Rapping About the Equator

The creative projects were a huge success! (Please refer to my previous post if you don't know what I'm talking about.) There were some posters, some skits, a handful of dioramas (what a fun word), two painted styrofoam models, and some rap performances. I now know who the most talented beat-boxer is in my classes... as well as which students would rather draw a picture and which are willing to risk embarrassing themselves in the name of geography. The funniest performance was a rap performed by three boys in hoodies who even worked out choreography for their song. It was catchy, too. This past week (many days after their performance), the chorus line "Equator... goes around the wor-ld" could be heard in our locker pod from someone singing to themselves. I was also amused by the girl whose parents don't like rap and told her that she could only SAY the words to the song, but she was not allowed to say them with any rhythm. (I was happy to let them draw a poster or something else conservative, but they really wanted to do the rap song.) Midway through her verse, she caught herself bobbing her head in time to the beat and had to stop herself suddenly. She looked quite guilty. I'll be interested to meet her parents when parent-teacher conferences roll around.

Dancing About Geography

(This reminds me of a favorite movie quote from Playing By Heart: "Talking about love is like dancing about architecture.")

I had some fun with this one. My kids have this big all-district writing assessment coming up next week, and due to the two days of inservice this week, they were going to end up with two straight weeks of language arts and no social studies. So I decided to use the 3 days this week to work through some geography terms and definitions. We took notes today, and then I assigned them each to come up with a creative representation for one of the terms. First, though, we had to talk about what a "creative representation" is. It's a funny thing to talk about with seventh graders... They got the obvious ones, of course, like making up a skit or drawing a picture, but they had a harder time coming up with others. I loved watching their faces when they suggested something they thought was wild and out of the realm of possibility... and then their shock when I said yes to their answers. "A song?" "Yes!" "A rap?" "Yes!" "A poem?" "Yes!" "A poster?" "A sketch?" "A story?" "Yes, yes, yes!" And so they began to plan. They schemed and talked and practiced and drew and generally had a great time figuring out how to teach their classmates to remember their chosen geography terms. I'm so excited to see the results later this week. My favorite answer was an interpretive dance. I really hope someone decides to do a dance interpretation of the Prime Meridian...

October? Really?

This is nuts. I have no idea what happened to September... Some days I feel like I'm a cross between a detective and an amnesia patient, and I must struggle to put together the pieces of my life from the evidence littering my desk. I'm already down one package of index cards, so there's obviously been some public speaking. I can tell from my gradebook that there have been a lot of writing assignments, and that I obviously taught my kids the reading codes. There are student-created posters on the walls that speak to some geography lessons, as do the stack of surprisingly fabulous student-colored-and-labeled world maps on the back table.

I could cheat and look through my calendar and lesson plan book, but I'd get overwhelmed by all the meetings. Then there are the fire drills (2 so far), the lock-down drill (1 so far), the lock-in that was NOT a drill (1 so far), picture day, assembly day, and 2 early release days that ended with 2-hour staff meetings.

Or I could just look out the window and watch the trees change colors and the sky darken and the rain and wind bluster outside.

Or I could go grade papers and worry about it some other day. I should probably do that.