I have come to my blogger page a million times (exaggerate much?) and started a post only to delete it!
I have hit that "overwhelmed" part of the year where I start to panic that half the year is over and I am no where near reaching the goals I set for myself.
I am sad today because I really feel defeated. We have been having GREAT lessons in 8th grade. We are studying systems of linear equations and the kids just really get it, well, I thought they did. I gave them a quick 10 question quiz today and for the most part they bombed it. When this happens I just feel like giving up. What is the point? Like I said we've been having great lessons where the kids are doing most of the work, they are feeling confident, they are acing their exit tickets; I just put it all together on a quiz and their mind goes blank. I don't get it? Then to top it off, I teach our after school test prep class and I had 5 8th graders who seriously did not know how to divide fractions. I refused to tell them. I tried visualfractions.com, I tried showing them 1/3 / 1/3 is 1 since anything divided by itself is one then showing them 1/3 / 3 is also 1 (all visually) and they just couldn't put it together themselves...even after they've "learned" it before, in 5th grade for sure, I KNOW I taught them again in 7th grade and even in 8th with solving equations we've talked about multiplying by the reciprocal when solving for x with a fraction coefficient many many times. Anyway, after "telling" them how to do it, I sent them home with a 20 problem Kuta soft worksheet as "punishment." Which leads me to the assumption that I suck.
On a happier note, I was the ETA Friday Freebie winner! I got a level 8 starter set of Versa Tiles! Can't wait to blog about using them!
