Monday, May 13th:
Today was a good day and fairly uneventful. My fifth grade girls (Prissy & Co.) made friendship bracelets and gave me one! My classes either worked on the lesson or had quiet free time while I went around and gave them their phase averages. For being quiet, they were able to earn an extra credit project that I will assign tomorrow - I have at least 7 in each class that are failing, so I figured I should provide at least one more opportunity to improve their marks.
With everyone deep in grading, we didn't have team time today. Instead, we met up at 5:30 and went to dinner at Vin House. We had a good time together, then came back to submerge ourselves in stacks of homework again.
Tuesday, May 14th:
Today I assigned the extra project. It took me awhile to figure out how I would arrange it so I wouldn't have to grade extraneous projects (i.e. the students with a 69/70 wanting to get 100%). I decided to give the top students a worksheet worth up to five extra marks, which they could complete in pairs. The next tier could earn up to 10 extra marks by giving a group (2-3 students) presentation on one of the lessons from our book. They had to include a real-life example of the idea and answer the question, "Why is it important to understand this lesson?" The last group (those who are failing with less than a 50) could earn up to 15 extra marks by drawing a picture and/or telling a story that explained a math lesson. They had to complete this independently and part of their grade was neatness and creativity. I was pleasantly surprised by how well the project went over. All of the projects had to be completed by the end of class - I knew it was the right level of difficulty since most finished within the last five minutes of class. I was really happy to see that all of the students gave their best effort, especially those failing.
In the afternoon I graded the projects ... thankful to discover that it wasn't a laborious task. I enjoyed reading their stories and seeing how well they understood different concepts.
Hannah and I bought some beef the other day and turned it into Mexican fajitas. She cooked up beans and I made homemade tortillas ... definitely a taste of home! Spent the rest of the evening finishing my gradebooks.
