No Teacher

This past Wednesday I got to take over the classroom completely. My Cooperating teacher was away at Greenbush, doing training so I asked her if it was okay if I taught all of the classes. She thought that was a great idea. I fixed all of the lessons. I was a little nervous about having the class to myself but they were great. I had a sub watching over me (Who was actually my old counselor.)
All of the kids behaved like they normally would, and some behaved better than they normally do. They were all on task most of the time, and I was able to get to know them better since I was their teacher. Some of them actually commented , “Ms. Waggoner, I’ve never heard you talk this much before!”
My voice was hoarse at the end of the day, but I had such an awesome day. I think that the kids are actually beginning to see me as their teacher. The only thing that I worry about is that all of them may have not been on task as much as they should have. They all have laptops, and it gets kind of hard to monitor them all.
Days like Wednesday are a reminder of why I’m going into teaching. This is a rundown of how my day went:

Period 1-: Quiet Chatter.” J” kept singing “Pants on the Ground”. “T” and “TI” were chatty this morning, but nothing excessive. About halfway through the class everyone quieted down. “C” and “ H” had problems with their internet connections. I’m a little worried that they didn’t all complete the peer editing. “Mrs. L” told a few of them to put up the cell phones and they gave the “But Mrs. “M” Lets Us!” Overall they were pretty good today.
Period 2: J and T didn’t have their computers (T had to take his to Mrs. Falling, and I can’t remember what was wrong with Jared’s). T started working on math and I asked him if he thought he would have this done by tomorrow and he said “If I get my laptop back.” I told him he could write it on a sheet of notebook paper, but I don’t know if he took me seriously or not. Meh. I reminded them all that a rough draft was due to you tomorrow. Most of them were really good about having me look over their rough drafts.
Period 3: A little loud starting out. Mrs. L helped me remind some of them to be quiet. When going through the instructions H looked confused…or pissed, I couldn’t tell. I reminded them that this was due tomorrow. Overall, they worked quite well. Toward the bell they became a little rowdy, but nothing too bad. C seems a little lost on the introduction, but I tried to give her some good starting points, so I think she should be able to pull it together.
Period 4-Went well! Really impressed with S’s response writing. All of the response writings are in the basket. Had about ten minutes left of class, had them work on the ning response (10 things that define you). J was loud, but no louder than usual. J and W helped me with the sound issues when I was showing the youtube video. I read the bio to them on Lance Armstrong’s website and was having problems with the scrolling down button, but it went alright.

6th hour- about 1/4 of the class went to the library). I told a few of them that I didn’t care and that as long as their paper is in when it is due tomorrow, it doesn’t make a difference. The remainder of the class was quiet (Even C!) and good and worked diligently. Checked on kids in the library, they all seemed to be on-task.
7th –D was a little bit late, no biggie. So far, this class has been my favorite today. They all stayed quiet to complete their work, and worked through the whole time. Mrs. L caught J on the computer messing around, but it was almost time to leave and I asked him if he finished his rough draft when Mrs. L left the room and he said that he got it done, so I didn’t see what the big deal was. My presentation went quickly with this class, so they had about 25-30 minutes to write the introduction.
8th- Class was good as normal. Everyone got the lesson. The good thing about this class is I don’t feel bad for letting them talk because I know that they will get the work done, they didn’t even talk that much. We had a fire drill at 2:45.