Happy New Year!

This year, I am very blessed to have MY OWN CLASSROOM FOR A WHOLE YEAR!!!!  It's a Grade 1 mat leave position, so it's temporary, but this is my third of year of teaching and the longest I've been in one class is 3 months, so I was thrilled to have this opportunity.  I was also very excited to teach Grade 1, as they are pretty cute and say "the darndest things."  I knew it would be a struggle because the kids are transitioning from half day kindergarten, and it's French Immersion, so on top of having to go to school full days, and start learning how to read and write and all that jazz, they also need to do EVERYTHING IN FRENCH.  Easy peezy lemon squeezy.  :P

Well, if it weren't for my super supportive boyfriend who keeps telling me I'm the best teacher ever and I can do it, I might have quit after the first week!  It is not easy switching from even slightly older grades to Grade 1, as by  Grade 3, the kids can communicate in French and understand how school works.  There's also the girl who cries for no reason, the boy who is clearly used to getting his own way, the girl who goes to the washroom and doesn't come back for 15 mins, the kid who puked in the  hallway but didn't tell me until 20 mins later,  the kid that can't keep his hands to himself, and the boy who can't speak any quieter than shouting volume.  Also they get confused about when to wear outside shoes and when to wear inside shoes.

If I'm stressed out, imagine those poor Grade One kiddos... :(

Ok, I made it through that first week, and it's getting better.  I needed to lower my expectations.  As in, it's ok if it takes half an hour to write down 4 words...

I didn't want to start off the year by having kids think that they would just be playing all the time, so it's been a lot of focus on work, respect, following rules... it's really challenging.  We have movement breaks and play games, and I want them participating, but they need to learn when to put up their hand, to not talk while others are talking, etc.  Today though, I was starting to be concerned that kids will start not liking school.  I have therefore decided that my focus for next week will be to make sure that kids like at least one thing about school, and to focus more on fun.  I want them to look forward to coming to school.  Next week will be more about play.  :)

Ok, now to remember what I like most:  the crazy things kids say.

Last week we had Aussie X (an Australian in-school sports program) come teach us "footy."  A girl from my class said that she told her parents about footy, and she said that they had never heard of it.  She then elaborated by saying, "My dad's never heard of footy because he's from Saskatchewan."  OMG sooo funny.

Another day we were practicing colouring lightly and one boy said that he can't colour lightly.  I said that he just needs to colour slowly, then he will be able to do it.  He replied that he can't colour slowly because he is "made to go fast."  lol

I probably won't be able to sleep tonight because I have school on the brain, hope this blog post shook some of it out!

Floating

Bonjour,

Tuesday was my first day back at work after the holidays, and I have been floating around my school since I've finished my temp contract and I'm still waiting for them to get me back on the sub list, so I thought I'd reflect on how that's going...

Primarily, I have been working with students from grade 4-6 who struggle with reading and/or writing. Some of them have diagnosed LDs, others don't.  I have been working with them to get them using Dragon Dictate dictation software so that they can get their ideas out and to help them with their spelling and grammar.  I also set up a Dragon Dictate profile for a visually impaired student.  As well, I have been teaching them to use Read & Write Gold to help students who struggle with reading- the program reads PDF documents, Word docs, and web pages.  Additionally, it is useful as editing software, as there is a "predict" tool that shows suggestions of possible words that students may be trying to type.  I had mixed feelings about having students dictate rather than physically write or type, as I feel these are valuable skills, however, printing and word processing are skills that they have been practicing since kindergarten, and there are some students who can really benefit from these programs.  I would not recommend that students begin using these tools before Grade 4 unless they have been diagnosed with a learning disability, as they are still learning printing and the sounds that words make, and if they are struggling with their writing/reading, it is possible that they could benefit from additional practice and/or tutoring.

When I wasn't busy training students to use assistive technology, I helped out with reading in Div I.  I think that teaching Grade 1 French Immersion is probably the most challenging grade to teach, especially at the beginning of the year.  If I were to teach Grade 1 FI, I would need A LOT of help lol.

I also worked with a Grade 3 student to practice saying the name of numbers in French.  (Ex: 40: quarante).  By grade 3, the students should have mastered recognizing and reading numbers 0-100.    I checked to see if he knew what the numbers were in English, and that was all good, and I told him, "No problems there," and he replied, "That's because I was born in English." *giggle*  He also had some riddles for me: Q: "What do you call a man with a rubber toe?" A: "Rrroberto!" (He rolled the "R" at the beginning).  I didn't really have a plan of what to do so I grabbed some tiles with numbers from 0-100 and a list of the numbers with the written form next to the word.  I put the tiles face down and said we'd take turns flipping tiles and the first person to read the number would win the tile.  Of course that would not be fair to him so I gave him 10 seconds before I read the tile.  He actually did really well, and when it was time for him to go back to class he told me (without being prompted) that he thought that was a really fun game. :D

The biggest realization that I've had this week is that I enjoy Div I more than Div II.  The younger kids are just so funny.

That's all for now folks!