December 16, 2012

I think I'll start off this week with a couple of pictures.  We had a couple of fun little assemblies for the kids to watch.  This first picture is the Jr. High's Theater 1 class.  Not only was this one cute, but I think it was important for our stundents to show their support not only to the elementary side of our school, but the junior high side as well.

The second one was on Friday.  The Utah Opera visited and gave the kids the very basics of the opera, even teaching them a little Latin along the way.  This assembly captivated the students.  It's been a while since we've seen this fantastic of behavior at an assembly, all grades 1-6 that were there, so they must have been enthralled.

The school year is seriously trucking along!  I just cannot believe that we are only one school week away from 2013. Crazy insane!  As far as what's going on here in the classroom, there hasn't been a whole lot out of the ordinary.  We just finished our fourth unit math.  With only 9 units, that puts us at almost halfway through.  I will only be reviewing math this next week as I'm not sure how effective it would be to start a new unit and then take a couple weeks off.  We're hoping to rework our reading program for the new year as well.  We obviously have the same concepts that we need to teach, but we'd like to have a little less with to do with our reading textbook, as some of the stories in the book are, shall we say, outdated.  We are going to try and incorporate a couple of novels that we will read as a class, as well as possibly some Shakespeare.

I hope the students have been telling you stories about the changes in our behavior management.  Honestly, that is one of the placest I struggle with most as a teacher.  It's so tough to find something that works for a class, and the when you finally think you've got it figured out, it's time for the new year, a completely new group of kids, and something completely different that will work for them.  However, on Wednesday I started implementing a few new things that really seemed to work for these kids.  The last three days of this week were some of the best behavioral days we've had since the honeymoon period ended (the first few weeks where they're too scared to act out). Wish me luck that maybe it didn't take me the entire year to get some things figured out with this dynamic of students.

With that being said, I would like to tell a short story before I announce the most exciting news.  The week after Thanksgiving break, I had one of my two required administrative observations.  This includes a debriefing that was done on a later date during our specialist time (when the kids are with a different teacher).  Well, before we knew it, that debriefing had taken about 15 minutes longer than planned, meaning the students had been in my classroom for about 15 minutes without any supervision.  I honestly took the long walk back to the classroom expecting carnage, but what I saw when I got there was the complete opposite.  The next thing on the schedule was to correct the Daily Language Review that we do as our morning work, and one of the students had taken lead and was guiding the class through the corrections on it.  I was floored, in shock, awed... needless to say, I walked over to their marble jar and dumped in what little marbles they had left, earning them a class party!

That's the exciting news!  We've finally earned our first class party!  I'm going to take advantage of the time of year, and we are going take a few hours (9:30-11:30ish) on Thursday to build gingerbread houses, well, graham cracker houses.  I will need some help with supplies.  We did this activity as a whole grade last year, and we are not this year, so I have a lot of stuff left over from it.  I should have graham crackers enough for everyone.  I also have some candies.  We will probably need more candy to decorate them with.  We will also need frosting to glue them with.  If you could help by donating any candy or frosting, that would be greatly appreciated.  I am also looking for probably 3 or 4 volunteers, just to help police the activity.  We have to do this in the classroom, so we'll have to do everything possible to keep the mess as little as possible.  Again, if you can donate, please send it in by Wednesday, so I know how much we have, and if you can volunteer, I will take the first four to let me know.  Any more than four and the classroom would start to crowd.

Mostly, that's it!  Only four school days until the holiday break.  Hopefully, we can make it a great couple of days.

"Some succeed because they are destined to, but most succeed because they are determined to." ~Henry Van Dyke