September 13-17, 2010

This week was my first week with my new subsititute, Jessica Sandy. We believe that she is going to be the long-term subsititute in the classroom. Everything went very smoothy. She is very personable and easy to get along with. I like doing partner reading during Reading class because I think it gives the students a break from listening to me read, but I have noticed that not all of the students are always reading when I allow them to do this. It is starting to make me think that I should not allow them to do this anymore. Last Friday, I had a big issue with students turning in Science homework. To my shock, all students except for 1 returned all papers to me on Monday! On Tuesday, I ran out of things to do in Reading! I always overplan so I decided to take one activity out this week and to my surprise we actually needed it! In Science, we had a vocabulary quiz which students have been preparing for for a long time. Many of the students did not do very well on it and I know it is simply because they did not study. It really upsets me because I want to see my students succeed, but I can't hold their hand at night and make them study. Also, I noticed that I have this one girl who is really struggling in Science. I asked her to come see me during AA on Tuesday so that I could help her. You can tell that she does not have that solid support system at home and doesn't get all the help that she needs. She was so grateful! I was very pleased with how well she did on her worksheet after our one-on-one tutoring session. I feel like my experiences these past two weeks (by taking on the role of the classroom teacher) have really forced me to grow up and become that teacher figure. Although, I am still learning everyday, I think that I am doing a good job and the students are helping me through this and being very patient with me. By Wednesday of this week, I saw a complete turn around in many of my students. In reading, the students were participating like they have never participated before. In Science, students had a test and then we made Get Well cards for Mrs. Starkey. I got to see a side of my students that is rarely seen within the regular classroom. They really let their creativity shine through. This is the most dedicated work I have seen any of my students do thus far. The cards turn out amazing! I know that Mrs. Starkey is really going to enjoy them! On Thursday, we started Chapter 2 on Measurement in Science. After seeing many of the results on Chapter 1's test, I am really freaking out. This chapter is on my shoulders and I need to teach the students to the best of my ability to improve these test scores. Measurement is not an easy thing to teach students when you haven't had to sit down and think about how you are going to teach all of these concepts. It is going to take a lot of preparation. Today was Picture Day and boy was it crazy. When I was told not to plan anything, they were right! There were interruptions every 2 minutes with kids getting called out to go get their pictures taken. Of course, I taught a new concept in Science today and the students really needed to learn it. Luckily, it didn't affect any of my periods other than fourth. I have been preparing to teach this lesson all week because I was unsure of how to actually teach it to the students to allow them to understand it. I taught precision and accuracy, rounding, and significant digits. I was all ready to teach it and had all of my thoughts together and knew exactly what I was going to say until it actually came time to teach it. Third period was a disaster! I was stumbling over words and really struggling on how to get my point across. Fourth period was a little better. Sixth period was even better, but seventh period was by far the best. I finally had all of my thoughts together and definitely rocked the socks off of that lesson! I think that I need to revisit this lesson on Monday and explain it a little bit better to my other classes now that I have figured it all out! This week has definitely been a challenge, but it has been a great experience. I am learning a lot about myself as a teacher and I am constantly learning from my students and learning more about my students. I really enjoy full time teaching!