WHOOSH!!! ...That is the sound this week made as it FLEW by!
This week's schedule was messed up due to the music show the 2nd and 3rd graders put on. The specials were mostly in the morning, then Thursday we got to watch their dress rehearsal :-) Before we went, I reminded the 1st graders of what it means to be a good audience (since I'm a performer, I know how frustrating it is to have a bad audience!). They were FANTASTIC. I was so happy with them -- but they weren't the only ones! It seems the younger kids are (surprisingly) the best audience members.
It was a full moon week--the behavior was pretty insane. By Tuesday I decided that I'd like to assign the kids spots on the carpet, because there were SO many issues with who gets to sit by who, and this person talking to that person, and kids getting almost stepped on (by me, as I try making my way to the whiteboard, despite telling them every day to just leave that last row of squares open for me to walk on!)... etc., etc. They were fine on Tuesday, but by Wednesday they were asking to be able to sit wherever they want. I said maybe next week, if their behavior improved this week. We'll see how next Tuesday goes...
My CT actually had to have a talk with them, too, because they couldn't follow any of her directions, either! It's kind of infuriating... which is frustrating to me, because I generally have a lot of patience with kids. I hope this is just an off week, I don't want to lose that patience!!! I don't know how much easier we could make it for them... but I do have to keep in mind that they are just 1st graders, and their attention span is short. The long afternoons were probably worse for them than they were for us!!
Because of the morning craziness (our class had to lead the pledge this week, and our specials were in the morning instead of afternoon), Word Study/Word Work/Word something! got pushed off until we found time later... which didn't happen until Thursday afternoon! Talk about Ketchup work!! ;-)
My favorite activity of the week was on Wednesday. Our class and the class next door went on an adventure together -- I got to put my theatre camp acting skills to the test! ;-) I read Nice Try, Tooth Fairy to the classes, and at the end a note from the Tooth Fairy fell out!!! Oh my goodness, what does it say?? Well, she gave us a clue of where she went... so we followed her clue to the library. We didn't find a tooth, but she did leave us some floss! Her next clue led to the lunch room, where she left us some mints. Her last clue led us to the nurse's office, where she left us toothbrushes. They were so excited, it definitely rubbed off on me!! It was fantastic :-)
This week I was also able to sit in on a meeting about a student who'd been having difficulties. Luckily, everyone on the team had seen improvement, so they didn't have to implement any new help. The best part of the meeting was when the School Psychologist asked my CT if an idea is realistic in the classroom, instead of just telling her to try it. It was SO nice to see that she understood that teachers have a limited time as it is, and that new ways to help students would be nice, but are not always possible.
Friday was a teacher institute day. The morning was interesting, if not only for the material, but for the conversations with my CT, PSH, and some of the other staff. More on that later...
The topic being covered at the training was about a new framework the district is adopting to evaluate teachers. This information will definitely be helpful for me to keep in mind as I teach, and if I happen to get a job in the district, it will be nice that I know what they're evaluating me on ahead of time!!
The afternoon was excruciating... the teachers split into grade-level teams to discuss the descriptions for report cards. That means they had to go through every sub-category of every subject and write how students are doing: exceeds, proficient, basic, or below basic. Now, this might have been more interesting if I had a working knowledge of what should be expected of students in each sub-category, but I don't... so I just listened... for 3 hours... ouch. Oh well, it's one of those things that I can add to my experiences, and maybe one day it will have proved useful (even though I don't see it now) :-)
Anyway, back to the talking this morning. [ Warning: This deals with politics. If you'd rather ignore it, please feel free to stop reading now. Thanks ;-) ] It mainly revolved around the situation in Wisconsin, which is driving me INSANE. It has brought out some of the worst comments towards teachers that I've heard... and the bill is just ridiculous (in my opinion). Teachers don't earn enough as it is, what makes the governor think that teachers can afford to pay any extra for benefits? Or that teachers don't deserve the right to collective bargaining? Or that the unions need to go, when they're not the ones increasing the state deficit? Even the firefighter's union (which is exempt from the bill) is fighting on the other public workers' behalf!
After all of my extra research (yes, that is what I spent the majority of my Saturday doing), I learned that it isn't even necessary!! It's so frustrating. It's not even about public workers, it's about eliminating political competition. I'm sorry, that is just out of line. I don't care what your political views are, isn't it just healthy to have the competition between parties, so that each side can balance the other? I don't think many people would be happy at all if one party had complete control -- I believe a majority of people are moderate, so the balance just works. I suppose I should step off my soap box, though... maybe there's something I'm missing, even after reading the entire bill for myself...
Well, so ends Week 7. Three more weeks left in first grade!
Need a Smile?
-Student loses a 'tooth' from a project: "Awww, that was my good tooth!"
-Student from next door: "It's so hot in here!" [[ Background: my CT loves her room warm, which I love, but everyone else gets overwhelmed by! There's always comments about the temperature in her room by other teachers, having it come from another student was just funny :-) ]]
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