One Week Down, Seventeen More to Go

I've officially survived the first week of student teaching with students (not a full week though, that won't happen until week 3). No major disasters, and really no minor disasters either. I've spent a lot of time assessing phonemic awareness in the kinder classes. It surprises me how many kinders have trouble with rhyming. I'm also a little surprised by the variety of skills present in the kinder classroom (some students cannot rhyme, and others can segment words into their individual sounds). It seems like the teachers have a wide variety of abilities on their hands. 

I'm ending each day feeling exhausted, but usually pretty good. The days are very long, and I'm putting a lot of hours in for no pay. I'm settling into routines for several parts of the day, arrival of the buses, lunchtime, and departure. The days begin with me meeting my students as they arrive (most of them get off of the bus), I can either stay outside until all of the students arrive, or go downstairs into the gym while some of my students eat breakfast. Lunchtime involves getting my kinders through the lunch line, getting them sat down, and providing assistance while the students eat. Once the students go outside for recess, my cooperating teacher and I get a lunch break. On a good day, the break might just be thirty minutes, but it usually works out to be less. At the end of the day, I head to one of the first grade classrooms, collect one of my students, and get him to the bus. Then we stay outside supervising the bus loading until the students are gone.


I haven't really had much time for academics, the responsive classroom model followed by my school tries not to pull out students during the first couple of weeks of school. My co-op has said that we will start pulling some students this coming week though. She's developed a tentative schedule for the day, and will begin figuring out which areas I will start to take over first. I'm nervous about the concept of running a classroom by myself, but also looking forward to the challenge. 


Time is really flying by for me, even though it sounds cliche. My weekends will be consumed by work and my weeks are consumed by student teaching. Hopefully I can make it through the semester.


 

First Impressions

Today marked the students' first day of school. I've been in many placements in different schools, but I still wasn't quite sure what to expect from this. My last first day experience in a public school would have been the first day of my senior year back in 1999 (yeah, I'm old). The school where I am currently placed is for students from early childhood to first grade. This meant the students' arrival was filled with chaos, craziness, and tears, from both students and parents. I spent the first part of the day with three of my kinders, helping out in the classroom. Lunchtime brought along a whole new experience, teachers and aids assist in the managing, supervision, serving, and clean-up during the lunch process. You completely forget how helpless kinders are until you have to help a large group of them get trays filled with food, eat the food, and dump the tray. And then there was the applesauce situation. For some reason the individual servings of applesauce where impossible to open. After assisting in opening a large number of these applesauces, my hands were sticky, and I'd stuck my thumb in more containers of other people's applesauce than I would ever care to admit. 

After the students finished eating lunch I finally got a brief break to scarf down some of my own food before heading to a meeting. The meeting covered the new crisis response system the school is attempting to impletement. Attempt would be the key word here because it had already been violated earlier that morning when I student was removed from the classroom and sent home (and yes, to my sister's delight, the incident involved chair throwing). The afternoon flew by and ended with my escorting one of my assigned bus students to his bus (the second was the student that was sent home earlier) and then helping with the all school bus duty. If you want a good time, watch about 200 students all under the age of 8 trying to find their bus or their parents.

I think the day was a sucess. I'm still planning on going back tomorrow, so it couldn't have went too badly, right?

Things I've learned today:

• Take advantage of free moments to go pee. It is very possible that you might not get another chance to go to the bathroom for a very long time.
• Applesauce containers were very clearly designed as a revenge for some sort of terrible misdeed done by the staff of my elementary school.
• A crying kinder will not hesitate to use your shirt as a tissue.
• Kinder gym class is really, really boring. (Sorry Mr. Gym teacher, but it is)
• Some parents will not hesitate to point out that they cannot afford to pay for gas to drive to school because they can barely afford to buy their Marlboros (yup, they really will).
• Always, always carry an extra napkin or two, and some hand sanitizer
• I really do like teaching and students (really I do)!
  

The Students are Coming!

Tomorrow is the big day, the first day of school for students. I guess it is a victory to say I don't feel completely unprepared to meet the students. On the other hand, I definitely don't feel completely prepared.I now have a couple of inservice days under my belt, and I'm feeling more and more comfortable with the staff at the school. I really feel good about the special ed teachers, they've all been great. 

However, Friday brought my first student teaching seminar, which just about gave me a panic attack. I've got a long list of things to do in my classroom, including making an audio recording of me teaching. I also have to complete an IEP (individualized education plan, any student recieving special education services has to have one), complete two different progress monitoring tasks, a behavior change plan, and some formal and informal assessments. And that is just the list for the first quarter, come second quarter I have to do it all over again, plus complete a Professional Development Plan (PDP), prepare my Gate 3 materials, and give a presentation on one of the ten Wisconsin Teaching Standards (WTS) (and the standard is assigned, not chosen). The road ahead seems daunting, but hopefully I can accomplish all that I need to. 

