On Track

If I'm being honest on here (and I always try to be honest) today and the next couple of days will be especially rough.

Teaching The Hunger Games is a monumental task.  It ties in with social studies all over the place, but I hate that we don't have enough books for every kid.

I do think it's important to read out loud in the upper levels - it's something that we've been moving away from as a society - but perhaps we shouldn't be...

But because this book is so much longer than other pieces we read out loud in social studies - and because I generally only read once or twice a week for 10-15 minutes after we've finished the main part of the lesson, it's natural that one class is way ahead of another.  So, 6th and 7th hours have finished the book - whereas 4th and 5th hours have 30 more pages to go - which translates into at least 40 minutes of reading.

And teaching junior high can quickly get very complicated if one class is a week ahead of another.

So, we'll be easing our way into Mesopotamia, while we finish up The Hunger Games.

Today, the classes the finished The Hunger Games watched the crash course video on Mesopotamia.  The other classes will hopefully watch that tomorrow.

No matter what, if you're reading this blog and discussing it with an adult - tell them what you thought of the book.  If you haven't finished it yet, tell them how you think it's going to end.

If you've done that, write the following quote on a piece of paper, have the adult you discussed the blog with sign it, and turn it in tomorrow.

"Creativity, appreciation, inquisitiveness - these are impossible to scale.  But, they're the purpose of education - why our teachers teach; why I choose to learn...  We teach to free minds, we teach to inspire, we teach to equip - the careers will come naturally."