I am just beaming and ready to leap for joy over here!
One of my students has made amazing improvements this last week and I am just floored! He came in on Monday and was focused, motivated, worked quickly and accurately, did not argue with me once this entire week (which is AMAZING), has only gotten one "reminder tally" (our school discipline system), and has gotten many pluses ("reward tallies") instead. I do not know what has motivated him or why he has suddenly changed his mind about school, but I pray that it will continue. Today he finished his work quickly, smiled at me, grabbed his book report book, was on his way to the reading corner to read, stopped, turned around, and pushed in his chair! I about fell to floor. I couldn't believe the change that has come upon him! I wish I knew what happened but WOW! I don't have to know, so long as it continues. :-) I just want to leap for joy over how proud I am of him and also cry tears of happiness at seeing this precious little one making changes for the better in his life.
I suppose looking back at the year we have made a lot of small improvements together. At first he would stand three feet away from me to ask me a question. Then he would come up beside me. Then he would actually touch shoulders with me. One day he gave me a hug. And then he always smiled in greeting me. And now he has reached the point where he doesn't feel the need to argue, is motivated to do his best, and actually looks like he enjoys school. Can I get a "Praise the Lord!"?! I am just so thankful and in awe over the changes that happen in little ones lives. God is a great God and I love seeing His hands at work in such real ways in the lives of my students.
Please pray that this little one continues to be motivated and to do his best.
Thursday, January 26, 2012
Friday, January 20, 2012
2nd Quarter = Done!
It is now officially the end of the 2nd Quarter! Half a year done. Wow....
Today was a teacher work day. I went up to school and completed report cards. I also got a lot of cleaning out done. It's amazing how quickly papers can pile up. But all my filing is done. My binders have more papers in them. The trash can was full. My desk drawers are clean. All in all a very productive day. :-)
This was a super short week. Only 3 days of teaching with Martin Luther King Jr. Day on Monday and Teacher Work Day today. I'm thankful it was short because I came down with a cold on Monday night. My voice has been in and out all week. Despite coughing and sneezing, it was a good week. We ended the week with a fun filled afternoon. After lunch we made compasses as a concluding activity to our magnet science unit. Oh my, did my students love that! We also had our end of the quarter point store where students could spend the "points" they earned for good behavior. It was a good end to a short week.
Enjoy your weekend!
Today was a teacher work day. I went up to school and completed report cards. I also got a lot of cleaning out done. It's amazing how quickly papers can pile up. But all my filing is done. My binders have more papers in them. The trash can was full. My desk drawers are clean. All in all a very productive day. :-)
This was a super short week. Only 3 days of teaching with Martin Luther King Jr. Day on Monday and Teacher Work Day today. I'm thankful it was short because I came down with a cold on Monday night. My voice has been in and out all week. Despite coughing and sneezing, it was a good week. We ended the week with a fun filled afternoon. After lunch we made compasses as a concluding activity to our magnet science unit. Oh my, did my students love that! We also had our end of the quarter point store where students could spend the "points" they earned for good behavior. It was a good end to a short week.
Enjoy your weekend!
Monday, January 16, 2012
Crazy Week and a Resolution Accomplished!
*Phew* What a week I just had. The first full week back at school after Christmas break was sooo long. Thank the Lord for a 3 day weekend to follow it!
On top of teaching we had Appreciation Dinners for the parents of our school (K-12th). What a marvelous idea to show the parents how we are thankful for them and to also get them to re-enroll early (there were computers set up at the even to re-enroll on and many did!). The hard part was that the teachers were the servers for the evening. This was pleasant and I enjoyed serving food but boy was it exhausting. The dinners were on Thursday night and Friday night. So I got to school at 7:15am both mornings and didn't get home until 9:15pm. Long days of teaching and long nights of standing, serving, and take down/set up. But it was fun to see all my parents and get to know some of the other teachers better through standing at a table all night serving food with them. :-)
Needless to say I have slept in late every day this weekend....
But in other exciting news....I accomplished one of my goals for this year! I posted at the beginning of 2012 a little list of "things I hope to do" and I did one of them this week. We started centers in my class! My students had never even heard of a center before but they picked up on it right away and many said, "This is fun!" We had centers on Tuesday and Thursday for 30 minutes with 5 stations to rotate through. Tuesday I had 10 min. of explanation, and two 10 minute rotations. On Thursday we finished out the last 3 center stations through 10 minute time periods.
