Sunday, October 16

I have been reading all these other fabulous blogs by teachers and I just don't know where they get the time to write what they do and add all those pictures and links, etc. I can't even keep up with writing on this blog. I would love to make this a diary of what I do each day with my class but I just can't seem to find the time to do that. By the time I get a chance to sit down and write anything, I am so exhausted that I don't! Maybe all those other teachers are much younger than me, I am not sure. But I am glad that I started this blog because it gives me a place to keep track of all those wonderful teachers out there that are giving me new ideas every day.

I absolutely love the language arts blogs I have found, I wish I could find some math blogs that would directly connect with what I am teaching. I am using the Connected Mathematics Project for the first time this year and let me tell you it is difficult. I have a class that is way behind in skills and they are really struggling. I really need to stick with this program though, because it is very close to what we need to be doing to get the common core in place.
My kids don't know their multiplication facts, can you believe that at sixth grade this is a fact! It blows me away. There may be a child or two that is not capable of memorizing the facts but what's up with the rest of the students? Without knowing the facts, they have extreme difficulty moving forward. And they definitely don't READ AND FOLLOW DIRECTIONS!!! Anybody else out there experiencing that???? Just this past Friday, I put a list of things on the board for them to accomplish, in the order I wanted them accomplished. Do you think most followed the order? No! I have 24 students and 15 of them just did whatever they wanted in the order they wanted, even though I kept saying make sure you have blah blah blah done. While they were supposed to be working, I was giving individual assessments and working with individual students so I wasn't walking the room to check on each of them. You would think by sixth grade they could follow directions!!!
I have not had a class like this in YEARS!!!!