Well interesting day. For weeks now, things have been disappearing out of my room, the lids work that needs to be graded, my paperwork etc. Know wing how things go, I began to make binders for everything. And, yes, things were indeed disappearing out of my room. So anyway, I informed my principal and I also told her a bit about how the afternoons are just a fiasco. She gave me some good information and tips which I appreciate. Apparently my class is one of the better behaved in the school, which you could have knocked me over with a feather when I heard that cuz I think they are totally out of control. But she ways my teaching methods are great! I do things like I walk them slowly but surely through everything. I let them talk me through math problems, and even if they give the wrong answer, I do what they tell me to do ( when I'm working on the board ). The aha moments are coming fast and furious now. I am now teaching them how to do word problems. Because English is their second language, word problems are very difficult. So I am teaching them how to seek out the key words in the problems, I showed them today how tricky the word problems are, like how they give you a bunch or information that you cannot use to solve the problems, I showed them how to only extract what you need to know and then what to do with it. My little NA, who everybody swears is dumb as a bag of rocks, comes through every time. This little girl can come up with the right answer when nobody, even the really smart kids, can figure things out. She rocked it today! But anyway, I am becoming more pleased with the group, I think they are crazy about me because if I try to give one kid even 2 seconds of my time, Ill have three at my desk, two yelling my name and the rest with their hands up wanting to ask questions and never mind how angry or frustrated I get. I have to devise a method of giving them all what they need....and yes they are seeing the "Mother Earth/Care giver in me." But I have to be careful cuz if I totally lose my heart I will suffer....really too tired to write coherently but as the year progresses I will get better! Oh and of course the one kid in the class who reminds me of me, has the same sense of humor, and says the same kinds of things, that I say!