Sensitive

Last week, Thursday was a crazy snow day. It snowed (icy needle-like flakes) all day, pretty much. The roads were terrible and the kids were inside all day. I'm not a fan of inside days, just because the kids don't get to burn off their usual recess and lunch energy. Instead, they stay all fired up and the afternoon is usually a disaster.

So, Thursday... inside day. I have gym last block with my 6/7 class. I thought that it would be a great chance to let them release some of their energy so I planned a lot of high-energy stuff for them to do. Long story shorter, their listening was atrocious and after a number of students not paying attention and misbehaving, I decided that I had had enough and we would go back into the classroom for the rest of the day and.. sit there. I sat them all down, still in the gym, and had a big talk about whether or not my decision was the right thing to do and why I had decided so and so on. I asked them if they thought I was being overly sensitive, or if they were being a little out of hand. They all chorused that their behaviour needed improvement. Great, off to the classroom we go. There were only a few minutes (after my lecture) before the bell rang that I had to punish them
.
Fast forward to the following week. I had assigned the students to search for the correct spelling for their next list of words and sent them to work. They weren't working. They were chatting, walking around, etc. So, I stood up, declared that they were so sit down, stop talking and that I would give them the spelling because their search was just wasting time and we had more important thing to move on to. I had one little girl come up to me and say "Madame, are you feeling a little sensitive today?" I smirked and denied it, of course, saying that this was a result of their delay in getting down to work.

I must remember that what I bring into the classroom makes a big difference in my day. When I am feeling a little out of sorts, the kids can tell. They know right away that something is up, simply because of how I react to their usual antics. And lately... well, maybe I'm a little more "sensitive".