tchphx

on normal days, i drop my kids at the cafeteria and collect them from the playground after recess. everyone is grumpy and it takes forever to line up, seriously at least five minutes after the bell, and there’s whining and fighting and he said-she said and my head hurts and….argh.
on rainy days, when we have indoor recess, i have a while to eat lunch and then i go pick up my kids from the cafeteria.

all i have to do is open the cafeteria door and step inside. my kids eat with their backs to the door, about 30 feet away, but at least one will turn around and spot me, and then it’s like a duckling domino effect. i don’t have to say a single word–they flock over on their own, immediately. they line up quietly and straight and they’re hopping on the balls of their feet with good cheer and smiling and there’s no fighting and we walk out of there like we own the world.

it’s the best part of a rainy day.

1) feeling kinda overwhelmed. just got so much reteaching to do before aims that it’s a crazy insurmountable hurdle right now. however, i’m going to start reteaching math next week! so it will work out in the end. tomorrow we are starting geometry and it is just such a huge huge thing (so much to cover!) that i am a bit overwhelmed. gonna type a plan now.
2) i did something extremely painful to my shoulder on sunday (three days ago). not sure when - if it was during my workout i didn’t notice at the time. anyway, it’s been killing me ever since. my range of motion is limited and it shoots pain down to my elbow sometimes. it’s my right shoulder and i’m a righty so this is very very annoying. and also painful. ouch. i’ve been icing it with a huge bag of frozen vegetables, but no go so far. i haven’t been to a doctor in two years and i definitely don’t want to take time off to do so, but oooouuuuuuuch. we’ll see what happens. at least spring break is soon so i could go then if i have to.
3) i started the behavior card system that the upper grades at my school use with my kiddos today. they were pretty psyched about it, not gonna lie. it’s just a card where i write down the good/bad things they do instead of just saying it verbally, and then they can show parents on fridays, and they are working towards a party. today was a little bit magical because of that - everyone bad was here and yet everyone was on their best behavior.

4) i’ve been playing a rocking pandora station that plays coldplay, jack johnson, jason mraz, dmb and chill music in class. i’ve always been playing lyricless music before (beethoven, etc) but i wanted something to relax ME, because when i’m relaxed, they’re relaxed. (and i turned on the filter, so no profanity, at least so far so good.) they haven’t said anything but i think they like it. <3 one little boy asked me who sang a coldplay song and wrote it down to take home.

i had a fun day today with various people, and now it is pouring rain outside (i love thunderstorms) and i should really be asleep so that i can wake up and plan tomorrow.
the week was only so-so; a lot of behavioral challenges, and kids who just got lazy on the two assessments we took and did awful because they didn’t feel like finishing. we talked over and redid one of them and they did SO MUCH better when they actually did the problems, so hopefully that should be good.

i’ve come to notice that i really, really, really dislike reading. literacy. i am a math teacher at heart. math is fun! i also love teaching phonics with my spelling class - that is some fun stuff right there! reading is more of a muddle for us, between teaching to the standards and teaching to the multiple-choice questions and teaching to what we all know good readers should be able to do. just coming up with plans and materials for reading is probably the hardest thing. math, on the other hand, is fun and easy[ier]. i mean, it sucks that my low low students are so bad at math and don’t have a clue how to do single-digit subtraction, but math is still more fun for me! if i stay in teaching, i want to teach only math. i want a math job. but only lower elementary math—the middle/upper stuff is too hard! no decimals or percentages or long division for me.

spring break is in two weeks. i am very, very ready - this stretch from christmas to spring break was so long - 10 weeks, same as the very first stretch from august to fall break.  yeah, we had president’s day weekend and martin luther king day, but the post-winter-break kid issues that pop up made it hard. very hard

after spring break, we have 3 weeks to AIMS. we have a long weekend right after AIMS and then 5.5 more weeks of school. wow.

5 weeks to AIMS is not enough time!

it’s the first full week in ages, thanks to testing and president’s day and early releases.

i feel pretty good, but going back to the 5-full-days is intimidating.  i’m going to be exhausted by the end.

on the good side, i have my plans pretty much set. i know what i’ll be doing and i have my presentations and worksheets made. preparedness is a great feeling!

i do need to plan for the math we’re starting on thursday, though–it’s the “if you can choose between 5 sandwiches, 2 drinks, and 2 desserts, how many different lunches can you have” math, or geometry - i have to choose. i guess i’ll go type plans for both!

…of teaching, for me, is being very self-conscious of my pronunciation.

i generally have no regional accent, thanks to living in lots of different regions as a kid, but i lapse sometimes with midwestern vowels (once in a while bag edges ever so slightly towards beg and i hear myself and go WHAT). and then there’s the H problem, because I have to watch out for herbivores and hours and ours and “are”s and my kids watch out too and we all end up confused.
when i read books to my kids, i become super conscious of how i pronounce the character’s names. especially if they are complicated names that i read only silently as a kid (i didn’t read books aloud to myself or hear other people’s pronunciations, always) and i’m like…shit HAVE TO READ THIS RIGHT because i’m my students source.

it’s all good though! tomorrow (today) is FRIDAY!!!

