Wow… I have sooooo much to blab on about!!!
So, let’s start with the first week of student teaching… It flew by! 2:30 to 3:00 each day goes slowly but the rest of the time? Snap your fingers and it is gone! I think that one half hour is slow because it is after snack time and the kids are just hoping that they’ll get to go soon and they are not interesting in sitting still and learning anything else that day, even though they have to do so! Perhaps they’ve taken the words of a friend of ours to heart, “Nothing new after two”.
Of course, he said those words in regard to starting new projects or work or ideas at an office, because, if you started a new thing after two and ran into a snag or it took longer then you thought… you’d end up staying later then five… But I guess you could transfer the concept to kindergarten… where after snack, they just want the bus to take them home… LOL.
What have I learned this week? Lots of things… First off… Kindergarten is tough!!! Not like when I went to kindergarten thirty years ago… where if you came into it knowing your colors and shapes you were ahead of the game! Now if you don’t know your letters by sight and how to write your name you are behind the curve…
[missing picture!]
Kids say the cutest things! One of them, Boy, has a parent that is also a teacher at a different school in the district so he knew some teachers before starting school. So, Friday, as we are walking through the hallway, I see him lean towards a door and say, “Hi Teacher’s-First-Name”… So I catch up to him (I have taken to herding the back of the line…) and ask, “Who were you saying hi to?” (to lead into a discussion about not disturbing other classes). He says, “Teacher’s-First-Name”, I ask, oh, “who is that?”. He says, “the teacher”. So I explain that, when in school you have to call teachers by their last names even if you know them from outside of school so he has to call her “Mrs. Teacher’s-Last-Name”. He says, “but I call her Teacher’s-First-Name at the pool and I say, “yes, but in school you have to call her Mrs. Teacher’s-Last-Name”. He looks up at me and says… “but she looks the same” Too cute.
I have written observations and lesson plans and such and tomorrow I will teach my first “official” lesson… It is for handwriting and I will be teaching “Slant Right” (\ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \). Wednesday I will work on Slant Right again, with a little Slant Left thrown in there too… Then Thursday starts the letters!!! We’ll be doing M and m… for a week…
[missing picture!]
So after this coming week of teaching handwriting, the following week I’ll be adding in Social Studies as well, then each week I add in an additional area of the curriculum until I am teaching the full day…
Sewing? Knitting? What are these pastimes you speak of? Not this past week anyway. Though I am kind of proud of the fact that all five outfits I wore to school this week were made by me.
I have a pair of socks that I have been working on for weeks and possibly months… they are each about an inch and a half long. Let me say that they are on double 00s and the gauge is very tiny… I have a shawl that was going to be a Clapotis but I got to row 17, didn’t like it, had a big gaping hole I had to go back to fix and so I ripped it out and started a nice feather and fan pattern… I’m about half way through the first of four skeins on that. No pictures though… sorry.
No sewing in progress… lots of projects in mind but none started.
So what did I spend my long weekend doing?
Well, Saturday I worked on upgrading the blog software, changing the layout, and then just general surfing the web.
Sunday I tackled the back room, also know alternately as “the workout room” or “the plant room” or “the room that will someday have one of these“. I took all the plants outside, repotted some of them, consolidated some, trimmed dead leaves, etc. All this took much energy out of me and caused much sinus congestion that is lingering on yet today… But it needed done and the plants will be much happier (well, they’ll be happier by next week… as right now many appear to be in shock).
[missing picture!]
Slim likes to relax in the jungle.
After all that, last night I reread “Bitter is the New Black“. I read it in May, and have the follow-up book, Bright Lights, Big Ass, that I was going to read last night but decided to reread the first one and I’ll read the follow-up tonight after I make sure all my homework is caught up to date.
So today… It is almost one… I have accomplished nothing of note… Montey is at the store buying me Sudafed and NyQuil (better living through chemistry) for me because all that happy outdoors work and dust has given me sinus congestion that is making me miserable. What’s on the schedule for the rest of the day? I have homework to do so that takes precedence… After I finish blogging that is. And then a book and maybe some knitting. Depends on how non-drowsy the Sudafed makes me…
Last but not least… Thanks to Yvonne for naming me a Rockin’ Girl Blogger!
[missing picture!]
As to who I will nominate… Since Miss Betsy and Miss Leslie don’t have blogs… and she nominated Cheryl and Donna… I shall expand beyond my clique of the GNGs to… let me see… I nominate Natasha and Keohinani and Lucia and Rosemary and Stick and Diana!
And now… it is after two… homework and being a responsible adult calls… the Sudafed doesn’t seem to be doing much either in the non-drowsy nor the decongestant arena…
I shall leave you with a few more pics of animals being adorable…
Dolly getting her head scratched…
[missing picture!]
Linny doing what she does best…
[missing picture!]