what is up with valentines day in a middle school!!!!

Thank goodness Valentine's Day is over. I have never seen so many flowers, balloons and bears sent mostly from parents and friends!!!!! My personal opinion: Feb.14=giant chaotic mess for school. The kids were absolutely crazy and it was so hard to accomplish anything. All teachers would walk into the halls between classes giving each other that 'annoyed valentine's day' look. THis is not even to mention all of the stuff that is brought into the classroom as a huge distraction ALL DAY! On a more positive note, I am relieved that my informal evaluation is now over . . . and I am less anxious and nervous because of that. It went well despite the fact that he came in during a 'bad' hour and I didn't feel that it was a very good 'snapshot' of me or my classroom. Students are getting so tired of school, and I can just feel spring around the corner. When it really starts warming up, I know these students are going to be crazy and it will really be hard to calm them down. I cannot believe we are just around the corner to March. Where has the year gone? My students have really been struggling with addition and subtraction of integers lately. I had really looked forward to this thinking that it would go well . . . however, after reviewing a TON and giving them a chart with rules, they did very well on their tests . . . with class averages of 83% and 85% so I was very pleased. We are now starting multiplication and division of integers and fractions which I think will be much easier since there are less rules to know and apply.

Oops . . .

Well despite the fact that I thought the first month or two after Christmas break would go really slow, it has obviously been flying by since I just realized I forgot to post by the end of the month. I have been busy implementing my strategies for my research paper. The weekly goal setting is going very well, and I am anxious to see how my students view it at the end. While some students were excited about it at the beginning, some thought it would be pointless and a waste of time. However, this week, over half of the student's grades had gone up and many low-achieving students are progressing toward their goal. Some students are really into it. I am starting conferencing on a weekly basis with my research students. The first one went very well and his grade has already gone from a 48% to a 64%. He is doing much better, and I am really excited! I am just working on collecting more data and triangulating all of my strategies/data collection. I am finding that the students are getting burnt out on schoolwork and I can tell we are all anxiously awaiting spring and warmer weather as well. We are having more problems among students and I am hoping that this does not skew some of my research data just because its to that point of the year where some students will struggle to pay attention more anway . . .