go, make sure that maria sees you and takes your pictures, please.

Don’t forget, PE uniform on Monday!

(tv star) Saturday

Ana Andrea is on television today. The programme is on Channel 12 (Channel 9 on Cablemas)and starts at 10am. She isn’t on first, but reckons that she’ll appear around about 10:45am.

She’ll be dancing.

(St. George’s Day) Friday

I was born in Sheffield, a city in the north of England. My passport says that I am a citizen of The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. However, I always see myself as English, not British. From England, not the UK. Today, 23rd April, is St. George’s Day. St. George is the patron saint of England. The Cross of St. George (a red cross on a white background) is the flag of England. That explains why I am “flying the flag” on the top of this post. It also explains why I was wearing a white shirt with a red tie today!

23rd April is also the birthday of England’s greatest playwright, William Shakespeare. [It is also the anniversary of his death – bad news that, dying on your birthday.]

It wasn’t my turn to speak at morning line up, however as it is St. George’s Day I took the opportunity to give a quick lesson about The Union Jack.The Union Jack is the flag that most people associate with my country, as it is the flag of The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. It is made up from three flags: The Cross of St. George (the patron saint of England); The Cross of St. Andrew (the patron saint of Scotland); and The Cross of St. Patrick (the patron saint of Ireland).

I did ask for the day off, you know, what with it being my country’s day of celebration. However, it was pointed out to me that I was working towards a Mexican passport, and had quite happily been taking Mexican National holidays. I then tried to point out that as I had dual citizenship that maybe I could have dual holidays? I worked today.

Not only did I have to work today, I had to work extra! Professor Rene was again absent, so while the sixth grade had PE, I had fifth grade maths. A successful lesson all round. The fifth grade can now name triangles in two different ways, and the sixth grade managed to get through a whole lesson with Professor Dandy, leaving him with a smile on his face.

A quick revision of Transformations: Translations, Rotations, and Reflections. Everyone seemed to understand what is required, so it was time to move on to a new topic, but that can wait until Monday. We put away our maths books and went onto the Grammar workbooks, to check how things had gone with “Who and Whom“. Last night, I had received an email from Guillermo in which he had actually used the word whom correctly. Plus, everyone had assured me at the end of yesterday’s lesson, that they knew what they were doing. We had to go through the questions.one.at.a.time. I was then assured that everyone definitely understood what we doing! A quick twenty questions later and…success! Twenty students got 16 or more correct! Time to move on again – spelling quiz!

Friday is the day that we take in the reading log pages. This has been a bad week in the classroom and I wasn’t holding my breath, waiting for big numbers. Scarlatte took advantage of the exams – with a chance to read after them – and a day off to post a huge number, but others also managed to do well. This week I have nine (nine) names on The Wall of Fame:

THE WALL OF FAME

1300 pages: Scarlatte

870 pages: Paulina R.

525 pages: Ana Elena

510 pages: Monica

411 pages: Valerio

372 pages: Alejandro

345 pages: Camila

330 pages: Miroslava

300 pages: Andrea

With another six students in the 200+ Club, it has been another excellent week for reading. Well done everyone!

After recess, music. Miss Maria decided to teach them a song on the recorder: Frere Jacque. It went so well that she taught it as a “round” – when one group finishes a part, another group starts. I was sat outside, in the playground, and must admit that the final practice session was note perfect. Unfortunately I didn’t video the final practice, I videoed this:

Then into the weekend! See you all on Sunday at the kermés.

Something New: St. George’s Day

Favourite Moment Of The Day (FMOTD): 870

Paulina R. is not someone you want to mess with! Several weeks ago, Ana Elena made a comment about how many pages Paulina had read, and (sort of) implied that she would never read more than Ana Elena. SInce then Paulina’s page counts have been:  427, 364, 351, 389, 387, and 310. These are excellent totals, and anyone achieving these totals should be content, happy with the amount they are reading. Not Paulina. Ana Elena has managed to stay just above (sometimes below) these numbers. This inspired Paulina to go on a crash reading course. The total for this week? 870. That’s eight hundred and seventy pages. On average, just over 120 pages a day. Excellent.

