Holly, It is so nice to see that you are having a great time. It is good to see that you love students so much that you seem to love to come to school everyday, even when personal issues arise. I feel that these students and future students are very lucky to have such a caring and energetic person to be their teacher.

Week Seven

October 4 - 8, 2010

On Monday, we had a substitute teacher because Mrs. Brown got injured in a softball tournament over the weekend. Although we all missed her terribly, it was nice to know I could still control the classroom when she was not there. She returned on Tuesday but I continued to teach full time because she was still not feeling well and had a hard time talking. I warned the kids before she came back that she was in a lot of pain and they needed to be on their best behavior and they were excellent! Although I wasn't supposed to start my full time teaching yet, I was happy to take over for Mrs. Brown!

Week Six

September 27 - October 1, 2010

I'm starting to take over more and more teaching. I am really starting to get the hang of it and I feel very comfortable in front of the class. I really like teaching Math because I know the content really well. The kids are really having a hard time with their multiplication tables. I am really surprised by this because I knew all of my multiplication tables when I was in the third grade. I think that it had a lot to do with my mother constantly drilling me with my 'times tables' and I don't think that a lot of my students have someone there to practice with all of the time. I've decided that I want to base my Action Research this semester on teaching multiplication strategies. Hopefully I can figure out a way to get these students to improve their recall of basic math facts. Math will continue to build on itself so it is important that they memorize these facts now.