Today was the first day of my first lead week. Fortunately, Mondays in our district are early release to allow for teacher prep/PD time, so it was an easy transition back into the swing of school. Coming off of a long break was nice in a sense because it felt like we were starting fresh as a class, but it came with lots of reminders of how we act in school (raising hands, sitting up, taking turns, etc.). I included in our morning message today that there would be some changes this week- my CT wouldn't be around because I was doing my lead teaching and that we got new seats today. Morning meeting went well and I was able to start our reading rotation in plenty of time which felt good.
I was a little stressed coming into reading today because I am responsible this week for all five of our reading groups. Two of them are in the "Guided Reading Plus" intervention format, which means I have to meet with them for a total of 30 minutes a day. When our reading block is only 60 minutes long, it puts the pressure on to fit in the rest of the class! Fortunately, of the other two groups, one meets Monday/Wednesday, another meets Tuesday/Thursday, and the last one meets Wednesday/Friday. I'll be a little crunched on Wednesdays, but I can make it work for my two lead teaching weeks. The kids were remarkably quiet while they were working and time wasn't crunched because we have an extra 30 minutes on Mondays. I was in a bit of a bind, though, because our word work today was a crossword puzzle with synonyms. Most kids did really well and enjoyed it a lot, but two of our low readers had a hard time. They were walking around, talking, dancing, etc. so I called them over to me. Turns out, they had know idea what they were doing on the crossword! What a surprise... not! I should have known and planned either an alternate activity for them or made sure I sat them down and explicitly showed them what to do. I was able to help them while also leading reading groups, but it's something to note for next time.
Math went well today. We taught a mandatory CCLE lesson about sorting shapes (as if we hadn't done that enough lately...) and we learned what a rectangle and a quadrilateral were. At the end, the kids had to color in shapes on a worksheet in blue or red depending on the properties. Once again, most of the kids got it, but two of our kids colored in shapes at random. I'm sure they have reasons for why they colored each shape in, but they aren't the right reasons. I made a note to pull them aside later this week to reteach and have them finish the worksheet.
At the end of the day, the kids had thirty minutes of REACH (in the computer lab) and the last thirty minutes of the day was spent doing cursive. We got to do cursive bingo today, which the kids really enjoyed. Once again, it was hard for some of them to understand, but the objective was to practice cursive, which everyone was able to do. I made another note to work on grids/plotting in math- that tripped them up the most! I also had a small moment of realizing that I'm well on my way to being a "real" teacher. Two of the letter combinations in bingo were "ip" and "up." When read aloud, I'm sure you can imagine the snickers that I got from my class. I used to get all nervous about students talking about potty issues (farting, pooping, peeing, burping) because I didn't know what I was supposed to say or do. This time, I embraced the laughter and let it happen. I then let out a fake laugh and said, "Oh boy. We all pee. Ha ha ha." I made it into a sort of sarcastic comment that acknowledged why they thought it was so funny while also indicated that it was time to move on. It worked well!
I got the most hugs today that I have gotten in my student teaching so far. I got at least 13 hugs from C before he left, and at least 5 more from other students, even some that don't typically give hugs. Knowing that they are happy when they walk out of my classroom makes me excited to teach them again tomorrow!
I am spending the rest of my night perfecting my resume for a job fair on campus tomorrow night. I also need to figure out some technology glitches with my ePortfolio- annoying! I am CERTAINLY feeling ready to be done with college. Whew!
Love,
BJT
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