Spelling woes

In my classroom, spelling assignments are due on Thursday, and we take the test on Friday. This is to ensure that if someone forgets to do their assignment by Thursday, they will have the next day to turn it in, and it won't be counted as late. So today, spelling assignments are due. And I have stated this to the class. When the kids turn in what they've got, I start correcting and make a list of the students whose assignments I don't have. And it's a LONG list.

I write their names on the board, reminding them to find the assignment and turn it into me, or to finish it and turn it into me, or it will be late. Many of them say, "But I already turned mine into you!" To which I reply, "It's not on my desk, so that must mean I didn't get it from you." End of story. On my lunch period, I even went to the copier and made copies of the assignment for the students who hadn't turned theirs in yet, figuring they lost it or left it at home.

As I am correcting math assignments, one of my young men approaches me and says, "I will be turning this in on Friday," holding up the sheet I had just Xeroxed for him. "No, you have 30 minutes to work on it now, so you will do it now. It will be late if you turn it in on Friday." He sits back down, and I get back to correcting.

Five minutes later, if that, he is back at my desk. "But I have half of this finished at home, so I'm going to finish the other half of it tonight and turn it in on Friday." Getting frustrated with him, because he has everything else turned in and nothing better to do with his time, I tell him that he needs to sit down right now and finish the paper that he has in front of him because it is due today. No excuses. He tries to protest, and I tell him, "No," pointing to his desk that he needs to sit down and do it right now (like I had told him earlier).

I turn away from him, signaling the end of the conversation, and get back to correcting the rest of the spelling assignments that are slowly pouring onto my desk. About 10 minutes later, I turn around and notice the boy isn't doing anything. Not thinking much of it, I go back to my papers.

But wait. He hasn't turned in his spelling. Why isn't he working on it? I turn back to look at him more closely. He's sitting at his desk, scowling and crying. I turn away. After a few more minutes, he is still crying. Hmm.

I go up to my teacher. "Do you know why Fred is crying?" I ask her. "Nope," she replies, busy with something else. "Oh," I said, thinking. "I must have made him cry, then," I said, thinking about the spelling assignment. She asked why, and I told her. She of course was not too worried about Fred, because more often than not his is obstinate and rude, and spelling is due today.

But, only a month into school, and I have made my first student cry. I think I have arrived. Heck, it only took my teacher 2 weeks to make Fred cry...I wasn't too far behind her.

socks!

I re-learned how to knit over the summer due to boredom, and bought a few books with some fun patterns. Truth be told, the only thing I've managed to make out of the books are two hats, both of which are WAY too small for me.


Well, I decided that I wanted to make some socks. I had know idea how to read the directions, and one of the blackjack dealers at work suggested going to this local yarn store (LYS) because the lady who runs it could teach me how to make socks. So here they are, after a couple of months' work - my first pair of socks!!



Here is the first one I made...the cuff looks a little weird, and it's a little saggy.


Here's the second one I just finished, and I did the cuff's ribbing throughout the whole leg of the sock, and they seem to stay up much better.

national talk like a pirate day

a day off!

Tomorrow: a day off from school, and a day off from work. How did such a glorious thing happen? Well, it wasn't so glorious, really...I am sick as crap, thanks to one of my beautiful little fourth graders. Last week, she gave me a big ol' hug before leaving school. And then she was gone, sick, for the next two days. And guess who's sick now?

So I went to work last night, not feeling so hot, working in the 90* heat, with smoke that was worse than usual, and staying up way past my usual bedtime of 10pm.

As soon as I got home from work at 1am this morning, I called in sick to work, and came to school in the morning. My cooperating teacher suggested that I stay home from school tomorrow, and I also don't work tomorrow, so I get a whole day off with no work or school! But I have to sit at home and not do anything for a day. w00t. Except hack up a lung or two.

subbing

I'm substitute teaching for my teacher on Monday because she will be gone to the other side of the state that day. I'm nervous, because I don't feel like I've been with the kids long enough that they'll do what I want them to do the entire day, but I will sure as heck not take any crap from them!

Life otherwise has been alright. Things at work are really slow, except on Tuesdays when they bring in the old people busses between 4-6pm that hang out for a few hours. It's quite annoying because they don't know what they're doing or how to work the machines, and they bitch about not winning and all this crap. Well, stay home next time. Jeez.

