Week (1)4 & Week (1)5... right?

Here's the problem with not updating every week... I forget what happens. As far as I can remember, the rest of my 4th week in 6th grade went fairly well. I got to attend a Literacy Training on Tuesday with my CT2, which involved giving the Fountas and Pinnell assessment. I actually really enjoyed that one -- doing assessments like that is fun!!!
Wednesday we had an initial IEP meeting for one of the students, which took almost 2 hours! It was pretty crazy, but very nice to see before I have to be involved in all the discussion and decisions.
This week we did a Grammar Review product to wrap up the parts of speech that we've been working on :-) I gave them an option to make a song, skit, review game, or pamphlet, working with up to 3 other students. I LOVED the results! They all did well (including at least 5 different parts of speech), and were very creative!!
Math has been an adventure... trying to make sure I'm explaining everything well while still fitting it into the short time we have... same with the research skills unit. I started out so excited for it, but I didn't realize how little they would know compared to what I thought they should know... it's been kind of frustrating figuring it out, since my plans have had to change so many times. I guess that's just something I have to get used to -- not everything can be perfect the first time!

Week 5 in 6th grade had me starting the reading mini-lessons, in addition to language arts and math. All that's left after this is science/social studies (which switches depending on the unit) and guided reading groups. I was feeling overwhelmed, so I talked with my CT2 and we decided that I would wait to take on guided reading until the week after next. It worked out well, since next week they're finishing up they're unit on historical fiction, anyway.
I had fun with the reading mini-lessons -- reading aloud is one of my favorite parts of the day! ;-)j
This week was also a math test, so I learned some ways we could review for that. I liked figuring it all out, though it was confusing at first. I was nervous about not having the centers exactly mapped out and partners exactly matched up, but my CT2 reassured me that it would work out. I was going to take small groups to review material while the rest of them were doing their center games. At the end I had time to ask anyone who just wanted to review anything to come to the back by me to ask questions. I didn't know that any of them would come, but to my surprise, there was a fairly large group! I really feel like it helped to have those small groups -- a great example of how much help CTs can be!! :-)
After the math test on Wednesday, my CT2 had a game for the students to play. Unfortunately, they got bored with it just 10 minutes before the math period was over... so she said I should intro the next lesson. It was uncomfortable for me to try to do that without any preparation, since I'd been under the impression that the entire introduction lesson for the next unit would take the hour and 10 mins on Tuesday... I was just confused. Oh well, these are the kind of kinks to work out now, instead of my first year of teaching with no one in the room to help me. Wednesday we also had a collaboration meeting to talk about the upcoming topics and how to meet the needs of the students with IEPs.
Thursday afternoon I got to see the 1st graders again for their music concert that the whole school was able to watch, and I was beyond excited!!! I miss them a lot, but I realize that 6th grade is growing on me, too. I know I'll miss those kids when it's time to go!
No school Friday or Monday (today), so 2 4-day weeks in a row--YAY!!! I needed that SO bad, hopefully this will help me last through the year. At least I still enjoy going to school every day, so I know I'm in the right career :-)

In other news, I turned in my very first job application, thanks to PSH's help and guidance, along with the help of my family, CT1, Mr. CT1, and CT2. I feel so extremely lucky to be surrounded with people who are willing to help me succeed -- I can't wait until the day when I can pass along that help to someone else!!! :-)

Week (1)3 & Week (1)4: Day 1

I've been feeling stressed, and I feel guilty for complaining all the time! But the stress is getting to me, probably due to lack of sleep. Note to all you future student teachers out there: DO NOT WORK AND STUDENT TEACH AT THE SAME TIME!! It is as hard as they warn you! Thank goodness I love student teaching and my job, or I'd have given up!

Anyway, last week I got to start teaching my unit plan -- YAY! Unfortunately, the first day back from spring break, technology decided that it was going to be rude to my CT2 and I... Fortunately, it got fixed in time for the end of my lesson, so I still got to show Prezi to the students! We had to do quite a bit of rearranging my original timeline for the unit plan to fit it into the "real world" schedule, but it's working out well so far! I didn't realize how little 6th graders knew about searching the internet, though, so I wish I'd had time to do a mini lesson on that. They seemed to really enjoy the activity for primary vs. secondary sources, even though it was simplistic. I had them hold up the correct card (primary or secondary) in response to the source I showed them on the Prezi. They asked me to come up with more! I was happy that they were happy with something I did! ;-)

Wednesday we had a sub because my CT2 had a committee meeting, so I got to do a bit more teaching, as well as lead a guided reading group. It was fun, and I realized that I am getting more comfortable in 6th grade, finally :-) Despite being comfortable, my lessons are still very choppy, but I'll figure it out! My favorite lesson was when I put my acting skills to the test Tuesday, trying to convince the kids that the tree octopus was real - LOL! Thank goodness my CT2 was there to help along the gig, I would have burst out laughing and given up without her acting skills!!!

Wednesday afternoon was hard -- one of the students (male) was walking to the bus crying, so I pulled him aside. I was so worried, because it's got to take a good amount to make a 6th grade boy cry at school. I'd seen his football on the floor, and thought I saw another student push him, so I told the other student to keep his hands to himself, then tried to talk to the crying boy. He didn't want to talk much, though, possibly because he was scared that if he got the others in trouble, they would cause more trouble for him... after seeing them off to the bus, I went to the Lead Teacher (LT), since my CT2 wasn't there to talk me through what I could do/should have done. The LT called his house to let them know that something had happened, but he didn't want to talk about it. She told me to keep an eye on the boy tomorrow to see if he was OK, and she would let me know if she heard anything. I felt better after talking with her, since I knew that I didn't completely mess up by not getting the information out of him... situations like this are hard...

Thursday I got to go with my CT2 to a committee meeting! They're working on a schedule for the entire district, that includes an "intervention" time -- that's a time for no new instruction, as well as a time for students who need extra services to get pulled. It's very helpful, since then the students don't miss as much instructional time, and teachers don't have to worry about them falling even farther behind. I had no idea how hard it would be to plan a schedule like that!! There are SO many factors that go into it... it was interesting to see the debate about how much time each grade would get for each subject... of course science and social studies got the least, but not because anyone thought it wasn't important... it's just MORE important for students to be able to read and write. Even though in college classes, I was totally on the side of giving more time to those topics, I've kind of switched my views. Yes, science and social studies are important, but how can students learn those if they can't read and comprehend the information, or write about their findings? There's just not enough time in a school day for everything...

Today was my first math lesson. As I got started, the principal walked in with his iPad and sat down to observe! I'm pretty sure I said "Are you serious?!" out loud, oops... like I wasn't nervous enough doing my first math lesson... oh boy. How embarrassing. The lesson went pretty well, at first. I had them in groups to discuss some of the opening things, and they seemed to understand... then we got deeper in the lesson, and I felt like I lost any power I had to explain the concepts clearly. There was just so much involved! Then there was this whole debate about a square being a rectangle but a rectangle not being a square... and it was just rough. I got some feedback from my CT2 after the lesson, about making transitions smoother within the lessons. I think that will help me feel better as I'm teaching, so that I don't get flustered and lose my train of thought or momentum. She also said that I could have spent more time on that rectangle/square debate, because students don't get enough time to REALLY think about things nowadays. That debate would definitely have gotten them thinking! Oh well, I'm sure there will be more opportunities like that!

Now I'm off to try to relax for a bit, because there's no way I can improve my teaching when I'm up to my ears in stress, and that is definitely not fair to those students!