I am having a hard time, however balancing this with my AM class. In this class there happens to be a couple of students who want to do nothing more than cut up and act silly. Naturally I look at the situation and try to determine if there is anything different that I can do. I don't want to reward those students who are acting up by doing this amazing technology and subject the rest of my students to them being rude/disrespectful to our guests, but at the same time I don't want the rest of the class to miss out on these opportunities because of a few people. Is teaching with this level of technology a right or a privilege? The things I'm doing aren't written anywhere in the curriculum, so I have to make time for the things we are doing. If the grades aren't there, then I have to go back to the more traditional methods.
In other news, I am now a snake wrangler. For those who know me, you know that I think snakes are amazingly interesting behind glass, where I am safe. Well, a couple of weeks ago, I had to overcome that fear when I needed to capture a juvenile water moccasin.
I know what you're thinking, "That's a Copperhead" and that's what I thought too until doing some further research on the matter. First of all, it is obviously a venomous snake. Look at the head (venom glands) and the thickness of its body. Now a little herpetology for you. Copperheads have hourglass bands that are fairly thick. Water moccasins have bands too, but they are less connected. They also have a stripe on their face which you will see in the next picture. Let me set the scene for you. We are walking back to our classroom from Large Group (PE, Art, Music) when I noticed this outside of the door to go outside, next to our room. I got the students inside and working on their vocabulary while I snapped a few of these pictures and called the front office to get someone from district to remove the snake. Yes I said "removed" and not killed. In a situation where it's me or them, I take me, but this wasn't one of those situations, yet. So as I'm investigating this snake, another 4th grade Science teacher came up to investigate it too. Everything was fine. The snake was hanging out there, and we were safely inside the building. Just then, a group of PK students started walking on the sidewalk, less than 4 feet away. Now we have some danger. I quickly went in my classroom, grabbed my terrarium and with the help of the other 4th grade teacher, got the snake inside, lid closed, and escaped being bitten!
There the snake is, not as happy to be in there, but safely secured from endangering any of our little babies. As I was scooting the terrarium to the snake, all I was thinking about was how I hoped the snake went inside, and not around the container.
So like I said, it's been a busy couple of weeks! Today I did start beta testing flipping my classroom. We've been modeling for a while now, but this was the first time for them to try it on their own. It was exciting for me to watch their responses come in. I got 8 out of 38 students to participate. Tomorrow I will find out about the other 30. I asked that their parents write me a note explaining why they couldn't watch the video online. I already know about a couple of those, but I want to make sure so that I can begin to make arrangements for those students.
I know this post is rather lengthy. I'll try not to wait so long for my next post.
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