Head, Shoulders, and Torso
This day was head and shoulders, maybe even torso and hips, above my first day of school last year. (Check out the posts from the beginning of last August to compare.) I don't know exactly what the differences were, and I don't know if it will last, but I think there are several reasons for the turn-around.
1. I had 14 students instead of 22. Huge. This is probably the biggest difference.
2. I had 1 repeater instead of 4. All but one of my students this year are actually the correct age for first grade, which means they get excited more easily, don't have the attitudes, and are little. Tiny, some of them.
3. I am more experienced. Although I don't know if I changed what I did that much...
4. I don't have any classified Special Ed students, and anyone possibly classifiable is certainly more capable than 4 of my Special Ed students from last year.
The 14 students I have so far are small, inquisitive, and excitable. One cried two times -- once because I made her wait to go to the bathroom and once because she didn't know how to tie her shoe. Another cried once, of a tummy ache. I had her lie down and told her she could rejoin the class when she felt better. We were having fun; she was back within minutes. Most of them were on their best behavior and I can tell I have a few smarties.
We went to breakfast and the bathroom, we read a story about the first day of school, we went over our rules and consequences and classroom hand signals. We went to lunch. We did calendar and some activities around 100's day -- we are on day 1, of course. We read Chicka Chicka Boom Boom and another book called Ten Black Dots. Then the students glued little pieces of paper to a sheet I made with the numbers 1-12 on it to show 1-to-1 correspondence while I brought students to my desk 1 at a time to listen to them count orally. About half can get all the way to 100! I had a parent observe the math lesson, and I think she enjoyed it. We also wrote down all the words we knew (very short lists) and began to learn our 5 sight words for the week -- the most basic: a, I, am, it, the. And that was about it. But it went well. And I am tired but happy.
Thank goodness. I was a little bit worried, a little bit dreading this teaching thing.
1. I had 14 students instead of 22. Huge. This is probably the biggest difference.
2. I had 1 repeater instead of 4. All but one of my students this year are actually the correct age for first grade, which means they get excited more easily, don't have the attitudes, and are little. Tiny, some of them.
3. I am more experienced. Although I don't know if I changed what I did that much...
4. I don't have any classified Special Ed students, and anyone possibly classifiable is certainly more capable than 4 of my Special Ed students from last year.
The 14 students I have so far are small, inquisitive, and excitable. One cried two times -- once because I made her wait to go to the bathroom and once because she didn't know how to tie her shoe. Another cried once, of a tummy ache. I had her lie down and told her she could rejoin the class when she felt better. We were having fun; she was back within minutes. Most of them were on their best behavior and I can tell I have a few smarties.
We went to breakfast and the bathroom, we read a story about the first day of school, we went over our rules and consequences and classroom hand signals. We went to lunch. We did calendar and some activities around 100's day -- we are on day 1, of course. We read Chicka Chicka Boom Boom and another book called Ten Black Dots. Then the students glued little pieces of paper to a sheet I made with the numbers 1-12 on it to show 1-to-1 correspondence while I brought students to my desk 1 at a time to listen to them count orally. About half can get all the way to 100! I had a parent observe the math lesson, and I think she enjoyed it. We also wrote down all the words we knew (very short lists) and began to learn our 5 sight words for the week -- the most basic: a, I, am, it, the. And that was about it. But it went well. And I am tired but happy.
Thank goodness. I was a little bit worried, a little bit dreading this teaching thing.
posted by Jessica at 7:21 PM
1 Comments:
you are so wonderful and caring. I'm so happy for you. how could it go anyway but great, now that you've got a reasonable class size. What happened to the other 4 kids? -- weren't you getting 18?
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