Day 3: Onwards we go

Whew three days in a row is a bit much... I usually do two days a week because a) my lessons are made for two days b) students can handle two days better than three c) I get too tired to do more than two days. 
I can honestly say today was not great. I think the 6th and 7th graders really drain me. They are insanely antsy and squirrely... by the middle of the lesson I had to sit down. That's a big deal. I never ever sit down I always stand and walk around and engage with the entire classroom. So just the fact that I sat down really tells me how tired I was. 

Third graders

​Another day another set of classes! I went in to the third grade classroom and the teacher was no where to be seen. Not to sound like a broken record but lessons tend to go better for the young ones if the teacher is there. Still, it went pretty well. Once the teacher did come the students really calmed down. My biggest concern is how long the actual lesson took. I am just going to not get too weird about it and calm down and play everything by ear.

The first row of third graders.

Second row!

Last but not least.

Look - sometimes writing on a chalk board doesn't yield the prettiest handwriting.

They look focused, right? Key word: "look".

Fourth graders

The fourth graders were much louder in comparison. I think by this time I got a little weary. That's okay though - in my experience I feel tired in the moment but I get over it soon after. We continued with the worksheet that we worked on yesterday. We actually finished it up so yay! I should mention that I personally think the worksheets suck. They sometimes have inaccuracies, they are WAY too hard for these students, and honestly I just don't think they are very well done. I think this is a pattern - where Sinhala-English workbooks are just really bad. Even the ninth grade and O/L English papers are really disappointing. We just have to work with what we have. I hope I don't have to say that in the future too. That's all I really have to say about that. 

We were wrapping up this worksheet. This student was taking so much care with his writing that he was the last to finish his essay <3

Fifth graders

The dictation is good because it forces students to work on retention but boy does it take a good chunk of class time. I don't know how good I feel about sacrificing learning time (class time) for dictation tests. I guess it makes sense because it doesn't matter how much information you throw at students if they don't catch on and hold on to any of it. 

This worksheet is really hard. I had to write the "essay" because this task is way out of the students' wheelhouse.

Sixth and seventh graders

Oof. This class is tough. I literally sat down in this class. I never sit. I think I mentioned all this earlier but I must say it all applies to this class. This class just wears me out. I think one factor could be that there are too many students in the class. Some students truly have no interest in the class. The problem is that I have a hard time telling any student, no matter how unproductive, to not come. At the same time, maybe that is not such a bad thing as the opportunity to learn is then taken from everyone... so then no one learns. It's just that this class is supposed to be open to everyone and showing up in itself is an achievement. Let's just cross our fingers that next week will be better. 

Eighth and ninth and tenth and eleventh graders? 

Okay so eighth and ninth graders were joined by the next class too. I have no idea why but hey I mean they showed up (100% improvement form yesterday). I placed them in an adjacent classroom with those three girls who were also doing worksheets (for those who are not caught up -- I have three girls who already know my lessons so I got them worksheets instead). It was a challenge trying to teach a class and going over to check answers on the other side. It went okay but whenever I would leave the 8th and 9th graders, all chaos would break loose. One trip to the other classroom gave an eighth grader ample time to rip the pages out of another student's book. I hope the older students do decide to come on time because it would help keep the other class on track. Overall, the eleventh grade students really appreciated the worksheets -- they asked for the book which I happily gave. The ninth graders thought their sheets, which were meant for their grade, to be too hard. The tenth graders found the O/L worksheets too hard so I gave them the ninth grade sheets and they also found it too hard. I guess a challenge is never a bad thing but I am considering looking at some eighth or seventh grade worksheets for next week.