An Assortment of Thoughts

Last week, I spent three days giving diagnostics that I felt were inappropriate for my students. Well, really, the Language diagnostic was inappropriate, the Reading one was beyond their grasp at this point, and the Math one was fairly helpful. But the Language one was the first one I gave, and it was really way beyond the grasp of most of my students (who can barely read, if they can read at all). It included things such as correcting capitalization and spelling with editing marks. Anyhow, today I felt slightly redeemed when I spoke to the literacy coach, Mrs. J--, about finding the results on our test grading software. She frowned at the results -- all of my students were ranked in desperate need of remediation -- and I brought her the test. I explained that I thought it was an end of year second grade MCT (Mississippi Curriculum Test) and she looked at it, and it was. She was shocked that I had been told to give it and agreed that the results were junk. Of course my students didn't do well on a test that is two school years ahead of where they are expected to be!

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I received my first gifts from Amazon today -- a Leap Pad, which is a device that reads books aloud, allows students to record themselves reading, and plays comprehension games with them, some books on teaching reading, some Leap Pad books, and the wonderful computer program Kid Pix. I was so excited!

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Stories from the classroom:

This morning went really well. I'm trying to do engaging activities with my students. I spoke to another TFA teacher, who teaches kindergarten in Quitman County, for about an hour yesterday, mostly about classroom management. First graders without a recess need down time to talk to each other. I am thinking of including some of that time in my lesson plans. After all, conversation with peers is one of my benchmarks. J-- pushed positive reinforcement. I'm okay with that in the mornings, but it is harder in the afternoons, when they are rowdier, I am more tired, and negative reinforcement is so much quicker. I've got to get into a good carrot-and-stick (not literally!) routine so that I can keep them invested and involved and managed.

I finally got the IEP accomodations for my SpEd students. Every single one is supposed to sit in the front of the room.

I am sick of tattling but I don't know what to do about it because I don't usually see it when someone hits someone else. Also, the hitter almost always denies it, and I think half the time it is a mistake (unintentional flailing of the arms). Blah.

I assigned some jobs today. They are temporary positions and I realized that these students need some intenxive training on how exactly I want these things to be done. But giving away pencil management, paper passing, and paper collecting was a huge help. My next step with jobs is to train the directions managers. They need to ALWAYS be paying attention. Hopefully that will cut down on the amount of stuff I need to repeat.

A heartening moment: some of my kids came back from working with the resource teacher, including one who I really DON'T want to have pulled out because he is NOT behind, he is ahead. R--, one of my loudmouths, piped up, "We've really been having fun while y'all were gone." Score! We had fun today! We were discussing needs and wants in groups. My finding: Groups are Great. My finding number 2: we don't know how to work in groups yet. I need to figure out how to model that. For example, sitting in a circle so that everyone can participate. Or not crying when it's not your turn to hold the cards.