I need a secretary

So I have officially begun working on reading/literacy centers with my students. The first few days were a little chaotic (which is to be expected) but it is getting better. However, I need more time! What else is new? There is never enough time in the day, but with centers, students who do not finish with their work in that short 10 minutes are still way behind and everyone who can keep up is bored waiting for them to finish, which is exactly what I was trying to avoid. I don't think they are getting enough whole-group instruction now. Right now I have a group working on reading with me. I think I need to do more circulating because they are not quite advanced enough to actually read the directions and do the activity. grr. I also wish that I could get them away from the worksheets that go along with the curriculum, but still feel confident that they will succeed by the end of the week. Hmm...

Plantistic

I would just like to send out a heart-felt thank you to every teacher I have every had. I know that teaching was going to be work. I expected that. But there are so many details that most are not aware of, unless they themselves are a teacher. Not only do you need to plan the activities for the day, you need to ensure that each child feels a part of the classroom community, has a chance to succeed, learns manners, appreciates others, make sure that each student succeeds in each standard (there are about 800 different standards for each grade), they are expected to continue their professional development with meetings, classes, and conferences, they need to make copies, run overheads, read their 50 emails a day, and then do it all again the next day!! Plus I know that with conferences and unit tests (even with two of us in the room) if I were a real teacher I would have worked about 10-15 unpaid hours for this week. Wow. Actually, I have to pay the school for this experience (don't even get me started on that part) but what other profession do you know of that someone would spend hours outside of their workday to prepare for the little minds that will be there tomorrow??

At this moment I am planning a social studies unit. This task has proven to be very exciting, yet fun. I have never really thought about all the work and planning that goes into just 30 minutes of student learning. Not only that, but I have never had the experience of writing even a single lesson plan in social studies, and here I am about to embark on a monumental endeavor of teaching 8 year olds about the ancient civilizations of Egypt and China. I think the students will really enjoy it. I also appreciate the subject for really lending itself to my own creativity. I am just thankful that there are actually other people out there to do this job!!

busy bees, er butterflies

Wow! I cannot even believe the last two weeks that we have had. Last week we tested the bejesus out of these little brains. They did a unit test in reading, a benchmark assessment in reading, spelling tests, math quiz, ule screening, and on and on. They did so well though. This week has been crazy because of no school on Monday and then we went to the Butterfly House yesterday afternoon. It was an awesome time! I was a little worried about our kids and their behavior (I am sure every teacher worries about that with field trips) but they were great! We had a very good afternoon.
However, with our new reading series every day is laid out for each week. It makes it very difficult if we have no school on one day to accomodate and get everything in. It is just one of the thousands of decisions I am getting used to making on a daily basis.
Since my cooperating teacher is so crazy organized, I had been prepared in advance and keeping up. However that long weekend got me a little too relaxed and I do not seem to have anything ready to go for next week yet. Looks like it will be a late night at school.

New arrangement!

This may not seem like a huge deal to anyone not involved in education, but last night after school I got to move the desks! The students have always sat in boring old rows. It is too difficult to work in groups or pairs when all the desks are in neat rows. So after school last night my cooperating teacher said that she was open to me rearranging whatever I wanted to. So I got to seat the kids in the way that I would like to and by whom I think would work well with. It is a small guesture made by my cooperating teacher to make me feel like I actually have my own class. It is very exciting.
I got to meet some parents this morning. Interesting...a few of them were crazies (as suspected). The one that I just knew would be nice as can be (and normal) absolutely was. I did feel a little awkward though because my cooperating teacher had to go outside for morning duty so I was in there with the kids and their parents. I felt like I should be entertaining them. I didn't know what to talk about or what to say. It was strange. Next week we get to schedule student conferences and begin report cards. Should be quite a learning experience. I will also be sitting in on an IEP (individualized education plan) meeting for a special needs student in our room. I will be learning so much!

What page?

Here is the issue I am struggling with today...where should I draw the line with late/no work? I have two or three students who ALWAYS hand in their work late or not at all. Usually when we do things like worksheets in the classroom I give them back to the students for corrections. Often I get a confused look and, "What spelling sheet?" "huh? What math page?" I understand that this problem is not one unique to my classroom. It will continue to happen throughout adult life for some of these children. However, I am wondering for the pace of my class and for my own personal sanity, where do I draw the line? If I just make them not do the work (worksheet grades are not usually kept) they will get out free-I don't have to worry about it either. Win for both of us right? Not exactly. Because then when we move on to the next topic and they have not completed the practice for the previous topic they are not ready and subsequently fall farther behind. However, when I hand the sheet back for corrections and recieve it back 5+ times with the answers still not correct, is it even doing them any good to do it a 6, 7, or 8th time? Where does fixing/finishing work stop being helpful? Is there even a solution??