let’s set new targets

The value of the month is accomplishment. After yesterday’s day of exasperation, plus a desire to not lose all my hair, I decided on a new approach. Obviously I have been focusing on the negative waaaaaaaaay too much. What I need to do is focus on the positive, focus on the good things, focus on avoiding a stress related heart attack. So, with this in mind, meet the blackboard: The Wall Of Accomplishment.

My plan, because I do have a plan, is to focus on what we do accomplish as a group. To point out that so many students do get their homework signed, that so many students do do their homework. And, as part of my belief that we all start with a 10, I’m giving the whole class a 10 in conduct and a 10 in speaking English. We are also slow to get ready between lessons, after a discussion with the class, we decided that a good target would be 2 minutes. So, between me saying “get your big fat book, notebook, colours, clean underwear” and the class being ready for me to start teaching, they now have two minutes. We’ll start with a 10 and we will lose points every time we fail to accomplish our target. And, to celebrate our success? (Assuming it happens?) We’ll wait and see. I don’t think there will be iPhones involved.

An odd start to the day, Spanish. This confused me no end as I always teach first lesson, except on Thursdays. In other words, I’ve spent the whole of today thinking it was Thursday. Not that this thought affected the way I teach, it just made me feel that I’d lost a day somewhere, and we might be a bit behind in my lesson plans. However, the non-contact time gave me a chance to start uploading the grades into the computer. This can be a slow and laborious task, full of fear. As you move your eyes from the book with the grades, to the keyboard, to the screen – there is a chance to make so many mistakes, and it freaks me out. What if I put the wrong grade in the wrong place. Oddly enough, I’m not worried about giving someone a low grade. If a student gets a low grade, they complain immediately and the mistake gets cleared up. It is actually giving a student a false high grade, because that can take ages to trace down. Anyway, the grades are entered.

Maths. Changing fractions into decimals. After spending ten minutes explaining that 4/25 cannot possibly be a whole number, it is a tiny fraction, a very small part of a whole, I asked what 7/25 might be as a decimal. “7.25?” “25.7?” But, but, but these have whole number parts, I explained. “Ohhhhhhh, is it 2.57?” There are days that I doubt my ability to communicate. There are days that I doubt my ability to teach. It was one of those moments when you have to walk out the door, take a deep breath, walk back, and do your job. The good news, we all understood by the end. Good job, well done! Just took two hours to teach a one hour lesson. Hey, ho!

English was the new spelling list. However, as we had spent so much time on the maths lesson, there was very little time left to do anything except have our “trial” spelling test.

The IT guy (shall we call him Professor Jared) did some work behind the scenes and (dah-dar) got Google Earth working on the SmartBoard. Brilliant! We had a 3D tour of Rome. We got to see Le Tour Eiffel. We got to see The Colosseum up close and personal – does everyone know that Mr. Kay has actually visited The Colosseum? That’d be the same week that he had an audience with John Paul II and shared a meal with Mother Teresa. [Is that enough name dropping for one blog post?] Anyway, the joy of messing about using Google Earth as an educational teaching aid  meant that Enrique did not get to show his rocks. I’m sorry. So, we’ll save that for tomorrow. Oh, one thing we did do, while messing about using Google Earth as an educational tool, we also went on Google Maps. I don’t know if you have ever used Google Maps but they have a street view. If you go to my mum’s house, in Norfolk, and then move up the street. There is a picture of my mum. She’s waving at the Google car, because she’s nice like that. You can see her here. I love my mum. She has no idea what Google is (Why would you need a search engine? I have a full set of encyclopaedias.) but will quite happily wave at cars as they go through her village. <a href=" Ludham, Great Yarmouth, NR29, UK

Ludham, Great Yarmouth, NR29, UK

1.536027141776277 52.71087106751404 0 -0.2718428348395179 0 1077.240279084942 relativeToGround relativeToSeaFloor normal http://maps.gstatic.com/intl/en_ALL/mapfiles/kml/pal3/icon60.png highlight 1.3 http://maps.gstatic.com/intl/en_ALL/mapfiles/kml/pal3/icon52.png 1.535464,52.710017,0 ” target=”_blank”>here. [And it is a beautiful village, if you have Google Earth go look at Ludham, Norfolk, UK.]

Right, I have to go. I am cooking Yorkshire Puddings tonight and I need to get started on those.

Homework:

• Maths: Practice 3-9 Nos: 1, 3, 5, 7-17
• Spelling: page:21 write spellings out 3 times in notebook
• Laptops: charged
• Writing Assignment: The Race (for Friday)
• Art: Empty (clean) milk carton and old magazines.
• Read: 20 minutes
• Homework Diary: signed