One of those days

Sometimes,

When it's a half-day at school,

And the weather outside is frightful (which means it's perfectly in tune with my inner moppet),

And the warm Milo I've had is settling peacefully to the bottom of my stomach,

--- The best thing to do is to channel a little Buffy the Vampire Slayer and let the class talk you into a little game of Pictionary instead of the educationally sound but spiritually inert lesson plan you had in mind. To quote a scene from "Graduation Day, Part 1":

Teacher: Look, I realize that you've all finished your finals and you're ready to move on. But you haven't graduated yet. This is still a class and everyone will participate. Mr. Harris, would you care to begin.
Xander: Ummm... 'E'.
Teacher: No. There's no 'E'. (Camera turns so that we can see that the chalkboard has the garrett of a game of Hangman drawn. The teacher draws in the head.) They always go for the 'E'. Next!

Of course, in order for Pictionary to be an educational exercise, I had them make up their own vocabulary lists of words to do with the topic that I'm currently teaching, which in turn taught me a new term in the course of the game: the Bandung Conference. You learn something new everyday.

I also learned that seventeen-year-olds are capable of Pictionarying 'syphilis', even when they use stick figures that don't have any identifiable anatomical parts. Who says our kids aren't creative?