World Champs & Coffee

As most of you know, I live in Seattle. I was born and raised here and I can't think of a better place; I absolutely LOVE my city.  And guess what?! My city, my Seahawks just won the Super Bowl!!! To say I'm excited is the understatement of the century, my city is literally off the hook right now and I love it. Woo hoo, Go Hawks! Now with that out of the way, let me tell you about the down side to this amazing alignment of the stars, this phenomenal victory.... The kiddos are going to be absolutely NUTS tomorrow, like beyond crazy!  It makes me wish there were enough of the books we are using for this unit for all three classes.

In my 7th grade class we use The History of Us books for certain units, like our current unit on The North (industrialism).  Unfortunately we only have two class sets and there are three 7th grade social studies classes during 2nd period, which means one of our classes does guided notes on Monday and the reading on Tuesday, which I actually love. The kiddos get a little background knowledge before the in-depth reading... The flaw in this for tomorrow is guided notes are generally less structured. Sure they are taking guided notes, but during which we have whole class discussions; I allow students to verbalized their thought process as they are making connections from their notes to prior knowledge.  It's a great way for them to process information but I can visualize how it will go tomorrow. 

Me: alright ladies and gentlemen, as you have all written down, we are talking about industrialism in the North today, who remembers what industrialism means without looking in your notebook? Kiddo*, you want to try?

Kiddo: Oh, nah, but did you see Percy Harvin run that field last night?!

Me: That does not tell me if you know what indus... (Cut off by another kiddo)

Kiddo 2: Man them hawks were on fire, Ms Willhite did you watch, I was like dayyyymmmm, they were doing the thing last night, I mean...(cut off by another kiddo)

Kiddo 3: Russell Wilson will be my husband

Me: Clap once if you can hear me *clap*, clap twice if you can hear me *clap, clap*, we have history we need to get through, IF and only if we get through our notes today will be talk about the Super Bowl for the last few minutes of class, but we need to do our work and stay on task.

And they will huff and puff and getting through the lesson will be a struggle but it will happen. But it will be the same fight in all 6 class periods.  I think by lunch I'll be needing a nap, those struggles are exhausting in one class period, after six they might as well cast me on The Walking Dead.  Because of this, I will be drinking coffee tomorrow... I don't ever drink coffee, like EVER. 

 I started drinking coffee in grad school when I was taking a double course load, student teaching full time (my student teaching involved me being handed a text book and the master teacher saying good luck and heading to the staff lounge, so really I was teaching full time, with some lesson planning help), and working part time.  Looking back I'm not sure how I did it, but I realize that coffee was probably a big part of it. Until I started getting headaches from it, like terrible, head on table, don't talk to me headaches. Doc recommended I stop drinking coffee, so I did, and guess what, no more headaches! Since then I have a mocha every now and then when I really need a boost, but it's rare; I'm talking like once ever 2-3 months rare. 

Anyways, like I was saying I think tomorrow I will drink coffee, or at least put some coffee in a thermos to have at lunch.  Well wish me luck, I will need all the gods and karma and on my side tomorrow, and coffee to get my kiddos the information they need, work on their non-fiction text skills and to keep my sanity :) 

Until next time,

Karissa

*don't worry, don't actually call on my kids by calling them kiddo