Time to Kill

The steam from my ramen noodles is fogging up my glasses as I sit here pouring over the EFL Phonics workbook unit 8. Two pages..two lousy pages are all that is left in unit 8. That ought to take them about 10 minutes to finish. Great..right? Not really, the class period is 35 minutes. I figure that it will take me about 5 minutes to get them in their seats, pass out the books, calm them down, and get them all onto the right page. Oh wait..add another minute or so for "teacher, tissue please," "teacher, eraser please," "teacher, what we doing," "teacher, pencil please," "teacher, lunch time?" "teacher, pencil sharpener please," "teacher, Annie speak Korean," "teacher, bathroom please," and other things that should have been taken care of before classtime. So we'll say about 7 minutes to start class and 10 minutes to do the workbook pages. Let's see..35 minus 17 equals 18. 18 minutes left until the next five minute break preceeding the next 35 minute block of classtime in which the same thing will happen again. Is it just me or does this happen to other people too?

I am sick of losing control of my classroom due to the fact that I am not able to keep them focused and/or busy for a 35 minute class. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that kindergarteners have a 12 minute attention span and the energy of a hummingbird on Red Bull. Or maybe it's because I am not prepared for them. You don't march into battle without a battle plan after all. I'm going to try and put together some activities at home to take in. I still haven't come up with much but I'll give it another go when I'm done blogging. This clock-watching stuff is for the birds.