Just Another Manic Monday

There were seven teachers absent today and the Principal. One of our Vice Principals resigned last week. The bells are off too. Every time the power goes off or surges our clocks speed up. Today, some bells didn't even ring. I reset my trusty Transformer Watch with the first bell each morning. Today, Hopwood is 5 minutes behind the clock on my computer. By 3rd Period, the bell was 7 minutes early! So I reset my watch again.

Today in class, we reviewed what we learned last week about nutrients, digestion and nutrition, by playing a game that Sally found on the internet. In the game, the students create an assembly line to represent the digestive system. A 'food particle' represented by a small ziplock bag with candy (nutrients) is inside a larger bag with corn starch packaging foam and shredded paper. That bag is inside a larger bag with the same filling. The 'teeth' tear open the bag and saliva (water) is added. The food particle is passed down the esophagus, where the food is squeezed and in the 'stomach', acids (water) are added and the food is squished some more. In the 'small intestine', pancreatic juices (water) are added and the bag is squeezed some more. Then the bag with the nutrients is removed and given to the 'blood', to be delivered to the 'cells'. The 'large intestines' mop up the excess water from the table and pass the remaining waste to the 'rectum' which poops it out into a garbage can.

During each class period, there are 6 teachers on prep. If someone is absent, the teachers on prep sub and we rotate days so we don't lose our prep every day. Since 7 teachers out today, the counselors had to sub too. So Doug printed out a word search on careers and had the students look up different types of careers in the library. I have to sub today for Bilingual. In the past I've taught Spanish, since some of the words transfer. But today, I was going to just show a movie, when a miracle happened. Someone brought me an activity for the students to do!!! I don't know if the teacher prepared it in advance or someone else did, but that made my day a little better.

Anyway, the Bangle's song, "Manic Monday", is going through my head.

Just another Manic Monday
Wish it were Sunday
Cuz that's my Funday