Chaos can be organized?

I will start out talking about what caused me to choose this title. Today was a big day for the school. It was the day they played their county rival in football. Now, we all know that high school football is a big deal but apparently so is middle school. They had a pep rally to prepare for the game and it was a mess! Don't get me wrong, it was very fun and the students had a great time but it was a nightmare for teachers. They released each grade one at a time but in the halls it was still very hectic. There were kids everywhere and very excited kids at that. Me, being the size that I am, became very overwhelmed walking in the halls because most of the students are taller than I am. It was overall a good time. The students were very excited but became tired and chatty after being in the gym for almost an hour. Leaving the gym was a little less chaotic only because my CE and I ran up the stairs and to the room to head off the children. It was very exhilarating, which sounds silly but it's true. The students were amazed at how quickly we made it up to the classroom. As I was leaving the school I got to thinking about the pep rally and realized that it wasn't as crazy as I thought but more like organized chaos. I realized than anytime you gather 1,000 middle schoolers in one place, there will be chaos but it's worth it. The students really had a great time and got really pumped up for the game and it apparently worked because THEY WON!! My fiancé works at the rival school so we went to watch the game. At the time it seemed like a huge mess but in the end it was a break for the students and a great way to give them pride in their school.

The rest of the week was not as exciting as the pep rally but interesting non the less. I was able to see my CE link two units together in a way I thought was extremely clever. When the students came in, she had them take out a sheet of paper and write the alphabet down the paper in the right hand margin. They were then to title the paper "Geography to Middle Ages." The assignment was that they were supposed to write something they learned about for each letter. For example, for the letter C they could write Catholic Church, Constantinople, or  Crusades. They could write multiple for each but had to write as many as they could in about 15 minutes. I found myself trying to think of words for each letter and found it rather challenging, especially for some letters (e.g. X or Z). After they were finished they had to count how many letters they had words for. Most students got at least ten and a couple even got over twenty. They then went through the alphabet and everyone who got a word for that letter would raise their hand and she would call on them and tell them whether they were right or wrong and why the answer was right or wrong. Some of the words would spark conversation and discussion so going over this took about 20-30 minutes. When they had finished going over it they had to count again to see how many correct answers they had before they changed or added any answers. The student who claimed to have the most correct turned in their paper for to check and to be eligible for a prize (a piece of candy probably). She then wrote the words "Old Roman Empire" on the board and they created a "timeline" from there to the Renaissance, which is where they would start the next day. The students had to use words from the ABC Review to help her make the timeline. The timeline ended up looking like waves because if times were good the timeline went up and if they were bad it went down. They were not taking notes so they were helping her make the timeline and making some great connections with the events leading up to the Renaissance. She also talked about what Renaissance means and with the timeline and the words they had written on their paper why the Renaissance occurred. I found this extremely interesting and the students were 100% engaged. They all wanted to share their answers from their paper to be included on the timeline. It was a simple activity but very beneficial in my opinion.