August 11, 1999
Today went pretty well. I need to work on keeping the kids on task though. I realize it is only my third day, but it seems like sometimes they don’t listen to me. I talked to Mrs. J about it, and she said not to worry, it just takes time. She said she just repeats herself, and if they still don’t listen, she puts it back on them by saying, “What did I just say?” That is a good idea, I will have to try it tomorrow.
This phrase becomes part of my teaching personality, and gets me is SO MUCH TROUBLE with some parents! And can I just say, Wow, I had some high expectations for myself if I am feeling this way on the third day!
I did the spelling practice today. It’s almost like they forget what to do because it’s me and not Mrs. J. That is frustrating. It was a little chaotic, kids calling out, “What is the word?” It was very weird.
My math lesson went pretty well, too. I was pleased. I had them sit at their desks to start, because yesterday part of the confusion came from them being on the floor and not really paying attention to what to do. I thought anyway. I think this “Letters in our Names” graph was easier. I started by reminding them of the graph we did yesterday. Then I told them how we would be making a graph about how many letters are in our names. I asked how they thought we might do that. Someone said by counting the letters. So I showed them the strips of graph paper and told them to write 1 letter in each box, cut off the extra, and then they could color it. I guess I should have had them make their name all one color (like a car graph), but I told them they could color it any way they wanted (because I had seen it done that way in Mrs. Z’s class). When they were done, I had them bring the name slip to me and tell me where to put it on the chart. It was fun because a little crowd gathered around the chart – they wanted to see how all the names were turning out. When it was done, we talked about the graph – which # had the most, the least, ties, etc. Mrs. J asked if I knew what a body graph was; I said no, but then when they were standing there it clicked. I had them line up according to how many letters were in their name. Then we did the least, most, and ties again – I had them raise their hands if they were in the line with that criteria. That went really well.
I think this was a class graph, whereas the Brothers and Sisters graph from the second day was on a worksheet, and each kid made their own. Also, I should mention that we read Chrysanthemum by Kevin Henkes in conjunction with this graph. I really miss using children’s literature with math!
At the end of the day we decided to make bookmarks they can use to read along with in their books instead of using their fingers to point.
Isn’t it interesting how when we were kids, teachers yelled at us for using our fingers while reading, and now we TELL kids to use them to track!
I got to cut them with the paper cutter.
I don’t remember the paper cutter, but I do remember the copy machines at this school. They had two right next to each other – they were green, and they were HUGE. Like the size of a metal desk. That first day I thought, “Teaching wastes so much paper.” Little did I know…
I thought we would do it tomorrow, and I would write their names on them for them, but we did it today so they wrote their own names. They sure made some beautiful and creative bookmarks! Some have trouble with, “You can do it any way you want.” Maybe that is too open, but we want them to create whatever they want to! Giving direction on that just limits the imagination.
We read Where the Wild Things Are, and during the rumpus scene, L noticed that one of the beasts looked like Francine from Arthur. It was amazing – they were comparing literature! Because then they went on to compare the other characters. What a great moment. They are thinking!
What I always think about Where the Wild Things Are is that my mom hated it, so of course I checked it out of the school library every other week.
My incorrect use of commas is annoying, so I added them where they belonged. I always hated extra commas (and incorrectly called them “comma splice”), but after learning all the rules for compound and complex sentences by teaching fifth grade grammar (back when we were allowed to!), I now know where they belong. But I’m only editing for mechanics. No revising. 