Attendance: All Present

Homework Notebooks: 22 out of 22 signed

Circulars signed: 17 out of 20

Homework:

• Keep writing blog posts
• Keep commenting
• PE uniform Monday
• Reading: This is not an option. You should be reading 20 minutes every night.

(getting it right) Thursday

A good day. Hard work but some great results. Sometimes we make mistakes, sometimes we don’t realise what is going on around us, sometimes it just needs our eyes opening a little bit. School is supposed to be fun. It is supposed to a place where people are happy. It is supposed to be a place where people want to go. However, it needs to be remembered that it is a place for everyone. When it goes right, all 23 people (students plus teacher) working together, school is the best! When it goes wrong, all 23 people working in different directions, school is the worst! Today, after a couple of hiccups, was a good day.

I started the day off in the fifth grade doing angle pairs: complementary, supplementary, opposite angles. Then onto the sixth grade and more maths. Rotations and rotational symmetry. Thank goodness for tracing paper because it is very difficult to visualise turning a rhombus (it’s a rhombus not a diamond) through 360°. So difficult that I got it totally wrong! By the time recess came around I had continued to make mistake after mistake. Hopefully the next lesson would be something straight forward, something easy-peasy-lemon-squeezy, something that wouldn’t be difficult to explain.

Have you ever tried to teach “Who and Whom” to twelve year olds? Twelve year olds who (did you see what I did there?) don’t even know that the word “whom” exists? It’s not easy. It should be straight forward: who is for the subject; whom is for the object. And, by the end, most of the class were getting it right. But it took a long time to get to the end…a very long time. However, some of the students might want to go to Harvard and therefore it might be important that they can ask: To whom do I give my application form?

The Science lesson started with an explanation of how a sun/star uses nuclear fusion to create radiation, moved on through a discussion of the speed of light (and a demonstration from Shai how light travels faster than sound), and ended up at e=mc². We managed to mention quantum physics and string theory, on the way. I say mentioned because there was no way I can explain those things!

At the end of the day we took home a note explaining several things:

• Sunday 25th Kermes! Come in cowboy costume (and buy some eggs!!)
• Monday 26th will be a Tuesday. So come in PE uniform.
• Tuesday 27th will be a Monday. So come in Gala Uniform. (Hopefully we might take the group photo again and get Scarlatte in it!)
• Wednesday 28th come in Gala Uniform for individual photos.
• Friday come in normal uniform (not PE). We will be going to CECUT to watch a film on the IMAX screen (about Mummies – hopefully not my mum!). We will need parents to offer lifts, so we can get all the students there. Then, at 1pm all of the kids can be picked up from CECUT and go home!!!

Hopefully, those will all come back, signed, tomorrow and some will be filled in, offering lifts.

Oh, before I forget, the final count of the eggs was today:

1489 eggs

This is an eggcellent total, eggspecially as most of the eggs were produced by two students: Alejandra and Heriberto. Big thanks to them. Big thanks to everyone else who made some eggs. Big raspberry to those who did nothing: thththththththththththththththththththththththth!

Something New: Earth Day

Favourite Moment Of The Day (FMOTD): Cat, window, teacher, chair, egg, book, pen, shoe, zebra

Yesterday we made a list random list of nine nouns, as an experiment. The experiment was to see who could remember the list. Now, remember this is the sixth grade I am talking about. The sixth grade who can’t remember to get their homework diaries signed most nights, so no chance of them remembering a random list. Except…except I taught them a way to remember things and 16 out of 20 students, 24 hours after the event, remembered the list. Now, I just have to wait until sometime next week/month and see if they still remember it.

Attendance: Two absent.

Homework Notebooks: 19 out of 19 signed (one left at home but it’s signed)

Homework:

• Maths: Practice 10 -8
• Grammar: Workbook page: 80
• Story: Two blog entries (minimum) this week. Don’t forget to comment
• Reading: This is not an option. You should be reading 20 minutes every night.

