We cannot hold a torch to light another's path without brightening our own. ~ Ben Sweetland

The end of the week seemed to fly by so fast I didn't have as much time as I thought I would to write in here. I began reading the book "The BFG" and so far the kids have really seemed to enjoy it. We've been working on "main idea" for reading and timelines for social studies. So I've been able to tie in both into this book. Each day we re-call what had been read the previous day, make up a one sentence main idea, then continue reading. Then as a fun activity I had them draw what they thought the BFG looked like as well as the background of the cave. The book gives great descriptive words so I could see how well they were paying attention by what they added. After looking  at the pictures I was surprised by how much detail they did add! One thing I need to work on is reading at a slower pace. I tend to speed up my reading especially in the really good parts :). My supervisor watched me during this lesson and also helped point out some things to think about in the future. One of the questions dealt with what to do for those who are not auditory learners. I think I should have suggested that they could have just listened while I read and inform them that they would have time later to draw. In a perfect world I would love to have had enough books for each child that way those that weren't auditory learners could read along with me. Also, if each child had a book some could re-read what I had read or read ahead during free reading time and that would also help with comprehension of the book.

This week has really taught be the power of a minute to a teacher and that being every minute counts. You don't realize how long it takes to do something as simple as taking the class on a restroom break, or going to and from specials. Those few minutes longer than you anticipated takes away from that precious leaning time. Then for a lesson you planned would be 30 minutes long might only be 15. It's also more challenging when you have a class that doesn't have a lot of procedures down like quietly returning to seats, creating the 'one line' (straight, quiet and hands to self) or walking in the halls quietly. Each time the class can't has a hard time following procedure you have to address the issue so that it shows they can't do that and then that's another minute away from learning.

I'm also learning a lot about the frustrations of being a teacher and trying to get help for your students. I was asked to take two students into the hallway to work on math. The problem was to find 10 ways to make 200. I knew that the students I took in the hallways had some difficulties, but I didn't know them well enough to know what they knew. One student was very bright and knew what to do. The problem was she just doesn't want to do anything so it takes her a really long time to do her work. She needs a lot of encouragement and motivation to do it. At one point she asked me to just do it for her. The other student is in level one. The more I worked with her I realized she needs to be getting more help. I was trying to help her figure out what 1+1 is then that would let us know that 100+100 would be 200. When I asked her what that 1+1 was (and should have known) she couldn't remember. Unlike the one student who just didn't want to work, this girl was really trying hard to 'rack her brain' and tell me the answer. I finally put out my two index fingers so that she could count them. Then she said 'oh yea!.' We eventually  got down that if we add the 100 plus 100 we got 200. Then we worked on other ways like using temperature (200*) and  we could use tallies.

Another frustrating thing I have encountered is having to give students reading tests and knowing that they are not up to par with the information. One of the passages they had to read was about Florance Nightingale. Unfortunately we were unable to help them with any of the reading. The best I could do is give them clues like 'sound it out' or use the sentence as a clue. I had at least 10 students come up to me and ask 'what' it was. I couldn't even tell them it was a name because that would flaw the data :/ I was also reading through some of the passages and they were really advanced. One was even about constellations. Luckily this word is in the next section so my CT is helping teach me ways to sneak in these words. We are going to use constellations as one of our 'words of the day' that way they will have at least seen the word before reading it. For the biographies they are going to have to read we are using our read aloud time to read biographies this week and explain what they are. One of the challenges is that we want to get the extra stuff in but it's hard to find a place and time. The day and lessons are so structured now for teachers they hardly have time to add in the 'fun' stuff.

We had a new student come this week and it's been interesting watching him. Starting out he was very polite and willing to help out in every way. Gets along with all the students etc. Then as the week progressed he seemed to become more snoody and not want to do work. A few times (Thursday and friday) we found him not working on worksheets and not reading the books we were supposed to be reading. He said that he had done them at his other school and he didn't have to do them here. When I caught him doing this I told him that that means he can be an expert on the subject and help his table group with the work. He still seemed frustrated that he had to do it but his eyes lit up when I said 'expert.'

One of the conversations that my CT and I had was about accents and how we pronounce different things differently and how that messes up students spelling. It was interesting because there are a lot of words we say and don't realize that it sounds different to people. One of the words was Chicago and how some people pronounce the a as if it was an o. Another was closet and some sound it out as if the o was an aw sound. Bet you are now thinking to yourself how you say it :)