Christmas Projects

The first day of December is on Wednesday. I can't believe how quickly time has gone by. This is the first year where I've started my Christmas projects early. I usually rush to finish them during the last two weeks before break. I'll be at workshops for most of next week, so I decided to get as much done this week. There will probably be some that we can do when I do come back to teach, but I know there will be a lot of "academic" catching up to do as well. Speaking of which, I need to do my sub plans and start running off copies.

I ended up spending most of this afternoon shopping for supplies for the kids' projects. I still forgot some things, but I think I got most of what was needed. I realized I was missing some things as I drove away from Wal-Mart, but I didn't want to go back into that madness, so I guess I can go back tomorrow if anything. I need to start the kids on their puzzle wreaths tomorrow. That should be oodles of fun.

Desks pt. 2

The kids LOVED the new arrangement today. I even got a compliment from one of my co-workers. The only downside of sitting where I was at for most of the day was that my behind hurt since I didn't have my comfy teacher chair. I'm thinking of moving it to my new area instead.

I'm hoping that we'll be able to keep this arrangement for a while...I'm just going to have to think of a way to mix it up again in a few weeks...

Desks

I've been rearranging the desks in my room every two weeks, so the students are always anticipating the changes. I usually keep the layout the same and just switch them around, but today, I decided to really change things up.

My teacher desk has always been like a fort. My desk is facing the windows and is between two longer desks. I decided to take one of the long desks out and move it into a spot where the students are always complaining about the coldness of the AC. I then moved another desk that was in the back and put it with the other long desk. Now, I have a place to work with small groups that is in front of the room where I can keep my eye on everyone. I ended up making the students sit in two larger groups. I was kind of hesitant to do that, but we'll see how it goes.

Halloween 2010

Looking back to the beginning of the SY, I did have a hard time adjusting to this class, but I've found that over the past few months, they've really grown on me. They were pretty good this afternoon despite there being a Halloween activity going on outside. I complimented them on their behavior. I do think that my class is pretty well-behaved compared to the others although I do have one of the more playful ones with me.

The quarter will be over before I know it...which reminds me. When I was teaching with the ELMO during Math, one of the girls asked me if I was married. I guess she finally noticed my engagement ring. Then I mentioned that I was GOING to get married. All the girls started asking questions and we got off-task for a minute or so. Fortunately, they were able to get back on-task pretty quickly. I had one of the girls teach me something today. There was a problem on the WS I had assigned to them. I knew the answer, but wasn't really certain on how to explain it or how to make a diagram for it. She was the one who was able to come up with the diagram and was able to explain it to me. I will definitely need to give her an ME for the probability strand this quarter.

HOT cards

This year has already started off in an interesting way. It's only been three weeks and I've already started having problems with some of my kids and homework. I used to do sticker charts with my previous kids. I'd leave the charts up in front of everyone so the students could see each others' progress. I'd seen these things called HOT cards in the Scholastic catalogs and decided to try to use these things to see if they'd work for my kids. One of the pros of this is that it's helping me stay on top of collecting and checking the homework. I have one of the students collect the cards and I stamp the cards as I check the homework. With the sticker charts, I didn't really keep up with them and would forget to give the kids stickers to put on.

I was thinking of adding a checkbook incentive program as well. I'm going to try and read up about it online and see what I can find out.

Survival

I survived the first week of school. It was hard having to go in today since most of the Fridays last year were furlough days. I think it's better with this group though since they need lots of attention and help. They are so chatty and can't seem to focus on whatever they need to do. I shouldn't say that about all of them though...there are a handful who are good and usually finish all their things on time. It'll be easier once I put them in pods since I'll be able to zigzag through them easily to see what they're doing.

New Year 2010-2011

It's that time again...new school year! I can't believe that it's already the beginning of a new year. I'm not as excited this year, but that may change in a few hours. There was a mistake on my ESIS roster and I know that the office is going to be swamped. I guess all I should do is redo my list so that the other child is on there as well. Wheatie woke me up around 4 this morning, so I missed an hour of sleep. Hopefully I won't crash and burn this afternoon since I work at WK too. :(

Back to the Grind

The school year is quickly looming back into my life. I can't believe how quickly the summer went by. I feel like I got nothing accomplished. I've been meaning to do some of the things I normally get done before the school year start, but I always seem to find something else to do instead.

I went into my classroom yesterday to grab some borders to help KN do his bulletin boards and found that all of my furniture was pushed to one side of the room. I was thinking, "What's the reason I had to do a classroom map if all they were going to do was push all of my stuff to one side?" I hope it'll all be moved by the time Monday comes around since I plan on spending my day in the classroom then. I'll probably go and exercise in the morning and then go straight afterward. I could even go to evening class as well since I took off work that night.

I can't even remember what my class count is either. I really should get on the ball...