Jabberwocky

Last Friday I got a call from a Middle School to ask me if I wold be interested in being a long term sub to replace a teacher that was leaving. Of course I accepted, it's really exciting because two of my friends work there. I took over 3 ESOL (English as a second language) classes in 6th 7th and 8th, two critical thinking/study skills (elective classes that are kind of a joke) in 6th and 8th and one ESE (exceptional student education) class. It's a tough schedule and when I went in there I thought I would have plans at least for the first couple of days but I did not and I've never had to create lesson plans so I was very over-whelmed. So far it's going pretty well, every day is definitely getting better as the kids are getting used to me and understanding that their teacher is not coming back and I will be there for the rest of the year. I have one really tough class, the 6th study skills, there are 37 kids and a lot of them are really obnoxious and have been held back. For that class their is no curriculum so I have freedom to do different things and I think once we start doing some fun activities most of the kids will calm down. The ESOL classes are pretty well behaved but it's tough because they are all at different levels and some really understand and have very good comprehension skills but others speak little to no English. This week I thought them alliteration and we read/listened (I brought in a recording) to the poem the Jabberwocky by Lewis Carrol, which I really love. The kids really liked it and they had fun with the alliteration activities. I wrote on the board two words that started with the same letter, for example nice noses and then asked them to come up with two or three more words to complete the sentence, like nice noses notice nothing new. We did a few together and then I had them come up with their own. They also liked when I showed them how Lewis Carrol created new words by combining two words together, like slithy (slime and lithe) or chortled (choke and snort). I will be really happy if I can just get the kids in my study skills class to participate and work on some of the projects I am looking into.