When I first heard that I would be teaching middle schoolers, I thought, "Oh Merde! This semester better fly by or I will go nuts." After all, middle schoolers do not exactly have the best reputation for being easy to handle. I figured that I would be spending most of my time practicing classroom management, while squeezing in a few educational things when I could. To my surprise, I love middle school! These hormone-oozing kids are great! I am teaching four sections of seventh grade social studies, one section of sixth grade math, and one section of sixth grade enrichment. Since I only recently started, I have not been in charge many times, but so far, things have gone well while I am leading the show. For example, my seventh graders are learning all about Africa, so for their current event last Friday, we read an article about disease and hunger in Zimbabwe, while discussing the article as we made our way through it as a group. I then gave them a little worksheet that required them to answer questions about it. The kids did awesome. I don't think they see a lot of these world issues, and to most, I believe it was a bit of an eye-opener. Two of my students even asked me about it today. Apparently they are planning to do a fundraiser to send money to Africa to buy food. I was so excited! Now I'm all pumped up about my next current event. I'm trying to figure out a way to tie in the election of Obama with our nation's past, using "all men are created equal" as an overriding theme. I'm thinking lots of journaling and creative thinking will be involved. I'm also planning a cool unit for my sixth grade enrichment course. I ran across this book about a middle schooler. I'm planning on doing all sorts of activities with it as we progress through the book. I also want to do a French unit, but we'll see. Other than that, I'm just trying to keep up on my sleep.
I received some fun news yesterday. My childhood friend asked me to be in her wedding :) I accepted, of course. It is amazing how two people can be such close friends and not talk for months at a time. As soon as we get going, we catch up right where we left off. The totally great thing about being a bridesmaid in this wedding is that I can wear the dress again. It is a really pretty JCrew summer dress. Bonus!
Paris update...I believe that I found a great family to live with. They have three adorable children and live 10 minutes from the Eiffel Tower. Not a bad way to spend a year.
Well, I must get going...I still have a lot of lesson plans to do. Au revoir!
