Well, I wouldn't say the other shoe quite dropped, but we, er... settled in a little bit? The lesson for today is that having specials immediately after lunch is a bad, bad, bad idea. When all the playground they have is an asphalt lot, there's nothing for them to do but get in fights with each other, and they need a good 20 minutes of quiet time after lunch to calm down and get their brains back in order. Having specials immediately pretty much ensures that the ones who are hyped up will stay hyped up, and the afternoon will be much more difficult.

Also, math is obnoxious. I was going to teach a lesson on estimating two- and three-digit numbers today, but that got stalled when it became obvious that half of the kids don't know how to round, thus making the "doing something with rounded numbers" thing a little premature. The other half are on top of it, but the half that don't get it REALLY don't get it. I'll have to talk to the other teacher tomorrow to see if she has any suggestions. I'm contemplating just starting the unit over again.

(at this point i got in a heated venting session with a couple of guys at the Satellite. nice cathartic end to a frustrating day.)