Week Five

September 20 - 24, 2010

Week five was much, much better than last week! Monday and Tuesday were just like every other day. I taught Math to all three classes and read to the students in the afternoon. Wednesday I attended my first PLC meeting. The third through fifth grade teachers and the title I teachers met in the library all day to work on grade level tasks. We looked at school discipline and new ways to deal with issues. Most of the morning was spent going over last years Westest scores and looking at the areas we were strong in and which areas needed more work in Reading and Mathematics. The second half of the day we were trained on new math technology which was very beneficial to me and my mentor teacher. I felt like the meeting was a great success and it was so nice that the teachers can meet and discuss important topics while the students receive instruction from a substitute teacher. On Thursday, we went to the MTTC in Waynesburg, PA for an all day field trip. We were taken into an underground mine simulation where the students learned how rescuers respond to a mining accident. They also learned how to put out a fire with a fire extinguisher. The students competed with Mrs. Brown to see who could put out the fire faster than the teacher. Only about twenty students were able to play along but one of our students beat the record with around 5 seconds. It was a great day and the students had a great time! Such a good week!

Week Four

September 13 - 17, 2010

Wow, what a week. This week I realized how much I love my students and just how much I love to teach. The week started out well and I started teaching math full time. I feel so comfortable in the front of the class that I truly enjoy teaching the kids. When I am teaching, the day goes by so fast! I am so thankful that my mentor teacher trusts me to take charge of the class. I am starting to feel like a real teacher! But when there is good news, there is bad news. My great-great-aunt ,who I was very close to, passed away this week. I found out early before school one morning and I was very upset. As soon as I got to school that day, I knew that was where I needed to be. My whole attitude changed when the kids entered the room and it really hit me how much I love being there with them. I can't even recall a particular event that happened to make me happy. But, I know that as soon as I saw the smiling faces, I was no longer saddened by my bad news. This event also made me think about my students. What if they had found out bad news before school? Maybe they had a bad night and morning and that's why they don't have their homework. Maybe Tommy is laying his head down all morning because he is having trouble at home. I need to sit back and put myself in my students shoes before confronting them about a problem.

Week Three

September 6 - 10, 2010

It is starting to get harder to wake up at 6:15 every morning. The students are starting to drag and I feel like I need a vacation already. I come home everyday wanting to take a nap and if I end up falling asleep, I'm in bad shape that night because I'm not able to go to sleep. I really need my body to adjust to this new schedule so I don't feel exhausted all the time. A lot of the students are "forgetting" their homework and it ends up being the same students over and over who always "forget." I've been trying to stress to the students that the middle school teachers aren't going to put up with those excuses next year but it doesn't seem to motivate them at all. I've noticed that the majority of the fifth grade do not know their multiplication tables. I've talked with a couple of the teachers at Mylan Park and we've decided that I should do my action research on something with multiplication tables. I've talked with one of my friends in the program who is also working in a fifth grade mathematics class and we have decided to do our action research together. I feel relieved to now have an idea about my action research. I am looking forward to helping my students learn their multiplcation tables!

Week Two

August 30 - September 3, 2010

Week two started off really great. This week we really started to work in our textbooks and the students started to see more homework. We also started our reading series and our spelling series for which both tests would be on Friday. I taught two lessons this week with the "7 Habits of Happy Kids" book. We learned about two habits using our "Leader In Me" program workbooks. All of the students have been coming to class this week and I'm so excited that they want to come to school. One of our students missed over 70 days of school last year and so far he has only been absent one day. I like to see the positive attitudes about school this year. My mentor teacher was absent on Wednesday so we had a substitute teacher in the room. The kids were excellent and I was impressed with how the substitute handled the kids. My mentor teacher is really great with the students. I'm impressed with her classroom management skills and I am learning how to handle a lot of different situations. I leave school everyday very happy and I'm thankful to be working in Mrs. Brown's classroom this semester.