Day One Done

Today was my first day student teaching at my elementary school placement. Actually, it was an inservice day, so I didn't really do any teaching, that won't happen until next Tuesday.

My day started early, with me arriving at my school by 7:20 am. I met up with my supervising teacher, who gave me a tour of a couple of other district schools. Then we wandered about our school for a little while, where she introduced me to many, many staff members. And I can barely remember any names.

Next, we had the school faculty meeting. I was then officially introduced to the entire school, met many more people whose names I will hopefully learn before the quarter ends. I also got to meet the other student teacher, a future art teacher from UW Stout, and then proceeded to spend some time helping my supervising teacher with classroom set up. I also went over the IEPs of some of my students, trying to get at least a little familiar with the names.

This afternoon we had the first round of parent conferences. Between meeting with the parents of some of my students, I assisted parents with filling out forms, and then proceeded to help sort and organize the forms.

The day ended at 6:30 this evening. Tomorrow, I'll be back at the school at the same time, and then head over to the high school for a district wide kick off breakfast and meeting. I'm hoping to get an opportunity to at least meet my supervising teachers for next quarter from the middle school while we are at the district wide meeting. There will also be another round of conferences tomorrow starting at 3.

Finished!

With less than a week to spare, niece's airbender hoodie is finished. The sweater has been washed, blocked (it took forever to dry, forever), folded, wrapped, and presented to niece, who was quite happy with it. She calls it her "air nomad sweater." I have to say, I'm pretty thrilled with how it turned out.



This also gives me the chance to return to knitting other items. I'm still working on the little shell rib socks for Danielle. Progress has been slow, considering my knitting has been focused elsewhere, I've just finished the short row heel and am working on the leg of the first sock. Hopefully I'll also finish up the Lily Cardigan. I'm down to adding length to the bottom, which means rows and rows of stockinette stitch. I'm itching to start another project, but I also know if I start too many other things, I'll never finish the Lily Cardigan. I'm allowing myself to cast on for a second attempt at a large lace project. I'm going to give the Cheshire Cat Stole another go, but with different yarn. I've ordered some Misti Alpaca Lace in the Mojito colorway. The last time I attempted the stole, my needles broke after a couple of inches, then the project got all tangled up, forcing me to abandon the project. Let's keep our fingers crossed that this time comes out better.

The End is in Sight!

And we're getting down to the deadline for niece's birthday sweater. She arrives in Wisconsin tonight and leaves again on Thursday. So the gift has to be done by Wednesday evening, or I'm going to have to come up with an emergency last minute gift.

However, the outlook is good. I've finished the back and hood, and am a little over halfway done with the first sleeve. If I keep pressing onward there should be no reason that it cannot be completed in time. (However, if I keep getting distracted by other things...)

So, back to the knitting and I promise an update with pictures once the sweater is done.

Tunnel Vision Knitting

Currently, my knitting is focused on one thing, Sophie's birthday sweater. Progress is going good. I decided to switch from knitting in the round to knitting flat to make the colorwork a little bit easier. However, this means I will have to do more seaming. Knitting the front and back flat and the sleeves in the round is the current plan, but we'll see how it pans out. I've finished the front which, after ripping it out and starting over once, turned out pretty good in my opinion.



The three spirals are the symbol of the air nomads. The blue color is a little more purply than I would like, but is was the closest color I could find in the yarn line that I wanted to use. Ideally, I'd like to have the back finished by the end of the weekend. I think it should go faster than the front because instead of the spirals, there is only a single stripe running up the middle. This means taht I don't have to follow a chart. The ulitmate plan is to finish the entire project by the end of next weekend. Husband leaves for a golf weekend in Hayward on Thursday and alone time usually equals knitting time, but my mother has me playing in a golf tournament on Saturday. It's a fundrasier for breast cancer awareness and there is another non-golfer on the team, or I'd never be doing it.

Once finished with the sweater, it'll be back to work on the lily cardigan. I'd like to get that done, but I'm also itching to start some new projects. I'd really like to make a new purse. I've got the yarn and a couple of different patterns, but I really should finish the cardigan.

My portable project is a pair of socks, of course. I'm knitting them toe-up using the willow band stitch patter from Charlene Schurch's Sensational Knitted Socks and their for my sister. She picked out the yarn, Plymouth Happy Feet in shades of green and brown, when I was visiting her in Seattle. I'm a little worried, however, because the yarn is pooling in a way that almost creates a camouflage look. I'm not sure that sister is going to be pleased with the results. But I'll keep on working on them, and if she doesn't like them, I'll find somebody that does.