I had a Reading Center with me, a Multiplication Fact Center, a Spelling Word center, a Martin Luther King Jr. Center, and a Map Skills Center. I plan on keeping these up every Tuesday and Thursday. Yes, it does take a lot of time right now as I am setting it all up, but it was definitely worth it.
Here is a picture of what our board looked like the first day. It looks a little complex, but I wanted to lay it all out for my students so they could see the big picture which helps them I believe. Each piece of paper is on a magnet so I can easily take off, put on, and re-arrange as needed.
On top of teaching we had Appreciation Dinners for the parents of our school (K-12th). What a marvelous idea to show the parents how we are thankful for them and to also get them to re-enroll early (there were computers set up at the even to re-enroll on and many did!). The hard part was that the teachers were the servers for the evening. This was pleasant and I enjoyed serving food but boy was it exhausting. The dinners were on Thursday night and Friday night. So I got to school at 7:15am both mornings and didn't get home until 9:15pm. Long days of teaching and long nights of standing, serving, and take down/set up. But it was fun to see all my parents and get to know some of the other teachers better through standing at a table all night serving food with them. :-)
Needless to say I have slept in late every day this weekend....
But in other exciting news....I accomplished one of my goals for this year! I posted at the beginning of 2012 a little list of "things I hope to do" and I did one of them this week. We started centers in my class! My students had never even heard of a center before but they picked up on it right away and many said, "This is fun!" We had centers on Tuesday and Thursday for 30 minutes with 5 stations to rotate through. Tuesday I had 10 min. of explanation, and two 10 minute rotations. On Thursday we finished out the last 3 center stations through 10 minute time periods.
I had a Reading Center with me, a Multiplication Fact Center, a Spelling Word center, a Martin Luther King Jr. Center, and a Map Skills Center. I plan on keeping these up every Tuesday and Thursday. Yes, it does take a lot of time right now as I am setting it all up, but it was definitely worth it.
Here is a picture of what our board looked like the first day. It looks a little complex, but I wanted to lay it all out for my students so they could see the big picture which helps them I believe. Each piece of paper is on a magnet so I can easily take off, put on, and re-arrange as needed.
Saturday, January 7, 2012
Decor and Organization
Wow - This is my 60th post and I have 70 followers now! Incredible. :-)
What a week this has been. School started on Tuesday. My students came in all excited about telling me everything they did over break. The first day was pretty good. I feel like the general thought was, "School, I remember this. I think it was pretty neat. I can see my friends." The second and third day I believe the general thought was "School....I remember this....I can't do whatever I want to do any more like I did over break..." But by Friday we were pretty much back in the swing of the things.
Today, despite it being a Saturday, I went up to my classroom to get some work done. And, goodness me, did I get some work done! I took down and put up three new wall displays along with finishing up my binder organization to replace the yucky file folders I had. Here are some pictures:
1. Martin Luther King Jr. Day Display: Inspired by a posting on Pinterest (which lead me to a blog - her display is much cuter so I recommend you checking it out) I decided to create an "I have a dream" wall where my students wrote what their dreams were. I took their pictures holding a white board with a sign that said what they wanted to be when they grew up. I have future doctors, spies, computer engineers, dancers, singers, vets, nurses, firemen, pizza men, mailmen, archery coaches, and policemen in my class! Here is a picture of what the display looks like. I will add more to it as we continue our discussion on Dr. King.
2. We are studying magnets in science right now so I put up a display for magnets. We will add more to it as we continue talking about them but here is the beginnings of it now:
3. We are also learning how to write descriptive paragraphs. We started brainstorming last week and will write our rough drafts this week. I plan to display their final products next to this display on our cabinets:
4. I discovered that I really don't like file folders for organizing papers. And so, I have created a binder for each subject nicely divided up how I need it divided. This has taken me quite a while to accomplish as I kept working on it a little bit at a time but it is all done now, except for my math binder. Here are my wonderfully organized binders! I'm thrilled to have this organization in my life now:
I also put another wall display earlier this week. My students have memorized all of Psalm 19. As a culminating activity for it I asked them to illustrated Psalm 19:1. This was the result:
I left up the Christmas lights because I like them. Plus when they are plugged in they act like stars in the sky above our sky illustrations.
