I Can Talk Like a Princess

Can you believe it, it's 12:30 am on a Friday night and I'm still awake?! I haven't even had a nap today to get me to this hour. I'm pretty pleased with myself, especially since I'm ridiculously exhausted and fighting off massive yawns. Somehow, it never fails that first grade just hits me like a brick wall once I hit Friday at 4:00 pm. On my twenty minute drive home I was even close to taking a snooze, but some how I'm still going. I anticipate turning my phone off and sleeping for an unknown (but very long) amount of time.

Though I'm exhausted now, somehow I find all the energy in the world to make it through the week. I think it's a combination of a 9:30 pm bed time, running off adrenaline, and the kids of course. The kids always keep me energized. They drive you a little crazy, they ask too many questions, they do the weirdest things, and they make you laugh like crazy. I will begin my blog with a few silly stories from this week:

• A girl who is known to me just plain silly came up to me. "Hey Miss Everhart, I can talk like a princess..." "awwwhahawawwhaha." And she continued to talk like a "princess," though I would say that she was sounding more like an opera singer. She has said this to me twice now, but today when it happened, she would not stop singing, so I had to close it with, "okay, dear, that's lovely, but have a seat."
• Crushes are alive in first grade. Our class was doing their morning work so there was some commotion in the classroom. A boy who was across the room and not in ear-shot quietly said to girl, "hey (girl's name), I like your dress today." Precious, isn't it? Well get this. Later I caught him winking at another girl during a read-aloud. 1) What a ladies man. 2) A read-aloud - what a place to pick up the ladies. Haha, oh first grade. 

On a not-quite-as-fun note, I had to write quite a bit of lessons this week, specifically last night since I major procrastinated. I have to submit lessons the Friday before they're taught so Thursday's are usually crunch time. Next week I will teach my social studies unit and more math -- time to half hour, shapes, and number identification to be specific. It's a blast! Today when I was thinking about what lessons I would need to write for math for the following week, I realized that I would need to cover everything on the pre-assessment (duh). But then I realized that the students will be tested in October, and judging by their pre-tests, it's not good. Knowing that I would be teaching them the next few months, I felt a little pressure. If these student's don't do well on the October assessment, then say so long. So talk about pressure. But then I thought, this is fun, I'm so up to the challenge! How awesome is it to have a set of kids who struggle greatly, work your butt off, and finally see results?? 

This week we started a new reading program called SFA (Success for All). The SFA classes are divided by levels and each teacher gets a new set of students to work with on reading. Our reading class has 14 kids and it is a special class. The students are fairly low level readers and need a lot of help. We work on letter sounds and then work on sounding words out in a story. If you all could see the patience that I have at reading class - you would be amazed. Helping students take about 2 minutes to sound out a four letter word - whoa - talk about hard. Sometimes I just want to tell them, but you can't, they have to learn on their own. Not only is their reading level low, but we have many unique behaviors. Lack of motivations, some ADHD tendencies, tantrums, and lying/sneakiness are some of the prominent characters in our class. It's hard because not only do these 14 kids need serious help with reading, we have to deal with about five students who need serious attention due to their behaviors. It's hard, it's so hard. I just wish I could record it for you because there is no way to explain it. 

With the weeks up's and down's, I'd say I ended pretty good. I'm seriously loving this all, but don't want to love it too much in fear that there will be a serious down fall eventually ( I hope not). But until then, I'm having a blast. Here are some things I've learned:

• Applicable to all people besides teachers: Don't take old left-overs to work. You will get sick. Right when I was starting to teach a lesson, the lasagna wasn't settling too well. I wouldn't say I saw it again, but I sure wasn't in the right teaching mood. 
• Sometimes kids just need to see another face to get them back on track. In SFA there was one particular students who was causing a ruckus with his whiny tantrum. The teacher was getting frustrated and he was too. Later on when he came to work on reading during his recess I worked with him instead of the teacher, and it went smoothly. Sometimes we just need to see another face that doesn't upset us at the moment. This is also applicable to life. 
• At least one day a week you must fall asleep with out a single alarm set. That's tonight for me and I'm so excited. 
• It's okay to get on kids (not literally of course; in a management way). I had to get on kids this week with my serious teacher voice. I hadn't had to use it yet, but this was the week. I was teaching another class in our rotation system - I hadn't ever seen these kids before and so I just was firm with them at the beginning to let them know my expectations. But the KEY is to turn your voice right back into friendly. After being firm, let them know that they are going to have fun. This way they will be convinced that they will be having fun, but will also not be running you over. 

It's been a heck of a week. 

But it's the weekend. 

Go Cats! 

Happy Labor Day!

Until next time, 

Miss Everhart

{Sorry for grammatical errors. My eyes could literally not stay open any longer to proof-read. And I don't like to proof-read).