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Saturday, September 29, 2012

Assessments Until I Can't See Straight....




OK, I am supposed to be assessing mounds of student art work for 3d - 5th grade at this moment but I am just not feeling the love.  I have to have all of my 3-5 grades posted by Wednesday at midnight for progress report grades.  That's approx. 450 grades!  Some of my students have not finished up their pieces so some will be in progress grades.  Does it sound like fun yet?

I forgot my camera on Friday to take pictures of my K-2 grades pieces that they are doing so I'll do that next week when I recover from progress report grades.  I'm sitting here with my 1/3 finished afghan I'm crocheting on my lap, watching a really bad monster movie on SyFy and drinking cold coffee.  The weather is dreary outside and I just can't get motivated.

Wednesday the sink faucet at the K-2 school decided to fall apart!  This is how the kids saw it...




A giant fountain of fun!



This is how I saw it....


Basically Old Faithful erupting!



Of course it was the beginning of my day and I had a day FULL of painting to do with all my K-2 classes!  I refused to change my plans and spent the day carefully filling water buckets so as not to flood the floor completely and made wet paper towels for the kids to wash their hands with (ALL DAY) The students thought it was cool how the water shot up out of the faucet every time I had to fill the water buckets!  So glad I was able to keep them entertained...  It didn't get fixed until the next day.

Well I think I must move myself, get dressed and start to...






8 comments:

  1. I miss the kids, I miss making art with them and I actually miss the funny things that happen(like exploding sinks and flying paint and fire drills during papier-mâché), but I do NOT miss having to do assessments, and write lesson plans that I have done successfully for decades in a brand new format, just so someone who knows nothing about teaching art can critique them, and me. I can't figure out WHO all these new regulations will actually benefit. Certainly not art teachers who've been teaching for higher level thinking forever!

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    1. Well said! I did laugh several times about the sink on Wed. At one point I accidentally drenched myself and one of the TA's while showing her how it was leaking! We both screamed and laughed as the kids squealed with laughter at us! :)

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  2. I feel your pain! This week was the week from h-e-double hockey sticks for me! Thank goodness my district doesn't have the special area teachers do progress reports, I'd probably be pulling my hair out! I do wish that I could start assessing all my pre-assessments, but my administrator wants me to take a sub day to do that with the other art teacher so we can swap. Soooo, I have this HUGE pile of artwork staring at me in my room, begging to be graded and I can't do it!

    Then, on Thursday, I had my first "potty in the pants" incident in class. Not sure how I made it through two years of teaching without it happening, but it did! On that same day in after school, I had a group of four boys who were so horrendous that I actually cried once they all left! Haven't done that either in two years of teaching! I just keep telling myself...next week can only get better! (And Columbus Day is coming up! :)

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  3. Some weeks are super frustrating! Having to give everyone a progress report grade in 3-5 is basically the same as a report card! So I do 8 report cards a year for them! I have all of Tuesdays classes with me even though they didn't completely finish their project. If I wait until until Tuesday evening to assess them I won't have time to get them all scored and loaded into the computer. So some of my students are getting an "in progress" grade. When they are finished I will go back and score it again (more work for me but I have no choice ) That's not how it's supposed to work but whatever... I'm almost done with 5th grade and 4th is halfway done. I just finished watching the Hunger Games and now I am going for the Avengers. I'm determined to get them all done by sometime tonight so I can get them loaded into the computer tomorrow morning early and be done with it! Hope next week is better for you! :)

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  4. I've retired from 'formal' teaching, and am now teaching after-school art classes - I rent space from the schools, but am not employed by the education department - this means I am accountable to MYSELF! I have been able to remember and revisit all the WONDERFUL things about teaching (the reasons why I became a teacher in the first place) and have said GOODBYE to all the rubbish (like new regulations that are replaced by more new regulations every time you turn around!) that can weigh you down and steal time from the things that really matter!

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  5. I can identify with the crappy week. I overslept two days in a row, forgot my hot glue gun when I really needed it and wimped out on a 4th grade class and let them have a free drawing day because 3 kids weren't finished with their Aboriginal projects and I am sick and tired of having to start a new lesson with stragglers! No exploding sinks, but I can sure empathize!

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    1. Some weeks you just want crawl back in bed and pull the covers over your head! Next week will be better( all my progress report grades will be done!) :)

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