Too Much

Yesterday I tried to do too much.

It didn't work.

It wasn't a spectacular failure, by any means, but it left us all a bit frazzled, which is never my intention. I rushed both classes through our reading records, and I know a few kids were lost. We glued section pages in our reading notebooks, set up our European continent pages, started A Tale of Two Cities. One class started a narrative writing assessment.

It was too much.

Partly it's the schedule. I see one class six times Monday and Tuesday, and the other class only four times. I'm also responsible for three core subjects (reading, writing, and social studies) over thirteen periods a week. I'm trying to plan carefully to hit the same topics with both classes, and to not neglect a subject. There are, of course, always students that are finished quickly, and students who are still looking for a pen. Even after fifteen years, it's a challenge to plan for both.

We hadn't even made it to lunch before I knew it wasn't working. I took a breath. I told my students that we'd revisit our reading records, and slow it down the next two weeks. I promised we'd talk about A Tale of Two Cities in class again today and Thursday. It was only day nine.

We have time.

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