Today was even more difficult than yesterday. The kids were so wound up it was ridiculous. Calendar was a disaster because the kids were so noisy. It was practically impossible to keep them quiet the whole day. After calendar we did centers again. They were pretty good during this time. All of the groups had already done the handwriting center so they all had "fun" centers this time. The group of all boys doing the pumpkins went really well. They stayed on task and worked as well as the all girls group. I think it must have just been the combination of kids in that first group. These boys stayed on task really well. Two of them flew right through it and had no problems cutting gluing. One of the boys always has trouble with cutting so it took him the longest to finish. He tends to only cut off tiny little pieces until he gets close to the line and then stops with the edges frayed. We practiced cutting a circle around the star he traced and then cutting straight up the lines he was cutting instead of trying to just follow the lines continuously all the way around and that seemed to help a lot. When he was done cutting them out they ended up looking really good and he was quite proud of himself. Then as always we had snack and recess. When we came back in from recess there were lots of statements like "He pushed me" or "He threw my hat on the floor" so Mrs. Severson talked to them about being kind to each other and being kind to the teachers because they had been so loud and disrespectful all morning. They were pretty good through math but by the end it was clear that they were totally done with structure for the day. They've really been good up until this week. I know it's because they're excited about Halloween tomorrow it's just been hard having them be so difficult right before I get done because I really wanted to finish on a good note. It's been really great I'm just sad that the last week has been so frustrating.

Quote of the day:

Mrs. Severson: Martin Luther's father wanted him to become a laywer but Martin knew that God wanted him to become a monk.
Zachary: My dad's a lawyer. Does God want him to be a monk?