Vanished

Seventh grade English, sixth period. As it was a Monday (with half hour periods), they had a silent reading day. (Don't even get me started on the Monday schedule. Having the kiddos read silently is probably the best use of the day that there is.)

The day had been going pretty well (for a Monday where it rained all day). I had had one difficult group (of eighth graders), but otherwise the day had been going pretty smoothly. 

And sixth period was going pretty well as well. 

Once they got settled they (mostly) silently read. (They were seventh graders. A few needed a bit more persuading to focus on their books.) With intro time and settling down time, they probably had fifteen-ish minutes of reading time.

Then they had a reading log to complete. I let them know when it was time to fill it in. (They were just noting what pages they read with a brief summary.) As the semester has just started, I had passed out their new logs during the intro time.

I had placed the stack of reading log copies on a front desk so I had easy access to it. On that desk I also had the class roster and a Chromebook. (I had a couple slides with the agenda for the day projected on the in-class TV.) 

As sixth period was leaving, something felt wrong about that front desk. That's when I realized. The stack of reading logs had vanished. (The computer and class roster were still there, though.) 

I had one more period. Where had the copies gone? 

I looked everywhere. In the trash cans. Under the desks. In the teacher's refrigerator. On any available surface in the classroom. They were nowhere.

(I looked outside for trash cans, but none were close enough to the classroom for me to check without leaving the classroom unattended.) 

There was nothing for it. I got seventh period settled and reading, but when it was time to do their logs, I let them know that they'd have to get those pages from their teacher later. Deep sigh.

I ran into the teacher later in the week. The copies had been left in the back of the classroom in a spot that I was sure I had looked. 

Next time I'll keep a better eye on the copies. 

Seventh graders. *shakes head*