…i’m still freaking out.

FOURTEEN PASSED MATH!!!!!!!!!!

we got our third benchmark scores back today.

MY PROBLEM CHILD PASSED! His first passing benchmark score in any subject in his life! I just called his mom.

In general I am thrilled with how we did! first time, only 3 passed math (meaning: 13 failed). This time: 14 passed math! Only 4 failed. Admittedly the content was different but I still think it is a win!! 12 passed reading (out of 18) - up from 8 of 16 the last two times. Awesome!

One of my boys who is lazy passed BOTH his tests this time after not passing any all year. I’m psyched about that & called his mom too!

Now to plan for this week. Yeah….

the benchmarks this morning went really well. as always, it’s frustrating to walk around and see kids get questions wrong, but i insist that they all CHECK CHECK CHECK their work after they are done and i know some of them catch their mistakes, so i feel better. overall i feel like math is going well and reading i don’t see the questions as much but i hope it is okay!

j, one of my lowest students (my behavior problem child), who did NO work before about november and who was in the 1st percentile on all of his terranova etc scores, tried his little heart out on the reading test. he’s not a reader (for sure) and on previous benchmarks he has just guessed and bubbled his way through. he tried tried tried and it took him the  whole time to do 10 questions (out of ~30 for that part), so he had to go to the make-up room to finish in the afternoon. that just about killed me because i KNOW that he won’t have tried very hard there, and i’m not sure if his score will show improvement. but i am super hopeful! he was AMAZING when he was trying in our room, though–not afraid to read back through the stories, again and again, to find the answer that was right. it took him ages, but it was great to watch. math is stronger for him and i am hoping that he will (maybe) pass the math - it would be his first passing score on a benchmark EVER (last year OR this year). we’ll see! he would have to DOUBLE his last two math scores in order to pass, but based on what i saw he’s close. or closer than he’s ever been, at least.

benchmark testing again this week. i have high hopes for math….we’ll see. i know my scores will at least be boosted by two of my new students…

also, a field trip (yay!), a four day week (yay!), and the fact that somehow amidst all this i am supposed to teach lessons on the U.S. census (a decree handed down by the administration) — we’ll see what happens. i want to start a unit on the winter olympics, too, for writing expository paragraphs…

i’ve had a really great weekend though with lots of sleep (went to bed at 9 two nights in a row, and am about to sign off now)  and benchmarks mean that i teach less and monitor more, which is boring for me but does lighten the workload quite a bit in terms of planning. i’ve planned out reading, and we’re going to do review of fractions and comparing them in math, if we have time…plus olympics and census and DEAR time and read-aloud and some vocabulary work and there is my week!

next weekend is a three-day. as much as i love my kids, i can’t wait. sunday nights are the worst feeling–that nagging feeling that you’ve not finished everything you needed to, that you COULD plan better, more, best for the next week, that you SHOULD go to sleep early to wake up refreshed on monday….sunday nights suck. i did have a super productive sunday-day, though!

…went okay! math went really well actually (86.1%!) but reading was…eh. the PO was particularly hard but we got in some good reading/comprehension practice anyway. next week is all review because benchmarks are the week after! i think it will be double math blocks, too (skipping the 30-40 min of science we normally do) because we need to review review review and finish 2 more POs as well - a little behind in math! aah!
i was out one day this week for professional development, which instead of being at the district office as usual was at another school. this school, instead of doing the national anthem and the pledge of allegiance, like we do every morning, did the pledge of allegiance and a moment of silence.

i go to church a few times a month, definitely more than a lot of people i know, but i was pretty uncomfortable with that.
the national anthem takes a lot longer, true, but i have great plans in my head of teaching my kids the words and having them sing along. hasn’t happened yet, but it will!

and on a sad note, the school is doing a dental clinic and we sent home forms that have been brought back. i am once again reminded how few of my students have health insurance. those who do have the arizona kid health insurance for low-income families—-as far as i know, ZERO have private insurance. i never really cared about insurance before because, you know, i was always nicely insured by my parents’ jobs and my own job. but seeing them and knowing that if they get hurt or sick, they are screwed—-this system sucks.

don’t even get me started on my kids’ teeth. i grew up going to the dentist and all that. i didn’t have a cavity until preteen years, and my parents had them filled with the white tooth fillings, like everyone else i know. my kids, ages 8-9, have underdeveloped puny little teeth (at least in comparison to my own 8 year old school picture), many of which are yellow-brown at the edges. almost all of them have metal fillings capping their molars. others get a toothache that lasts for weeks. it’s a little thing but the metal fillings always strike me when i see them, because i remember the first day when my mom was choosing if she would get the metal fillings or the white fillings and she chose (had the luxury to choose) to pay for the white fillings so that they would blend in with my teeth. my families don’t have that luxury.