Starting over Again

I hate coming back from long breaks. Don't get me wrong because I luuuuvvvvv having a whole week off for Thanksgiving Break. It is just the getting back into the swing of things that gets to me. Especially when dealing with little kids like I do. Seems like teachers have to spend the whole first day saying "stop that", "don't do that", and "you remember the rules". I don't know that could just be in my school. The bad thing about my students is that my second and third graders got back under control after I raised my voice and became a little more stern, but those darn fourth graders I don't know if it was because I had combined them with two other classes (due to the basketball tournament in ELdorado) or if they where just too happy to see each other after a week, but I couldn't get them to settle down enought for me to give them instructions for the day. So, in order to get my control back and give them a little blast to reality I turned PE into writing day. We spent the 40 minute period writing a paragraph on "Why it is important to be quiet whent the teacher is talking and giving instructions". After they wrote them I had the one's who wanted to to read their paragrahps. Then I took them up and gave the class about a 10 minute lecture about my reasons on why they need to be quiet and listen when the teacher is talking. I think all in all that I got my point across their next visit will be a better behaved group. I much rather do this than start writing discipline slips or sending them to the office.