10 days of Christmas...

i'm not actually talking about the 12 days of Christmas, or even the first 10... i'm actually referring to the last 10 days of school for the year.

oh joy.

students are going crazy. LITERALLY. they are driving me insane. at least 5th period is... but eh, that's life. i decided last night on the way home from Youth Night that i was going to plan a mini-unit that would take up the whole 10 days before break so that i wouldn't go completely insane with trying to get kids to do something they hated (which i'm already sorta doing with the research paper. which, btw, i only have 10% of the rough drafts for--terrible.)

i'm having my students write and illustrate a children's story. i had them journal about their favorite children's story or fairy tale today, and i talked about how i went to see Beauty and the Beast at the Issaquah Village Theater last Tuesday (amazing!) and how Cece's favorite kids book is called "A Christmas Card for Mr. McFizz." i actually read the book to all my classes today after they shared their journal responses, and they were genuinely listening and wanted to see all the illustrations.

anyway, i'm having them use their favorite story's plot line... BUT they're adding some new things:
1. a color
2. an object
3. a main character

i have almost all of the project planned out (minus the rubric--which takes the longest, and which i probably should have created first--oh well) and the most amazing thing about tweaking a children's story is that:
1. they will love it
2. it's creative
3. i will love it
4. it's not stressful (*crosses fingers*)
5. they can read it to younger kids

and yeah, i'm pretty excited. if i get any really good ones published (just in a little packet type of thing) then i might take pictures of the really good parts and post them. we'll see. p.s. 9 days until siblings come home! excited for that.

anyway, that's what i'm doing at school (besides going slightly crazy). peace out!