rainy days and tuesdays

what a rainy day we had here in georgia. we probably had 5-7 inches of rain! everything has greened up again. it doesn't look like august anymore. we sure did need the rain.

as a teacher i love rainy days. the kids are somewhat subdued and seem to be quieter at least until recess. ha-ha, i don't have recess duty! smart woman! everything is going very smoothly. it's almost kind of scary. i guess that it's because i know these kids and they know me. like i said, we didn't have to learn the routine and sort of picked up where we left off.

i gave them an interesting writing assignment yesterday. in social studies we have been talking about scarcity and how that changes what people buy and prioritize in their life. their assignment was to pretend that they were on their own for 2 weeks and they had $100 to use as they wished. of course the goal was to have them see that if that is all the money they had then they had to spend it wisely. when they first heard that they could spend $100 they started talking about buying games, etc. then as they started thinking about it. they became pensive and really thought about the situation. they shared their writing today and surprisingly enough they, almost to every kid, they would spend the money on food, bills, pet food, they would conserve water, electricity. it was wonderful! these are the times that it is so cool to be a teacher b/c you can see their intellectual maturity growing!!!

in another vein, it is interesting to live in this environment we call school. it is like its own world. we have the leader, we have the peacemaker, we have the arbitrator, the comedian, the drama queen, the complainer, the questioner (this person drives me crazy b/c they always have that last question when the meeting is over and we are asked, "does anyone have a question?" and you KNOW this person is going to have ONE MORE QUESTION!!!) anyway, it is an interesting study in people and this microcosm world.