The Last 2 Weeks

I apologize to those of you who do read this blog often because I have been doing a terrible job at updating it. My September has mainly revolved around my classroom, organization skills, grading, and one specific student. (With the exception of my birthday of course :) )

The first 4 weeks have been running fairly smooth. The kids come in each day with a little bit more of an idea of what is expected of them. I am able to hand out less candy when trying to get them to do anything because now they are used to doing it. My bank account is thanking me. We are now into our schedule full on and I actually feel like they are learning things. I have to test them individually on their reading so every day for one hour another teacher comes into my room to take over. This way I can pull individual students to test. This has doubled my workload because I have to treat the guest teacher as a sub and make a lesson plan for that hour. Luckily the teacher coming in has been Mr. Ramadan, the kindergarten teacher I took over for last year. He told me he would come in and just pick up where I left off and then do a game or read books with them. When I test each day I get through about 3-4 students so as you can see, this is a long process. All the kids are required to be tested by the 25th and I only have 6 more to go!

Beyond the normal, every day chaos that happens in every classroom, we have had a small distraction. We have a very bright student who has needed some extra help and attention. Legally I am not aloud to go into much detail. The important part of me sharing this with you is to say that I have been tried and tested more than ever in the past 2 weeks with trying to figure out how to help him in the most effective way. There have been many meetings with a social worker, special edu. team and family to help this child become successful. Nate said it right - "This will not be your first time dealing with a situation like this"...I guess I should be thinking, "Bring it on!"

On a happier note, I celebrated my 25th birthday with 26 2nd graders and they were delightful. Many of them made me cards when they found out it was my birthday. And I received A LOT of hugs. :) One of my students even told me he would take me out to dinner to McDonalds. (Our school is across the street from a McDonalds) I brought in treats because isn't that what you do when you have a birthday school?? Each of my kids received an M&M cookie from me. Fitting right? As luck would have it, in math that day we talked about the quarter and how much it is worth. One of their clues was to figure out Ms. Stanton's age and they would know how much a quarter is...they loved this, and quickly got it right. :)

Ok, well I have to go get them from lunch...the next 20 minutes will be spent yelling (nicely) at or should I say over, them to be quiet because this is BY FAR the loudest part of their day....ahhh, deep breath, here I go...