Carnival of Symmetrical Democracy

First, a couple of links of the week:

This week's Mr. Teacher column on education.com is titled "Democracy in Action" (my apologies to John Stewart). I asked my kids to explain to me who they voted for and why in our recent mock election, and their answers are definitely worth reading.

This week's Carnival of Education is hosted by the Core Knowledge Blog, and the dude's got a nifty little theme going. All of us who contributed were (theoretically) tapped for cabinet posts in Obama's new government! Since there is no Secretary of Ketchup, I've been shortlisted for Secretary of Energy!

Today, I handed out piles of rubber bands to my kids during class. You may be asking yourself why on earth I would do something that is akin to shouting FIRE in a crowded theater or entrusting foxes to guard a chicken coop. Because we're working on symmetry, of course, and the rubber bands were for use with the geoboards.

I'm quite pleased because not once did I hear any of my kids use the phrase, "Line of Cemetery," as I often have in the past. And after a very stern warning that they would be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law if they should even THINK about snapping the rubber bands at each other, they loved making shapes and finding lines of symmetry with the equipment.

We had 2 teachers absent today. One had a scheduled sub who called in sick, and the other was last-minute so no sub could be obtained. That left us with 4 teachers and 125 kids. At first, the office wanted me to split both classes up amongst the 4 of us. I balked at that, and thankfully someone else stepped in to cover one class. Still, we had to split up one class, giving each of us 24-26 kids in rooms that are roughly the size of a gas station restroom. I had to go into one of the other rooms to get some more chairs, as I didn't have enough desks for all of the kids to sit at.

I understand we'll be going through the same dance tomorrow as well. Maybe I should get rid of all of the desks in my room and just let the kids sit on the floor.

Except then the kids wouldn't have anyplace to stick their gum...