First week is over!

We have been in school for a week now, and my class is wonderful!! They are so sweet. My boys are ALL boy, but that's okay with me...I can handle that.

Over the week we have been doing various activities to get to know one another. Here are a few things that we did.....

We designed T-shirts to represent our interests.

We completed a graphic organizer to tell about ourselves.

We wrote numbers that told something about ourselves then drew pictures. It was so cute watching them explain their numbers to the class.

(Confession: This picture is from another 3rd grade room, I let my kiddos take their home, ha ha)

They had a chance to answer some questions about school. After those questions, they were able to ask me any two questions. Well, that was interesting. One of my favorites was asking me if I knew how to sing the "Star Spangled Banner". They tried to get me to sing it.

On Thursday, I decided to have my students participate in a team building activity with spaghetti noodles and marshmallows. Thank you Pinterest for this great idea! The goal was to build the biggest tower as a group. In order to create a tall structure, they had to work as a team. It really should me who is a team player and who wasn't. They had a blast! They learned that working with as a team is very important to get things done. Lets just say there were groups that worked more as a team cleaning up than building their tower.

 

 

Meeting the Students...First Day Jitters

I've been teaching for 6 years and I still get just as nervous as I did my first year when it's time to meet my new students. I think of a thousand things that I need to get done the night before then when those things are finished, I come up with a thousand more things to do.

This was my first official week back to work, but without the kids. On Monday, they walk through the door (aaaahhhhhhh!!). I've put the finishing touches on my room, but I still don't feel ready. I'm sure that I will have dreams of what the first day is like. When things into to full swing the dream escalate to me teaching in my sleep. There are many nights I wake up trying to find out why my bed is in my classroom when I'm supposed to be finding my kids. The nice thing is at least I get to dream with correct faces since Thursday was "Meet and Greet" night.

The girls and I right before "Meet and Greet" (I'm in the black dress and NOT pregnant)

The kids were supposed to bring their school supplies while getting a chance to me, their teacher. I can't tell you the number of times that I was asked about the instructional goals for the school year or the first 6 weeks of school. This has NEVER happened to me before!! Also, there we some very comical encounters with students and parents. There were some parents threatening their children with "beatings" if they acted up. One of my students was TWIRLING in my room like a dancer...wow.

For the first week of school we will:

• Read the First Day Jitters then make a book about being nervous for the first day of school. 
• Make a time capsule where the students will write about their interests and their goals for the school year. At the end of the year they will open it up to see how they have changed and see if they meet their goals. 
• Start an E.B. White author study since we are going to Children's Theatre
• Complete "get to know you" surveys then making Venn diagrams with a partner, comparing how they are similar and different.

What are some things that you are going to do the first week/few days of school?

Our principal had a "trick" up his sleeve for the teacher's first week back. Today we did a team building activity...and it WAS an ACTIVITY. Everyone had to download a code scanner onto their phones first of all. He placed games coded with pictures around the school, and each team had to work together in order to complete the games. In order to go to the next game, we had to scan a bar code telling us where to go. Since it was a contest, there were about 60 teachers RUNNING (full speed with sweat and all) all over the school (3 stories high) for about an hour. It was the most fun I have had on a teacher work day!! Each game was a challenge if you didn't work with your team, and the competitiveness of finding each game around the school was exciting. Of course he through in a little "hiccups" to confuse us. What a great way to start the year ;)

Did you all do anything special on those "lovely" teacher workdays??

Middle Year March and Liquor Stores

I know that it's the middle of the year, and it seems a little silly to start blogging about the year now. But there have been a lot of changes going in my life with starting graduate school this year and my students have started becoming more "interesting". I will be wrapping my 5th year teaching 3rd grade this year and it's the best job that I could possible as for. There are days that I come home wanting to pull out my hair, but what teacher doesn't. There are more days where I get to bond with my students and have those special moments that no one can take away.

So, I just started my 3rd round of grad school classes and it seems that these classes are going to be the toughest round yet. Once again, I will have no life, not like I have ever had one. There will be lots of late nights reading and writing papers and researching. Although these classes are going to be the most helpful. They are about cultural change for my classroom, and how to help my "low" children due to culture.

That brings me to the story of the week....I think that I really could have 10, but I will only pick one. We are doing writing and my students were asked to create a prewriting page about their ideal job with 3 reasons why. One little "lovely" decides to say that they best job in the world...the one job that he would LOVE to have about every other job is a liquor store owner! My eyes about popped out of my head. I had to do a double take to make sure that I was reading this right. I began to read his reasons why, and I could not even get past the first one. The child wanted to make mixed drinks. The child listed various liquors and juices needed. My flabbergasted self told him that he needed to pick something else, and the kid was NOT happy! I just kept shaking my head in disbelief. Well, now the job has changed to becoming the host of "The Family Feud".

Next week we are going to make volcanoes with Diet Coke and Mentos. Am I crazy?!?! I guess so. This is going to be real interesting. My students are always interested in weather and natural disasters. This just might be a plan disaster. Hopefully I will be able to post some pictures.