Still trying to work out a new schedule for work so I can have Mondays off, or at least not have to go in 'til 5pm. Marvin brought up the idea of me working at the Player's Club desk on Fridays, and having a girl who works over there come to the cage on Mondays. If she's up for it, so am I. I can talk on the microphone (at the proper volume, so as not to be blasting out my fellow cashiers over the speakers), and pass out Player's Club cards and coupons. It'll help me to get to know the names of a lot of people better, as most of the time, I only know someone's name at the cage if they want to write a check.

So that's the news for now. I'll try to tell you how Monday went as soon as I can. :)

the first two weeks

On the phone this afternoon, Dad asked me if I was ever going to update my blog. Well, I was just thinking about doing it, so here it is. My first update in two weeks. Man, I'm good.

The first week of student teaching was cake. It was only three days long because they started on Wednesday, and I didn't do much except get a feel for the students and the classroom and the way my teacher teaches. There actually wasn't much teaching going on because it was the first few days of school and there was a lot of "getting to know you and me" things going on, along with paperwork galore that needed to be passed out and turned in.

On Friday of the first week, my teacher told me she wanted me to start teaching math next week. Oh crap. Seriously? After I've been there for three days? Ho-kay!

So I started teaching math, place values, which is apparently the most difficult part of the book. Glad I got to take a crack at it.

My teacher is very lenient with the children. Or she doesn't pay that much attention to them because she is so good at blocking out annoying things in her life. Not quite sure yet. I feel sometimes like I am being too hard on the children when they are doing something wrong or annoying me, but she says I'm not, and that she needs to be more "hard" on them, as well. Works for me.

We have a few children who are very, how shall I say, interesting. One is of in la-la land all day long, and only pays attention when it's time for math. Another is a new girl from Georgia who has made fast friends with one of my least favorite little girls in class. (Only because that little girl does things she knows she's not supposed to, and watches you as you watch her doing it wrong, and looks you write in the eyes.) Two little boys are in special education and are pulled out of class every once in a while. One little girl is not only shy, she's stubborn about her shyness. She uses it as a crutch, because she knows she won't have to participate if she keeps it up, even one on one with you. Another little girl is 9, wearing makeup, big earrings, shrug-sleeved peasant tops, with the sleeves pushed down off the shoulders, but it really sweet. A boy just moved here from Alaska, another from Wyoming, and of course the girl from Georgia. One little boy falls asleep during my math lessons because he already has everything done and is bored out of his gourd.

*Sigh* It's a lot of work, and I'm only doing one subject!

Also, my teacher seems (at best) disorganized. She's been teaching for 30 years, LOVES what she does, and is great, but sometimes I wonder what she would do if she didn't have me there to help her do all the stuff after school (photocopies, making posters/bulletin boards, etc.) and during school. How would she get it all accomplished?

Who knows. Next week I'm still doing math, and I'm sure I'll be helping with science and reading when the time comes. We've also been doing DIBELS and Benchmarks testing this week, seeing where the students fall in their reading abilities. Some students did great and are reading at 7th grade levels, but other students are doing miserably and are reading at 1st grade levels. It's very frustrating and discouraging. My teacher said that last year her entire class was a class of readers, but this year, we only have one REAL reader, and I can tell, because whenever we finish with something, he dives into his book. Which is great, and he's and awesome kid, but I just wish the rest of the students were like that, too.

And the entire class seriously has attention problems. I'll give a direction or ask a question, and I'll even write the information on the board for them, and they don't get it. They say, "What were we supposed to do?" "I don't get it." "What do we do when we're done with our math?" I've gotten to the point where I just tell them, "Phone a friend." Because I'm not going to tell six different students what to do when it is written on the board and I have already explained it twice. I don't have the time for it. They're going to have to learn to pay attention. Sure, there's a couple of kids who are in special ed. and need the extra help, and that's fine, but the other 20 children in the classroom are not, and they know what they need to be doing. Grr.

I guess if it were my classroom, I would run it a little differently, but she has her guidelines established, and she is THE teacher for right now, so that's how things are going to be. Maybe when I have my three weeks in the classroom as the teacher, things will be a little different, but these students are no longer primary students - they are intermediate, and they need to start acting that way. That's all there is to it.

And with that, I am pooped and need to veg out in front of the television for a little bit. Until next time!