Wednesday and Thursday

This post is a 2 for 1 deal. I'm giving ya'll the low-down on the past two days in one blog. Excited? ...Ya you are! Let's do this!

Wednesday....so close yet so far from the weekend....
Wednesday was SO great! My mentor teacher put me in charge of the first AND the second class. We started class with a writing piece. The students were asked to read an article (over the millionaire that left her maltese 12M dollars...crazy!) and then give us a page long summary of it. Let me tell you, asking them to do this was like pulling teeth. It took FOREVER!! However, with a little persistence (one of our vocab words :) ) I got everyone to turn in their papers. Next, we had the students produce a illustrated interpretation of "Pandora's Box". This activity went over great with the first class. It was my favorite part of the morning. I really enjoyed walking around the room and seeing the kiddos' drawings. We had a few that were really into art and it was fun to see them so in their element. The second class, on the other hand, struggled with this activity. If I had a dime for every time I heard "But Miss I'm not a good artist!" yesterday I wouldn't need a job, because I'd be filthy rich! To finish up the day, the students had a few vocab activities to complete. Yesterday was an awesome day!! I felt really in control and I think I really started to establish some good rapport with the kids. My mentor teacher said she could tell I was "in my element" today. She said she could tell I wasn't nervous anymore and I was looked very natural in front of the class. (YAYY!)

Thursday...the new Friday
Today was a roller coaster ride. It started out good, then got rocky, then ended well. We started the day researching in the computer lab. We let the students brainstorm people/places to research then put all the ideas in a cup and let each pair choose their topic. Let me tell you I've never felt so old or out of touch as I did when the first class was brainstorming rappers to research. (Yes, they were ALL rappers) Ever heard of "A Tribe Called Quest" or "Wiz Kaliafika (sp?)"?!? Well, me either! I was like "WHAT THE HECK!?!?!" Anyways, the first period class really did well with this. They all worked really hard to find out fun facts about their person. The second class did this after their jeopardy game and tests, but they definitely struggled with it. First of all, they picked topics they knew no one would be interested in, just to be stupid. Here are some of the topics they came up with: Hannah Montana, Justin Bieber (sorry Blaire), Charlie Sheen (I totes would've been into researching him, though), Brazil (reminded me of Bernie), and Nicaragua. It was a longg 1 1/2 in the computer lab with 2nd period, to say the least. After researching, the students were asked to submit a page long paper on their topic. Today we also played a Jeopardy as a review for the tests and took the vocab and "Pandora's Box" test. Jeopardy was just dreadful with the morning group. They were being sassy/defiant and just plain rude. This was really discouraging and put me in a pretty crumby mood. Therefore, I was ready to make appropriate changes to make sure the afternoon class went better. I started out by explaining we'd had problems with the last class and the game. I let them know that if I had even one problem I'd shut down the game, hand out the tests, and we'd sit in silence until it was time to go to the computer lab. I was worried this wouldn't work, but guess what....IT DID!! The game went SO smoothly! The kids were into the game and everyone was on task. The cherry on the top of it all was that the principal came in to observe while we were playing. She couldn't have come at a better time! (YAY!) I was in such a good mood after that, I let the kids talk/listen to music in the comp lab. VERY good end of the day!

Something I'm learning is that some things work well with some classes but not with others. Also, you have to change and modify your lessons throughout the day. If something doesn't work in the morning, I've gotten rectify it by the time my afternoon kiddos get in the door. I'm also learning that spending ALL day teaching is absolutely exhausting! To anyone who reads this and has to deal with/talk to me on a day to day basis I am SO sorry. When I get home I'm a total zombie. Yesterday, I took an hour nap after work. I'm hoping I'll get used to the long days and early morning soon!

Now for some wackadoodle moments from the kiddos:

-Gotta love it when boys that tower over me come asking which bus they need to get on. You are clearly old enough to remember a bus number, if you're still having issues on day 3, I cannot help you baby.

-Students found out I'm an intern today and went bazirk. SO many questions ranging from what school I go to to what I want to teach to if I'm old enough to drink. I was sorta excited when they all told me I should get a job at their high schools so I could teach them. Who knows, maybe they think I'm a push over, but I'd like to think they think I'm fun.

-One of my boys asked if he could use the restroom. My mentor's rule is that they cannot leave to use the bathroom. They are allowed to go during breaks or lunch. I HATE when they ask me, because I feel so bad saying no, because I TOTALLY get that when ya gotta go ya gotta go. I had to tell this boy that he'd have to wait 15 min when we would leave for our afternoon break. LIke I said, I was in a good mood, so instead of just saying that I decided to spice it up. I said look, "When we walk to the cafeteria for break and we pass the boys restroom I'll say 'Peace out' to you and you can go take care of your business". If you know me, you know I say stuff like "peace out", so this didn't seem weird to me. The student thought it was hysterical. He kept saying "Peace out, Miss Patterson?" and I'd say "Not yet, dude". Finally, when we passed the boy's room he said "Peace out NOW, Miss Patterson!". Crazy boy!

I've made it through week one!! YAYYYY!! 2 more to go! Stay tuned!