It has been a busy week but I am glad that things got done! Still have papers to grade this weekend but for now time to relax and watch a movie on my comfy couch. Have a good weekend, y'all!
What a week this has been. School started on Tuesday. My students came in all excited about telling me everything they did over break. The first day was pretty good. I feel like the general thought was, "School, I remember this. I think it was pretty neat. I can see my friends." The second and third day I believe the general thought was "School....I remember this....I can't do whatever I want to do any more like I did over break..." But by Friday we were pretty much back in the swing of the things.
Today, despite it being a Saturday, I went up to my classroom to get some work done. And, goodness me, did I get some work done! I took down and put up three new wall displays along with finishing up my binder organization to replace the yucky file folders I had. Here are some pictures:
1. Martin Luther King Jr. Day Display: Inspired by a posting on Pinterest (which lead me to a blog - her display is much cuter so I recommend you checking it out) I decided to create an "I have a dream" wall where my students wrote what their dreams were. I took their pictures holding a white board with a sign that said what they wanted to be when they grew up. I have future doctors, spies, computer engineers, dancers, singers, vets, nurses, firemen, pizza men, mailmen, archery coaches, and policemen in my class! Here is a picture of what the display looks like. I will add more to it as we continue our discussion on Dr. King.
2. We are studying magnets in science right now so I put up a display for magnets. We will add more to it as we continue talking about them but here is the beginnings of it now:
3. We are also learning how to write descriptive paragraphs. We started brainstorming last week and will write our rough drafts this week. I plan to display their final products next to this display on our cabinets:
4. I discovered that I really don't like file folders for organizing papers. And so, I have created a binder for each subject nicely divided up how I need it divided. This has taken me quite a while to accomplish as I kept working on it a little bit at a time but it is all done now, except for my math binder. Here are my wonderfully organized binders! I'm thrilled to have this organization in my life now:
I also put another wall display earlier this week. My students have memorized all of Psalm 19. As a culminating activity for it I asked them to illustrated Psalm 19:1. This was the result:
I left up the Christmas lights because I like them. Plus when they are plugged in they act like stars in the sky above our sky illustrations.
It has been a busy week but I am glad that things got done! Still have papers to grade this weekend but for now time to relax and watch a movie on my comfy couch. Have a good weekend, y'all!
Monday, January 2, 2012
Goals for the Second Half of the Year
As I am sitting in the airport ready to fly back home I have plenty of time to think and of course, my thoughts turn to my class. So, I thought now would be a great time to write out a few goals or things I really want to try to do this second half of the year. There is so much I could do and I often feel overwhelmed by the amount of things I could be doing and want to do, but I need to keep a healthy perspective in mind and realize that I am a first year teacher and just can't do it all this year (no matter how much I want to) ;-).
Here are a few ideas/goals I want to do:
- Try doing centers
- Start really tracking oral reading abilities
- ORGANIZE!!! I found out I am not a file folder person but a binder person and so need to now organize so for my sanity's sake.
- Try to do "continent in a box" for our geography units coming up
- Become more familiar with what is coming in the curriculum
- Incorporate more computer usage and VPU usage
- Become more familiar with good third grade books
I also have a huge immediate to-do list that hopefully can be completed by the end of this week but I won't bore you with that one as I am sure we all have massive to-do lists waiting for us.
School starts back tomorrow for me! I have no idea what to expect with my kids - will they be wild? will be tired? Knowing my kids they will be both.
Hope school starts back up smoothly for all of y'all!
Here are a few ideas/goals I want to do:
- Try doing centers
- Start really tracking oral reading abilities
- ORGANIZE!!! I found out I am not a file folder person but a binder person and so need to now organize so for my sanity's sake.
- Try to do "continent in a box" for our geography units coming up
- Become more familiar with what is coming in the curriculum
- Incorporate more computer usage and VPU usage
- Become more familiar with good third grade books
I also have a huge immediate to-do list that hopefully can be completed by the end of this week but I won't bore you with that one as I am sure we all have massive to-do lists waiting for us.
School starts back tomorrow for me! I have no idea what to expect with my kids - will they be wild? will be tired? Knowing my kids they will be both.
Hope school starts back up smoothly for all of y'all!
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