A Confession & An Obsession

I guess I'll start with the confession...more like confessions.  I'm a little manic about crafts and projects so I spent all of last weekend making wreaths...the good thing is that it was quite fun and I only suffered a few minor glue gun burns (which doesn't compare to the 2 scars and power outage I caused with my last glue gun!).  This little problem is just a facet of my personality.  I have lots of energy then I crash...or I have lots of patience then I lose it suddenly!  This leads me to my other confession...I have been losing patience with my students.  And, I learned when I first starting teaching not pray for patience because God will send you lots of things to try that patience.  It's better to pray for mercy.

I thought I could cure my frustrations by spending 3 days going over the skill of "following directions" because I've been so frustrated!  The results were pretty humorous...we did this activity sheet that said to read all of the directions before beginning but most of them (literally 18 out of 19) read them one at a time and embarrassed themselves.  Here is a brief account of the worksheet...

1. Write your name on your paper.
2. Stand up and say "Moo!"
3. Draw a star on the back of this paper.
4. Clap 3 times.
5. Only do direction #1.

The funny thing is that this activity (in which I tricked them) has caused them to ask even more questions so I finally came to the conclusion that my students are wonderful, cute, smart kids but they are still kids...with very little attention spans.  More importantly, I learned that my attention span isn't much better than a kid's and that I still ask a million questions just like they do.  Plus, I don't want the kids to be afraid to ask questions because that's what learning is all about!

The only known solution I have come up with to save my sanity is to use my digital timer! I have them do as much work as they can on their own for the first 15 minutes in the morning and force them to skip and circle questions that they don't understand.  When the timer goes off they can ask for help...this does end up in line of students but it goes faster because they've circled just the ones they have questions about.   Stay tuned for more updates as this is definitely not a perfected procedure!  I just need to be more patient...which is so hard for me and pretty much everyone.

I guess my obsessions are intertwined with my confessions, but I will go ahead and tell what my original obsession was going to be in this post.  I love office supplies and I go nuts when I find something new and innovative.  I found these "backpack file folders" at Target that are just too cool.  I doubted my $3 investment until I opened them and fell in love.  They are files that go in your (or more likely a child's) backpack to organize your papers without the need of a binder.  The tabs face up so you can see them...see picture below.  Also see the pic of my classroom wreath ;)  I love what I do!