This week was chaotic for many reasons, only a few having to do with the students. The groups were reorganized again, this time combining groups 6 and 7. Thursdays also only have one group as well, meaning Thurdays are now only group 5. We had to reorganize our lessons a bit because of that. There was confusion on which students belonged where because groups 1 and 2 were reorganized as well. On top of it all, we were preparing for Fall Fest on Thursday.
This week, the students practiced more sewing in preparation for the major sewing project at the end of the year.
Completed lines of stitches students made. These two particular sheets were left behind in the classroom at the end of the day.
On Monday, we spent more time than normal getting the students into their groups while we checked and rechecked lists. I recognized that the posted list of which teachers had which groups had been printed with a mistake. The ones for the doors had the old list on them. The new list only ended being posted on the wall in the cafeteria. That caused some confusion while we tried to figure out which one was correct, but we got it sorted out. After the confusion around getting to the classroom, the students were excited and got right into the project instead of doing homework for 30 minutes first. None of them had homework and they wouldn't have sat quietly for that long, anyway. They had fun picking music while they worked. To keep them focused, they were told that students who finished would get an extra piece of candy at the end of class. Several students finished and colored on coloring pages for the rest of class. Group 1 got less time to work than the first group. They kept taking over me while I was trying to give directions. They would interrupt with things about sewing and people they knew who could sew which was interesting, but it was frustrating that they interrupted me to say it. We had a quick talk about manners, interrupting, and raising their hands, then finished directions with better behavior. Group 1 was pretty good after they got started.
On Wednesday, the students were pretty good. They got bored of the sewing pretty quick, though. They had trouble with the needles, so I got them ones made of a harder plastic. They had trouble with the regular paper, so we printed off copies on card stock. They either finished early or were bored with the sewing, so we told them they had to do two lines of the worksheet before they could color. This way, the bored students still learned, but weren't made to do something they found no interest in the whole time. They were given word searches and coloring sheets when they finished.
On Thursday, it was Fall Fest. The students only had time to do homework. After they ate their snack and did their homework, we gathered all the students in the teen space to watch a movie while parents arrived and students who weren't participating in Fall Fest were picked up. I spent the rest of the evening playing pin the nose on the pumpkin and monitoring games of corn hole. I talked with plenty of students, helped clean up afterwards, and went home tired. It was a good day, though.
This week was a challenge of flexibility and thinking on my feet. There was a lot going on every day, providing a different situation to work through with every turn. Hopefully as the new schedule settles in there will be less confusion and the students will settle into the routine nicely.
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