It's Monday!

It's definitely a Monday! Today was our first day back to school after a short hiatus due to Christmas and New Year's Day. However, since we have to leave the holidays out of discussion at school we call it "Winter Break". Not sure if they know what winter is in Virginia, but I'll take any time off I can. Today we started all over again. The kids were relatively calm and quiet - SHOCKING! I can tell it is Monday because nothing went as planned today. I started my novel studies unit for the second marking period today. I read a different book with each bell (more my my sanity so as not to read the same chapters four times every day). I had it planned to read aloud to two bells because I didn't have the audio versions, and have the tape or cd read to two other bells. Here is what my day looked like.

Bell 3: They are reading this book by Anne Rinaldi. It's a historical fiction book about the life of Patrick Henry. It is a great book for anyone - not just 7th graders. Since it doesn't have an audio, I knew I would be reading this aloud to them. No big deal.



Bell 4: I had an audio version for Canyons all ready to go in the tape player. I hit play...nothing. I hit fast forward....nothing. I even tried rewind....nothing. I switched tape players....again nothing. I ejected the tape and found the thing eaten by my tape player. My co-teacher started reading aloud to the kids while I fished out the tape, rewound it manually, and tried again only to have it eat the tape all over again. I gave up. We will now be reading this book aloud as well.



Bell 5: No problem since I didn't have an audio to begin with.



Bell 6: I had an audio version for Charlotte Doyle on cd. I figured nothing could go wrong with a cd version. There were no scratches or anything. In fact, the cd case looked brand new. Picture this: kids are ready to start reading, I hit play, the tape says, "An audio recording of Perfect." Perfect? I checked out Charlotte Doyle. I even took the cd out just to double check. Sure enough, the cd is labeled The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle, but it is definitely not reading that book. So once again, I read the novel to the class. I'm hoping the public library has another copy of this book. I'm checking tomorrow.