Week Two

Another week has gone by. The days here go by so fast!

Last week seemed a blur although it was really tough. I received my first A&P test back and it was awful. I still feel haunted from 3 years ago taking this course, and am reminded daily of why I am an elementary education major and not a nursing major. Although I love the idea of being a nurse still, God keeps pushing me to be a teacher. So here I am! Week numero dos con los ninos. I mean week number two with the kids. :)

I remembered almost all 20 of my homeroom's names.
They are still as cute as ever, especially the little boys. It is reallllly bad how biased I am towards boys. I think from having 3 brothers myself and no sisters! (Thanks Mom!) For my final project in my Reading class at Messiah (yes, we have to think that far in advance already), we have to do a QRI: Qualitative Reading Inventory, by conducting 6 or so interviews and finding out about a particular child's reading level. I wanted to do a boy, which worked out 'cause Sam, my team teaching partner, wanted to do a girl. I had it narrowed down to two boys. One I knew could write a lot since for last weeks activity we had all the kids write in their 'passports' about where they want to go and draw a picture of themselves. This particular little boy, M, drew a picture of himself with his mom. On his shirt it said "Man of the house," making me think two things: 1. how when my brother Ian goes away, he tells my nephew Evan that he's the Man of the House, reminding him of the duties and responsibilities of the Man of the House (like protecting mom and making sure everything is safe), and 2. this boy doesn't have a father in his life if he's being called the Man of the House. My other option for a boy to interview was C, this little hispanic cutie with the most gorgeous eyes that kill me! He is so precious, I could squeeze him. He loooves football (the Eagles being his favorite team, with the Cowboys as a close 2nd, and the Steelers being 'the worst team ever').

On Tuesday the first period was Wings, which Miss Spunk combined with another 4th grade teacher so the class was bigger. It was unbelievable how uncooperative these kids were. They were split into teams, which most of them hated and commented on how they disliked someone in their group, even if they didn't know them. I tried to help one team think up a name and literally the girls just stared at me and shrugged their shoulders when I asked what kind of things they liked, hobbies, etc. These poor kids, and poor teachers where it feels hopeless and nothing can get through to these kids and help them learn. It was a struggle, and disappointing, especially because it took 40 minutes (out of the 80 total) to group them into teams, then pick team names, before the lesson could actually begin. Then Sam and I saw our homeroom kids and dropped them off at their special for the day, which was Music. One of my students can play the guitar and I asked him if he'd play me a song, and he just smiled.

Today was much more different. The kids came in and ate their breakfast quickly, then shipped off to different classrooms to do a state-wide (I think?) reading and math test on the computer. I helped out the teacher across the hall, who's been teaching there her whole career life! She knows her stuff, and she is tough with the students. They've done this kind of test before, but never computer-based and so it was frustrating to have not all the computers work at the same time. Some it took 30 minutes to get started. I got to know some more students, and then I took C out in the hallway to introduce myself better to him. I gave him a list of things that I like, and he was to say if he liked those things too, kind of liked them, felt neutral, didn't like them, or hated them. Examples like, "I like the Phillies," which he 'strongly agreed to.' Or things like, "I like playing out in the snow," which he hated. It was an interesting morning, glad it was different.

Tomorrow, Sam and I are going back in the afternoon to read Punctuation Takes a Vacation as our first read aloud. Miss Spunk gave us this book, as usually we'd choose, but at this school there is no room for read alouds or too much flexibility to have what Messiah requires us do this semester. It'll be fun!