(start again) Wednesday

Maths: Reflections in the x-axis and y-axis. If Translations are sliding, then Reflections are turning over. Amazing how complicated people can make this.

English:  Spelling list. Wrote the words out three times in notebooks, then answered pages: 77 and 78.

Recess: it was raining and so we all sat inside the classroom.

Science: The Solar System. Naming the planets in order.

Geography: The Suez Canal. Regional areas of Africa.

Something New: Catatumba Lightning. 150 nights, 10 hours, 280 times an hour.

Favourite Moment Of The Day (FMOTD): Let’s see how many people remember the random list.

Attendance: One absent.

Homework Notebooks: 21 out of 21 signed (allegedly – although one book turned up unsigned, although I had been assured it was at home signed)

Homework:

• Maths: Practice 10 -7
• Spelling: Workbook pages: 79, 80
• Spelling Corrections
• Story: Two blog entries (minimum) this week.
• Reading: This is not an option. You should be reading 20 minutes every night.

(let’s put this behind us) Tuesday

You may have noticed a lack of posting yesterday. Oh, I eventually got round to writing a post (quite late for me) but you might have noticed the lack of content. This is because I didn’t want to write about yesterday. I’m not totally convinced I want to write about today. However, I’ll give it a go.

Yesterday, Monday, was a hard day for me. I’m sure that it was fairly hard for the students, they were sitting ENLACE exams. However, each section of the exam took 45 minutes. Most students finished each section in 10. They were encouraged to check their work, they gave it a cursory look, and then had 34 minutes left to do…?? This happened four times yesterday, as they had to do four sections of the exam. This meant that for four 34 minute sessions I had to deal with students who couldn’t sit still, read, work on their own quietly without disturbing others. Yesterday become one long battle between the students and the teacher (that’s me), as they spent most of the time doing exactly what I had just asked them not to do. Many of the students commented about this in their blogs, so I was of the opinion that yesterday was a one off. Move on. That was yesterday. Today was supposed to go a lot better.

It didn’t.

There was no silence at second bell. In fact, there was no silence for most of morning line up. The marching was awful. In the classroom I had to remind the students three times, as they were settling down, to speak English. Two students hadn’t done their homework. [And let’s get it straight, their homework was to get their Homework Notebooks signed. Something they should have been doing all year, and yet it is still impossible for sixth graders!] This is not the discipline I expect from sixth graders who are about to graduate.

We sat the first section of the exam. Most students finished in ten minutes and most students had brought something into school to occupy them for the remaining time. However, there were some students who hadn’t, and they continued to disturb others. We went for the group photograph. Five times I had to remind students to speak English. Back in the classroom we worked through the remaining three sections of the exam, and most of my patience.

Recess. Again I had to remind students to speak English.

History lesson. Miss Claudia was not happy. She felt that the behaviour of the class was poor. It was not a very enjoyable lesson

PE lesson. Professor Dandy took the class off the playground after 20 minutes. No one was listening to instructions, everyone wanted to “do their own thing”.

This is not how a classroom works. I understand that the exams add a certain amount of stress to the students lives but, I’m sorry if you are a parent reading this, I’m not convinced that many of the students took the exams very seriously. They rushed through questions, finished quickly, refused to check their work. However, the exams are not a good enough excuse for the behaviour at morning line up. Nor are they an excuse for the behaviour in History and PE.

Tomorrow is another day. Tomorrow will be better (it could hardly be worse).

Something New: Eyjafjallajökull. No, I don’t know how to pronounce it.

Favourite Moment Of The Day (FMOTD): 2:31pm (for the second day running)

Attendance: One absent.

Homework Notebooks: 19 out of 21 signed

Homework:

• Get Homework Notebook signed.
• Story: Two blog entries (minimum) this week
• Reading: This is not an option. You should be reading 20 minutes every night.