What Was I Thinking?!

I had a great game planned for my students to review all the Math objectives that are covered on their TAKS Test. What I thought would be a fun game of Jeopardy turned out to be a very long drawn out and boring game. Originally I had it planned out that the groups would pick the question to answer and they would answer while the other groups just thought about how they would work out the problem . This was so boring and tedious especially with some of the more difficult problems. When I thought about it after we went to lunch I should have had the students follow the real jeopardy format and solve the problem all at the same time and raise their white boards to see who can answer the quickest. It would have added more fun to the game and while I wanted them to really think through and discuss how they were solving the question I think it is important to try and get them to recognize the processes they should use automatically. Also they need to build a bit more speed and stamina especially when it comes to problem solving because it takes them 30 or more minutes to solve 7-8 problems. The students seriously work at snail pace! I think Monday since tomorrow is the Easter party and Friday we have off I will play another round of Jeopardy with the classes and see if my revised version of the game works out better. DUH really should have thought it through more than I did the first go around, but I guess that's part of teaching, trying things one way and if it doesn't work trying it in a different way.

It's All About The Attitude

And Attitude they have! It is amazing to me how much attitude my fourth graders have about every little thing. Most of this kids could care less about how they treat each other and how they treat adults. There are some that bicker and fight like siblings, sometimes worse, and they will argue back to you about any little thing. Nothing I do or say can get through to them how rude and disrespectful they are being and the same goes for my cooperating teacher they could care less what she says. It has made the last few weeks very tedious and tiring. I really think some of the attitude could be changed if the students actually had consequences, but there are no concrete consequences for any of their behaviors. They have conduct folders and receive conduct cuts for inappropriate behaviors and then are given an E, S, N, or U based on the number of conduct cuts they have received that week. The parents are required to sign these, but I have yet to have a parent contact me for bad conduct grades. I've actually had to make calls to several parents and guardians with little success because they also don't care what is said. As much potential as I see in these children they don't respect me, or any adult, and the district policies make it impossible to implement any sort of discipline that will get these kids in the right direction. Because the load is so focused on TAKS testing and the students are so terrible I will be relieved to finish up here soon.

HELP! Advice Needed!

Long story short I was working on plans at my teachers computer during rotation and she was helping students that needed to catch up. She came behind the desk to grab a workbook and put something away. On her way out she took the other direction straight for the computer tower on the floor with my flash drive connected to it. She ran right into my flash drive bending it and breaking the connection. No big deal if I had all of my documents saved on my computer hard drive as well, but I'm paranoid about a hard drive crash so I didn't have any of the documents on my computer. In order to get these documents back many of with I desperately need RIGHT NOW in order to do my portfolio I had to send it in to a recovery place. Even with the student discount it is costing me $150 dollars to have them recover the files and place them on a working flash drive.
My teacher did apologize and asked if I had another drive, but I don't know if I should ask her to pay for a portion of the recovery. It was an accident and even with my parents offering up the money I feel as though she is somewhat responsible and that I should ask her to help with the cost. Should I? Or should I just let it go?

I am frantically working on recreating some of my most recent documents; like the unit plan I had been working on at the time of my flash drives demise. I had planned for this weekend to be full of updates because I have a small novel written in my journal that needs to be typed up into its respective posts, but that clearly hasn't happened since I have been redoing artifacts that are supposed to be going into my portfolio. It may not be until next weekend when I post again, but please any advice on the situation would be great!