Sudoku: What happens when the teacher messes up

I thought you might enjoy a story straight from the classroom today. I wish I could say it's a success story. But it's not. It was total sudoku failure.

Here's what happened:

10 minutes beforehand, I decide to teach the kids to solve sudoku puzzles.

Me: So, Kevin, are you teaching this, or am I?

Kevin: It doesn't matter. Do you want to do it?

Me: I can try.

Yikes! Bad idea, Dahlia!

Does Dahlia know how to solve a sudoku puzzle?

Psh, yes.

Does Dahlia know how to teach 4th grade students to solve sudoku puzzles?

Heck no.

But onward I went, and - what a sight! I'm talking, pointing, asking, showing, looking at their faces. They're spacing, staring, snoozing...not a good situation. So I decided to just STOP and let them have at it. That worked okay. A few needed some intense one-on-one, thanks to my catastrophic attempt at providing instructions.

Poor kids.

But, in the end, most of them got it. So the sudoku will continue, no thanks to me.

I made sure to congratulate the students on their tremendous effort and cooperation.

Moral of the story: PLAN, PLAN, PLAN, even for sudoku.

Good thing we can learn from our mistakes, huh?


On another note, I have a sneaky suspicion that Kevin had the kids write poems for me today, while I was helping another teacher for a couple of hours in the afternoon. At least, when I got back, I looked over one boy's shoulder to notice that he was finishing up a poem that had my name in it. Then, I saw Kevin calmly collecting papers from the students [not something he usually does.]


Just a suspicion.
I'm not saying it's true.
But if it does turn out to be true, I'll be so happy I just might cry.
Maybe I'll write poems for them...