Day 49 - Too Much of a Good Thing . . .

. . . can still be a good thing. I'd estimate that about one-third of the students on my team constantly have a book in their hands. They read when you are not looking in class. They read during any down time. They read as they walk down the hall to the cafeteria and back again. It's makes you feel really good as a teacher to see this. Here are just two of our many kids keeping their minds engaged and enriched. I'm so thankful to have a great teammate in our language arts teacher who has done a great job getting these kids excited about reading.

Day 47 - Movie Review

This is supposed to be a photoblog, but I'd like to take this opportunity to post a little more. Today we took all the sixth graders to see The Lightning Thief. Just to justify our decision, it fits into the curriculum in that we study Greece (and its mythology) plus the kids are reading up the books like crazy in language arts. After seeing the movie, I give it a great big thumbs down!

I've read the first three of five books in the series. They have great story lines and characters. It's no wonder the kids love them. Well, this movie resembled the book very little. I don't expect movies to be exact replicas of the books they are based on, even though the LOTR and Harry Potter franchises seemed to have done quite well in that department. But this was crazy. So much of the story line was changed. With the exception of Percy and Grover, the characters were not developed at all. Even the altered story line was somewhat shallow.

The sixth graders loved it, despite my qualms above. There were some great fight scenes, but that was about it. They liked the action. The movie will make a lot of money targeting this age group. Which leads to an even bigger issue I have with the movie. There was way too much sensuality in a move targeting middle and high school kids. Sexuality and sensuality were used throughout. One of the few scenes that remained true to the book was the main characters plight in Vegas. The movie directors made the poor decision of exploiting as much of the Vegas mentality as possible and still keep their PG rating.

Again, I give it a thumbs down. Make it two thumbs down. When the sequel comes out, I hope they get things back on track.

Day 41 - How many toothpicks?

I actually took this pic during halftime of the Super Bowl but used it in class yesterday.  My students had to determine how many toothpicks were in this picture by applying the method of population sampling.  The bottom picture is what I actually gave them to assist them.  How many do you see?  I've posted the answer in the comments.

Day 34 - Dark Hallway

dark hallway 2
Originally uploaded by mattguthrie

This is the usual scene for me each evening as I leave my classroom to head home. Now that the days are getting longer, there is a little light at the end of hall. In December it would be pitch black when I finally left.

I'm frequently of the last five or ten people to leave school. That includes secretaries and other coaches. I once commented to a colleague that he was very dedicated. He and I usually leave about the same time - 5:30 PM. His response? "Nope, I'm just incredibly inefficient." I know that feeling.

Day 32 bonus pic - 'Nuff Said

Day 26 - Curriculum

Okay, so I didn't take this pic, but it is what I've dealt with all day in some form.  Evaluating, developing, using, and discussing my curriculum has been my sole task today.  And it was not as boring as you might think.  At least not the way I do it.

Image from http://www.wordle.net/ licensed .