Teacherly Duties

Word Work

• I know that it is extra writing, but I think that it makes more sense to split a word before sorting it because then it is easier to find the pattern. I did that with a few of the examples today. In my future classroom, I will print of the words in large text and laminate them so that I can use them multiple times. I will use a red dry erase marker to split the words. This will save time. I will also write the answers and the sort number on the back of the card before I laminate it to help me to be sure of where to put it. The sorts that come after this are somewhat intimidating because the categories are just numbers. 

Comparing Fractions

• This unit is proving to be just as difficult as I had thought it would be. I am glad that I had my anchor chart skeleton prepared, it made the time go more smoothly. 

Lunch Duty

• Today I figured out my favorite part of lunch duties. I looked at 2 kids (on separate ends of the lunchroom) and said, "that looks good." Both of the children got this happy smile on their face and replied, "it is." I could only walk away smiling after those interactions. The boy's double cheese pizza looked good. The girl's chicken nuggets from the cafeteria also looked good, so I told the lunch ladies about that interaction. One of the lunch ladies gave me 2 of the chicken nuggets with my meal and they were great!

Getting to Know My ELL's Better

• I talked to two of my ELL students who got accommodations during ISTEP+ today about their culture. I always tell the girl from Iraq that I love her scarves. Today I decided to ask her what they are called. She informed me that they are called head scarves. I told her that when I was little, I was watching a TV show (the Proud Family) and that they called the head scarves hijabs and asked her if her head scarf was also called a hijab. She was so proud that I knew the Arabic word for that head scarf and that I pronounced it correctly. She told me that she knows the Arabic alphabet, but it sounds much different than ours, and that she could count to 20 in Arabic. I could not stay for long, so she counted to 10 in Arabic for me. It was pretty cool getting to know more about her culture. She attends Arabic school for 4 hours every Sunday before going to the park to play soccer with her family. I love how open this girl is with me; I love learning about other cultures. 
• I was surprised because English is actually the first language for both of the ELL's that I was talking to. The Arabic girl is from Michigan, but her mother is from Iraq. The Latino girl was born in the United States, but moved to Mexico. I wonder if she lost any of her English while she was down there (because she is so young). I told both of the girls that I am so proud of them for learning two languages and that I wish that I knew a second language. I took Spanish for 4 years during high school, but I have forgotten most of it. 

Social Studies

• I am so excited! Monday's social studies lesson focuses on famous people from Indiana so I asked my teacher if I could put together a YouTube playlist for the times when we play music while they work. I used the textbook to put together a short playlist last night when I thought of the idea (it would be nice to have this playlist for my future classroom anyway), I just have to listen to the songs (for censoring purposes) before we can play the playlist for the students. We usually play classical music that is based on pop much for the children, so I chose songs by the person as well as an instrumental version. I also found a video of David Letterman interacting with kid scientists, which I could potentially show during snack time or at the end of the day. The previous music education major in my is really showing through with this idea. 

Entering Grades

• I helped my teacher to enter grades today by telling her the name and date of the assignment along with everyone's scores. I used my grade book to check off homework every day because students could not go outside unless they had submitted all of their homework. If a student was absent then I marked that square "AB," if they had been absent the day before, I wrote AB yesterday so that I would not hold the assignment against their recess. I also marked when homework passes were used. I checked in homework during special area so that the checklist would be ready for recess time. If a student was missing homework, I talked to them during an independent time. I called off the names of students who owed me homework or detention right before recess began. I would like to continue this full routine in my future classroom. I learned that it is easier to input grades if they are in order, it is also a good idea to keep the grades written in the grade book as backup. 
• In my future classroom, I will put grades into the grade book every Tuesday as well as when I get a chance. I chose to do it this way because I was inspired by a teacher organization article over the summer. The teacher described how she has a certain day for each task and how this saves her time. For instance, because of this article, I run all of my spelling copies every Wednesday. Spelling is fairly set in stone as to which words will be taught when, so it is safe to run those copies that far ahead of time. It makes my Monday mornings feel less stressful because I know that my wordwork and spelling papers are ready for the week.