Quiet Time

This morning, most of the students in my reading intervention class took the CELDT test. For those of you not in the know, I have no idea what the acronym stands for (by the way, it is an acronym, not an abbreviation, because it is pronounced [sElt]), but it is a measure of how non-native English speakers are progressing in their English language development. Since fifteen of my nineteen students were taking the test, the ladies administering it suggested that it would be easier if they and the testees stayed in my classroom and I took the other four to the library.

It was so nice. I had two girls and two boys. We all sat at a big table in the back of the library. I had them bring their workbooks, and we completed and corrected two pages out of it. Then, I read a picture book to them. I had brought a box of word games to keep them occupied, but they opted to read instead. They picked out books and magazines and read quietly for the next hour. I didn't have a single behaviour issue. I just read the W volume of the World Book. I know a lot more than I did before about George Washington and the War of 1812.

We finally got the textbooks for my reading intervention class one week after school started. I was kind of freaked out when I found out I was not going to be starting with the textbook I had spent a week being trained to use and for which I had made lesson plans to last me through December.

But once I thought about what I could do to fill a week, I realized it was a good thing. Of course, there wasn't much change to my plans for the first day: introductions, school rules, etc. But I got to spend the next five days doing things I had wished I had more time for last year. I read to them every day. Some of the days I read out of Jim Trelease's Read All About It! The other days I read picture books that I found in my classroom.(Thanks to Mr. E who had a copy or two of every book used by the school in the last ten years and left them all here.) On the very first day I read "Alexander and the Horrible, Terrible, No Good, Very Bad Day." That was one of my favorites when I was younger. I could totally relate to Alexander.

Then, I introduced sight words. I gave them all copies of the Dolch list and had them practice reading it. When I turned on a timer, they all got into it. I also taught about context clues. I had to use the at-level text for the information, but for the practice, I designed a word organizer that guided them through the process. By the end of those few days they seemed to all have grasped the concept, even if they still had difficulty using it.

Now we have our textbooks and we need to get back on track to catch up with our pacing calendar. Hopefully, we will have time to whip out our Dolch lists every once in a while for a quick read through, and I already have planned a few read-alouds that will go along with the units in our book. It wasn't all that long, but hopefully this little literacy basics week will have them even more prepared now to begin our official curriculum.

Day 1 is Done

Well, I have made it through the first day of the new school year. The last three days have been super hectic and stressful. On Monday, we had an all day in-service. Yesterday, I had about four meetings that lasted from 8am to 3pm, and then I had to finish getting ready to start teaching today. At 6pm last night I had to leave the school because they were locking the gates, even though I still had about ten things left to do. I came home and typed and printed some things, then went to bed early.

This morning I woke up at 5:45am. The only times I can remember waking up that early were when I was going skiing. This wasn't as fun. I got ready and went to work. My husband followed me there in his new, used car to take a picture of me. My mom has instructed him to do this on the first day of every school year. Then, I made photocopies of the things that I had printed the night before. I finished moving a few things around in my room and wrote the day's objectives and homework on the board, and then the bell rang.

I had ten extra students show up to my first and second period block. There names were not on my current attendance list, but all of their printed schedules showed that class, Mrs. B, Rm. 41. So, I let them stay and sent off a quick email to the office. I know they were super busy all day, and I didn't expect an answer right away, but no one gave me an answer until 6th period. If they show up again tomorrow, I am to send all of them to the attendance office.

My clock is off by five minutes, which caught me off guard at the end of the first period. And I still am not used to these ninety minute classes. But other than that, my classes went pretty well. A few students were a little chatty, and a couple of others had to be continually prompted to get through the activity. Compared to the students I had last year, these kids are angels. I just hope that it's not just because it's the first day. I expect that as the days roll on, they will become a little more talkative and perhaps get some more attitude as they get tired of me. But if my classes go anything close to as well as today, this year will be ten times better than last.

I Am So Not Ready

School starts at 8am on Wednesday. I have about a bazillion things left that I still need to do before then. Because I am starting at a new school with a new grade, I am having to start over basically from scratch. I have pretty much got my classroom ready. I just have to find a place to put all of my textbooks when they arrive, clean out a cabinet and find a place to put it, then put all my stuff in it. I have a computer and, today, I got a printer, but I still do not have a login name or password, so I cannot use them. I feel pretty good about the curriculum. It is similar to what I taught last year, just with different texts. My biggest fear right now is what the heck I am going to do on day one. My school is in program improvement, so all students have two hour blocks of English/Language Arts every day. That means that I have the same students for ninety straight minutes. Last year, I was teaching 54 minute periods. I am afraid that after I introduce myself, go over rules and procedures and do a few ice breaker activities, I am going to be left with thirty minutes with nothing to do. I haven't been this stressed since May 30th.

