Today I got the sad news that the author of "Where the Wild Things Are" died. I hadn't planned on reading his book to the students today, but changed my plans in order to honor his memory. It was really interesting to me that as soon as I mentioned why we were reading his book, that the students became completely and totally silent. I don't know that I've heard any of the groups be quite that silent for any book I've read to them.

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It was also really interesting to me today working with my 7th graders. They are divided into a boys and a girls section. The boys section completed their assignment (editing a html website) with 10 - 15 minutes to spare - and did a good job. The girls section is going to have to keep working on it next week. None of them finished it. (This was our second week working on the assignment.) I'm not totally sure what this says, but I'm thinking it says something about the differences in the workings of the mind of a 7th grade boys/girls mind. Figuring out the code language and how to manipulate it just seemed to come more easily to the boys.

I hadn't noticed the same difference with the 8th graders.

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We are down to our last 7 or 8 yearbooks. (8 if I sell one of the 4 complementary ones.) I am SO ready for them to be completely sold.

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AL told me today that the father of one of our 7th graders who is currently in ISS for the remainder of the year asked her why the computer teacher (me) was teaching kids how to manipulate phones and get into the parents phone service websites. Whoa!! AL let him know that that was NOT being taught - that the kids weren't even allowed to have cell phones on campus and besides that - how'd we know how to get into the parent's phone websites??? Is it any wonder this kid is in ISS?? But seriously, any kid who gets their hands on a phone that can read relatively well (or even not) will figure out pretty much anything there is to figure out about it in a short time - no teaching required.