Snippet #1759919

Kelly was glad she started the day with a nice cup of coffee. Before she entered the classroom, she could already hear the chattering of the Year 8 students. When she went in, most of the students were chatting with their friends and some were even out of their seats. She placed her things on her desk and stood there watching her students and looking at her watch occasionally. Soon, the noise grew slightly louder as students scrambled to their seats after they noticed her presence. Once everyone was seated, there was only whispering left.

"Good morning. Since this is the first day of school and I'm pretty sure you have a lot to say to your friends, I shall let what just happened pass." She said to her class as she moved in front of her desk and leaned against it.

"I'm Ms. Stevens, your mathematics teacher for the year. Before we begin, I'd like to lay down some ground rules. I do not appreciate any tardiness so please be punctual for my lessons. Of course, I'll give you all a leeway of five minutes because I know that some of you do like your toilet parties in between classes. So, I expect everyone to be in their seats five minutes after class is supposed to start and homework to be handed in punctually. Anyone disagrees?" She said as her students began to whisper to each other. 

When nobody raised their hands or said anything to her, she decided to continue. 
"So, how many of you dislike maths?" As soon as she said that, about half of the class raised their hands. 

"And who finds maths difficult?" She smiled as more people raised their hands. 

"Alright then, why don't we start with a little game?" With that, she turned around and wrote "7-up" on the whiteboard. After she wrote that, she heard students murmuring in the background. 

"I'm sure some of you are familiar with this game. We will take turns counting the numbers from 1 onwards. Every time there is a number with a seven or is divisible by seven, the person whose turn to say that number out loud has to clap once." The class grew excited and they began talking excitedly to each other.

"Of course, the game is not going to be this easy. I may change the seven to a different number like eight or nine. Let's begin with this row here! Abigail right? Could you start first?"Kelly smiled to the girl sitting in front of her. With that, the game began.

Halfway through the game, when they were reaching the 100 mark, she said, "Oh yes, anyone who does not clap at the right number or in any case, get your number wrong will be getting extra homework in the coming week. One question per mistake."

Kelly watched as her students' anxiety grew. A lot of them were determined not to screw up. After all, who would like to do extra homework in the first week of school? This was going to be fun. Also, it was a good way of testing the mental calculations of the students and giving them more practices.

A short beep distracted her from her class. She had just received a new e-mail. She placed her laptop on her lap and began reading the e-mail. Now, this is amusing. It's only the first day and Jas had already created such a mess, causing Far to send this e-mail. She grinned and shook her head. There was sure to be some very interesting action in the staffroom later. What she did not realise,though, was that whilst she was reading this e-mail, her students had skipped quite a few numbers.