Sorry it's been so long... not like anyone is reading this but hey, sometime in the future someone may stumble upon this and be all, "whaaaaaat?!?! Why was there such a break between those two posts!?!? It was just getting good, man." So the first week went without a hitch. It was kind of boring just sitting there and doing a lot of nothing but I got to interact with the students a bit and also learn about about the beginning of the school year procedures.
The first day is really just making sure the right kids are in your class and seeing if students may have moved to a different district or state. While we were doing that we had the kids fill out note cards with their names and some interesting facts (fave music, color, food, etc.). My teacher uses these for disciplinary action so when she has a problem with a student she can write it on the back of the card and date it. I thought this was a really cool simple way to keep track of that without all the mess.
The second day was really fun. We made-up name game called 'snowball' (I found out later that this is a Kagan strategy, so go us). We had the students write two interesting facts about themselves on a half-sheet of paper (save all the trees!) and then crumple this into a 'snowball'. We then had the students toss, and of course we explained how to toss and not shot-put the paper balls, around the room. After about 5 or 6 minutes we had them toss the balls to the front of the room. We asked the students in the front rows to collect enough 'snowballs' for their row and pass them back. Each student then opened their 'snowball' and took turns reading the facts that were written on them. If their facts were on the 'snowball' they had to stand and introduce themselves. This was such a better game than that memorization one where the teacher always ends up having to say every kids name at the end and the students really seemed to enjoy their 'snowball fight'.
Other than that that things have been going pretty well. We did discover we have one kid that does not speak English at all but we are working with him to try and help him learn the vocabulary he will need to succeed at school. He is the sweetest boy on Earth and you can tell he feels ashamed he doesn't know English. He even pretends to do his work and just fills up papers with scribbles. It breaks my little heart :( Hopefully he will continue to work with him and we can help him succeed!
We've also decided when and what I'll be teaching so that's super exciting and I can't wait to delve into all that. Learning a lot about the daily routine and all the changes in technology that we're going through. Easy Grade Pro online?!?! You mean I can enter grades from home?!?! AHHH exciting stuff for us lol. Other than that there hasn't really been any problem with students but I'm sure their time to test me will come.
