Friday

Yesterday, the 27th was a snow day, so today (Friday) is a little messed up again. It is a two-hour delay, though I am here at the regular time along with the rest of the teachers so that we can figure out what we’re doing today and all of next week. I also met with the other student teacher I’m working with to go over our grade-wide Balance and Motion science unit. I completely forgot to bring the game to school today that I was going to play with the class during math. Luckily, one of the other first grade teachers had a great Smart Notebook file on the lesson and emailed it to me. I am using that instead now and I think it will work out just fine. My CT even gave me a fly swatter to use (the game is where students swat flies to get different problems on the Smartboard. The fly swatter is a great toy to use, as long as it works on the Smartboard. I will test that out before we start.

We have a meeting with the principal before lunch today too to go over students’ scores on the CogAT test, which they use to determine candidates for the school’s Humanities program. That should be an interesting meeting. I remember taking that test and being a candidate for the program. My parents didn’t put me in it because I was young for my grade and they didn’t want the added pressure on me. I always used to wish they did put me in Humanities though. I would have been with my friends more all throughout school (even in high school, for social studies). I remember hearing that I scored around a 118 or so on that test, though that may not be correct. I think it’s scored similarly to an IQ test. My brother got about the same score as I did, and he was in Humanities.

This afternoon went well. I did my math lesson as usual. My CT was busy with some paperwork for the students identified to go into more testing for the gifted program, so she wasn’t observing me as much. I think that made me feel a little more independent and at ease and the lesson went well. The fly swatter game worked pretty well and they had fun using the physical fly swatter to touch the flies on the Smartboard. It was a good prop. We also did a shark game where it showed number blocks with multiple choice numbers. When they got one correct, a dolphin swam across the board. When one was wrong, a shark bit off a piece of a boat. The class was curious about what would happen when the shark ate the whole boat, so at the very end, I asked a few volunteers to come up and tell me the right answer, then hit one of the wrong answers. We did that until the boat was gone. Nothing major happened – they thought there may be a picture or something underneath the boat. Then, we just ended the game, and I did a follow-up activity where someone would make a number on the board using blocks and they had to pick a volunteer to guess the number. This worked out well to close the activity, but I kept having to remind them to look at the board and try to figure out what number was being made.

After math, the day went by quickly. They had indoor recess and then we got them packed up and ready for art. It was a sad afternoon though because we got the news that one of the student’s stepbrother died earlier today, possibly of a drug overdose. Her mom was coming to get her early. She is a really sensitive girl, very young for first grade, so I am worried about how she will be. Her dad passed away when she was 3 or 4, so this is going to be rough on her. She is usually very clingy and complains of stomachaches during the day, so I can imagine that next week, if she is in school, that will be even more intense. Poor girl. I’ll be thinking of her this weekend.