September 4th:
Such feisty-ness: "The only one who can tell us what to do is the teacher, 'cause she's in charge of us!!!"
September 2nd:
Student: "Teacher, guess what?"
Me: "What?"
Student: "I have a crush on someone in our class."
Me: "You do?"
Student: "Yeah, _______."
Me: "Oh. He's nice."
Student: "Yeah." while sighing, and then walking over to gaze on her love.
Me: giggle in my head :)
Update: She followed him around at recess the next day, but he wanted to just play with his brother and not with her, so she punched him in the face! Then he pushed her down. Oops!
August 29th: The kiddos took their first spelling test today! They did quite well too! After school, I worked on getting organized and putting some spreadsheets and other organizational materials put together. There are a few more things I need to do, hopefully I'll still remember on Tuesday! Getting home around 9:30 pm was not part of the plan!
August 28th: After checking the tracking, I found out that the new listening center was waiting for me in the office, wahoo! I set it up this morning, and the students absolutely love, love, love it! There are 6 books with CDs for them to choose from. They were happy little clams the whole rest of the reading time. Also, I added three more books with CDs to our growing collection! We now have at least 5 books with CDs to choose from each month. Due to popularity, I may make a student rotation schedule!
Update: Having so many choices makes a mess that they don't seem to be able to keep cleaned up, so I have given them two to start with. They'll have two each week and that should be good! So far it's working much better!
August 26th: I love it when everything starts coming together and things that I didn't fully understand start to really make sense. I love that I have the gospel in my life and that the atonement is real. I love the analogy of the yoke where Jesus Christ becomes our partner and helps us bear our burdens. I love how the Holy Ghost guides me throughout the teaching process so that I can see my students as He sees them, so that I know how to teach them what they need to learn. I love that even though I work at a public school, I can still say a silent prayer for help and guidance. I love having been able to visit with good friends this weekend who also hold these beliefs and learn and understand more from our time together.
August 19th: Day 1 of 180 done! It was a good day. Several super nervous little ones decided that they are now happy about first grade. That's the biggest success of the day! Some also really, really wanted to go back to Kindergarten (half day). One of the little boys kept telling everyone that they had to stay at school for 6 hours before they got to go home, and it hasn't been 6 hours yet! Plus, once we got past the "I want _______ as my teacher." when asked what they want in a teacher (misunderstanding the question?) they answered, "you!" "I just want YOU to be my teacher!" Aw, I accept. I also saw several of my students from last year, and they've gotten SO tall over the summer! They were super cute saying hi as we crossed paths.
