Two-Year Olds

Yesterday I was really struggling with my fifth period class. I have three students in that class that, when they're together, they're just terrible. They talk, they laugh, they mess around, and it's all very subtle. They'll pretend to be working but all of a sudden they'll start sniggering about something. And the Constitutional Convention is really not that exciting, to tel you the truth. So I try and keep them focused, especially the RSP kid who has SO many issues and I inevitably end up spending the entire time dealing with them. Meanwhile I have seventeen other kids in the class that are sitting there being frustrated because I cannot focus on them and I have to focus on the three kids screwing around. One great thing about my room is that I'm able to isolate students if needed. I have a lot of single desks around the perimeter of the room, so I eventuall put one on one side of the room, the other on the other side and finally had one kid on the middle. But I was still really frustrated that I was distracted by those three students at teh detriment of my other students. So I talked today to the VP (two of them ended up getting referrals because they had just crossed the line one too many times) and he recommended some strategies that I can use in teh future. On the bright side, today they did a much better job so I'm hoping it was just an off-day and they can continue to be on task as much as possible.