Week of Crazy! It's November already?! Ugh.

            This week…. All I have to say is thank HEAVEN it is Friday. It feels like it has been stressful, exhausting, and VERY long week.  I was really glad to see the kids. Pretty much the fun and joy they bring in to the classroom continues to make my week better. I’m slightly freaking out at the thought that I only have 2 more weeks until I will be there full time – that means teaching. I was looking at the calendar, and I also can’t believe that in one month, I will no longer see my kiddos L. SO sad!

            I had the opportunity this week to use my teacher voice several times. We got to spend the afternoon at an assembly, (one of the WORST assemblies I have EVER been too… Oiy Vey!) and I got to reprimand, and remind  (several of my students) how to behave in an assembly. Though, I can’t really blame them, it was extremely long, and boring. Haha. (Cool fact?! One of the teachers in our school went to school at McKinney elementary… now she teaches there. Crazy!)

            Karen and I continue to get a long. She wants me to run my first reading group next week, and I am very excited. Reading stations continue to go well for me. I am not as nervous about teaching math, and I appreciate all that Karen has taught me about teaching math.

            I got to have my first confrontation with a student. One of my kids, instead of following the class down the hall to recess, bolted out the side door when I had my back turned. It was a little nerve racking, but Karen wanted me to feel like I had a say, since it was my situation/deal. He now has no afternoon recess for the next week. We had a great talk though, and I think that it was really great for me to go through this experience. Courtney and I were talking, it’s much easier to have teacher voices when our CT’s are not in the classroom. It gets a little intimidating to have teacher voices when they are present. Karen keeps telling me I can do whatever I want, and jump in anytime. I just need to become a little more confident.

            I think things are still going very well. I am making progress on my lesson plans, and Karen is going to help me gather all the vocabulary/pictures for our science vocab. wall. I think that I am going to ask our principal to come and watch me teach a lesson (kind of nerve racking, but our principal seems nice enough, and it will be a good experience for me.)

            I worry about the kiddo in my class who has leukemia, he wasn’t in class on Friday, Karen says he’s been back for some check-up treatments. I worry about him because I know how behind he is, and also how smart and capable he is as well. I just know that next year, he will got lost in the crowds of middle school. Within our class we have 3-4 English language learners that are severely behind. Karen is convinced that a few of them might have LD’s, and I’m not sure that many of them do. I struggle with this, because I know how common it is for students who have a language barrier to get placed into ERC classrooms where they receive academic help outside of the classroom. I just wish that more teachers were trained in teaching ELL students in a mainstream classroom, and that we were better equipped to help these students and their families instead of not. We had a really great speaker come and talk to us within our math class, and her whole ideas and basis for teaching are based in ELL students – even though she doesn’t have her ESOL certificate, and I just thought that was SO cool. I learned a lot, and am hoping to implement some of what I learned into my WS.