Finishing up first quarter!

I sat down this evening to (hopefully) get students' grades finalized for 1st quarter.  It was definitely my weirdest one ever!

A couple of reasons why:
We typically start school around Aug 21st.  This year it was scheduled for Sept 5, but because of construction, my building didn't start until Sept 11.  (I've never started in September before!)

Last week, we had two "no heat" days after shivering our way through school on Monday. The decision was made to close on Tuesday and Wednesday to give the construction workers time to get the permanent heat installed. I've never had a "snow day" in October!

And then on Thursday, our first day back, we had a lockdown for a while because a bank robber was loose in the vicinity.

So strange.

In terms of my classes, though, I think things are going great. It was odd getting such a late start and I feel like we didn't accomplish what I wanted to for the quarter, but we'll get there!  The kids have been very responsive and seem to enjoy learning.  My last period class of seniors has gotten compliments from subs twice while I've been gone for their politeness and working hard. That's amazing!

I've really been encouraging kids to requiz when they have a quiz topic they feel they can do better.  I just counted 104 topics redone!  That's incredible.  And I didn't check the exact number, but I'd guess there were 5 grades that didn't improve.  Just to see these kids willing to put in the extra time to do problems or correct their mistakes so they can do better makes me happy.

And honestly, the option to requiz has cut down on the kids asking if they can do extra work or for extra credit.  They know that if they want to improve their grade, it's on their shoulders.  Except for the one student who approached me at the end of class on Friday, asking what he could do.  He's not quite there yet.  YET.

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