It is Too Early

It is now 7:05 am. I just woke up. I am definitely not a morning person, so I am having trouble staying awake. I thought that engaging my brain by writing might help.

This is the earliest I've gotten up for two months. I read somewhere that if you want to wake up earlier, it is easiest to do it fifteen minutes earlier each day. School starts next week, when I will have to get up at 6:30 every morning. I found a calendar, counted backwards a few weeks and figured out what time to get up every day. I've been doing pretty well. Except that three days ago, I set my alarm for pm instead of am and accidentally slept an extra half hour.

I wish I could sleep an extra half hour now. I do not see how I will be able to function this early every morning. At this time on Monday morning, I am supposed to be leaving for work. I do not think anyone this tired should be driving. I just hope that 6:30 is so awful that by comparison, 7:10 is great.

Setting Up a New Classroom is Hard Enough

I am surprised at how lazy the teachers around here are when it comes to cleaning up after themselves. I am starting at a new school. So I am in the process of moving into a new classroom. The teacher that was using this room last year (Mr. E) is now in a small office. He asked the janitors to move some of his things into the office for him, then took off for summer. The janitors moved what they could, but the office is too small for everything. So, there is still a large cabinet in the middle of my room. The janitors are waiting for Mr. E to tell them what to do with it, but he hasn't been back or called at all over the summer. So, it looks like I'm going to have to wait until the week that school starts to find out if the cabinet is going to stay in my room or not. It is also full of junk, so I do not know if I can use the cabinet or not even if it does stay.

Another teacher was using my room this summer for summer school. I didn't even know the room was being used for summer school until I got in there and found all of his or her crap still sitting on one of the desks. There were workbooks, papers, pencils, a roll sheet and an empty Dr. Pepper can and coffee cup. At first I thought that maybe summer school had just ended a few days earlier. But a week later, the crap was all still there, untouched. I wanted to move the desk, so I just stacked up all the stuff in a corner. If no one comes to claim it within the first week of school I think I will throw it all away. Except, I will keep all the pencils.

I am not known to be a neat and tidy person, but I try to clean up after myself, especially where other people might see my mess. I also try to take care of my things. Last year, I ended up going through so many pens and pencils, having to continually buy more, that they are now very precious to me. I would not be leaving any of mine just sitting around where someone could take them. I hope that these two teachers are the exception and not the rule. But if teachers in general are this lazy and inconsiderate when summer rolls around, then I will work to be the exception.

I'm Both Teacher and Student

I'm trying to learn Spanish. I took two years of Spanish in high school, so I know a lot of the vocabulary. For instance, I know all of my numbers and colors. I know half the days of the week, and to get to the biblioteca, you take el autobus. When working at McDonald's in college, I learned the words for everything you put on a hamburger (salsa, mustasa, lechuga y sevoya). I did not ever really know the syntax of the language though. I could only use verbs in the infinitive, and I didn't have any prepositions to put my nouns together.

Many of my students last year and, I know, many of the students I will have this year speak Spanish. I don't get the first year students fresh from Mexico, so by the time they get to my class, their English is better than my Spanish. And to get them the language practice they need, we should speak to each other mostly in English anyway. But I would still like to be able to use the language. That way, when they speak Spanish to each other, I'll be able to tell if they're saying anything inappropriate. I would also like to be able to speak to parents without having to rely on the students as translators.

So, I... ahem... acquired a language learning computer program. You know, the one that has those commercials that make it sound so easy. Well, I wanted to see if it really worked as well as they said it does. It has helped a bit. I've only gotten through eight lessons, and I've got a long way left to go. So far, a lot of it has been review for me, but I've learned a few new things too. I like that most of it is in complete sentences. So I didn't just learn the words for dog and sleeping, but I can actually say, "The dog is sleeping." (El perro está duermiendo.) (Which he is.) I realize that this probably won't help me much in the classroom. I've got a long way to go before I start holding parent/teacher conferences in Spanish. But I think that if I stick to it, this program will help me to eventually get there. Although, I'm only writing about it right now to procrastinate actually doing it. So, we'll see.

P.S. I only speak Spanish: I don't write it. So please forgive me if I've misspelled something.