Week Three

Day Nine: This week we have duty: we stand in the hallway at the beginning and end of school and we stand outside during morning and afternoon break. Today we worked on writing a class introduction. Once that was accomplished I taught a lesson using Step-Up to Writing templates to help them organize their ideas. One thing that I really like about the 6^th grade teachers is that they all meet and plan out what they are going to say to certain parents during conferences so that they all are on the same page and can talk through their frustrations to have a unified front. On Mondays we ask the students, "What is one awesome from your weekend?" An awesome is like eating a taco without it breaking or anything falling out or when a lose tooth finally falls out. When teaching 7^th period it can be hard because they have so many ideas and can't stop talking, but at the same time their ideas are wonderful.

Day Ten: Team Taught today. I went over the templates again and we showed how they could take the organizers and make paragraphs. Ahh 1^st period kids were being really whiny and were pretending that they didn't know what to do. It was kind of annoying. In Reading Intervention they read a story about sneakers and their activity was to design their own shoe; what it would look like including colors and draw it. I had my first experience meeting with a parent today and it went really well for the team. Eating lunch with the team is so much fun; they treat me as an adult and include me in the conversations. In our other meeting the counselor came in and it was great to see how everyone works together to do what we can for the kids to be successful and be their best selves.  The rest of school went well. After school I hung out with the girl scouts. A little girl said, “Miss, you smell like peaches and sugar.” Then I went to Nikki’s basketball game. It was so fun watching her and the team.

Day Eleven: Today our faculty meeting started with this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l-gQLqv9f4o. Also today is hat day. Morning classes went well, the students were working on their essays. During SLC I helped the students plan the activity for the basketball assembly tomorrow, we will be doing an obstacle course/relay race. I found out that the little girl from yesterday is one of the sixth grader’s younger sister. She told her sister that I also smell like willow trees and said, “I want her to babysit me all the time so I can smell her whenever I want.” I laughed at this comment. So cute. I told the kids they had to pay me for mints and they decided to draw me fake money and other pictures. First night of Parent/Teacher Conferences was tonight. They went well and we met with about 20 different parents. For the most part we were discussing the new grading policy with the writing assessment rubric and how it fits into grading to standards. Wow, this was a long day and it does not help that I’m not feeling well.

Day Twelve: It was a great morning with Reading Intervention and a Team Meeting. As a team we ordered from Mario’s and ate lunch together. That was great and much needed. I had 6^th period make me money like 7^th did the day before. They got really into it and thought it was a lot of fun. One of the boys in class kept on staring at me and I had to keep him on task. It is a little amusing. During the assembly everyone loved the obstacle course. Tonight we had about 20 more Parent/Teacher Conferences. All went well and we were one of the last teachers there. I think it is very interesting to see family dynamics. A little girl wasn’t sure if reading a fantasy book would be appropriate, so she took it home and had a great conversation with her mom and they decided to read it together. This reminded me of when I had to read The Chronicles of Narnia. I came home and asked my parents about it. My mom and I ended up reading it together so we could talk about the fantasy aspects. I think it is great to see that the kids are advocating for themselves and have these kinds of conversations with their parents.