Miss. Daisy! Miss!

These past three days I have been very busy teaching and planning lessons. On Monday my cooperating teacher, Bethany,  who is the same age as me, was observed by her supervisor. This is her first year teaching so she opted to sign up for a program in which  a supervisor comes and observes her to give her feedback. I think she is doing great. She is really proactive and tries new things. Bethany also has good classroom control. I feel that we work well together because she is open to my ideas, is helpful and has supported my classroom management practices. Since she was being observed Monday, I just helped out whenever needed. As I walked around the room the children kept yelling, "Miss! Miss" and poking me to get their attention. I was getting really really annoyed! I consitantly told them to raise their hands and I would not go up to them unless they did. That night I decided to make a chart with all of their names. If I catch them always raising their hands, using their manners, and following their rules I will give them a star. I know this goes against everything I stand for with external motivation and praise, but I seriously needed to do something. After awhile I will wean the students off of this system.

On Tuesday I introduced the chart and I instantly noticed changes in behavior. The students were raising their hands and really listening to me. I also stole an idea called "Stop and Think" from my last student teaching placement. If a student breaks a rule two times they must fill out a sheet which has them state their behavior, how they should fix it and so on. We'll see if that works! I also taught my first language arts lesson on adjectives, sentence structure and s-blends. It went well! Surprisingly the students paid attention and listened to me. I included some hands-on and art activities so they seemed to like that. I really had to be firm though and take no crap. I hardly smile and sometimes feel a little too hard on the students. However, teacher Bethany said I did very well so I will keep this up for awhile. That night it was one of the girls, Jenna's, Birthday. We had cake over at Ms. Celia's house. The cake was delicious! Everything then went out but I stayed in to do homework. I was feeling stressed and taking time to go out would only have added to that stress. Oh! Another important note of this day was during lunch. I ate shrimp! Not just a little itsy bitsy piece, but 5! I actually really liked it. We'll see if I order shrimp in a restaurant one day. I'm sure I'll opt for my favorite caesar salad, but who knows! That night I could not fall asleep until 1 which was pretty bad. I was so sweaty and had a lot on my mind.

On Wednesday morning I thought it would be helpful to release some of my stress and tension so I got up at 5:30 and went for a hard run. It felt awesome. The sun was just coming up over the sea and it was lightly drizzling. I felt a lot more relaxed after that. At school I taught another lesson which went well. The kids seemed to enjoy it and were reall on-task. I was amazed. What good students. I also noticed that I might say, "That's wonderful" and "How excellent" a little much because one of my favorite students kept repeating that. It was cute! Anytime I told them what we were going to he would just say, "Oh wonderful! How great to do this". I really like the kids. They can be very crazy but when they listen and get something it is sooo rewarding. When they leave for lunch and after school they all give me hugs and say, "Bye Miss. Daisy". As we walk home Andrea and I always seem to walk with an entourage. The kids follow us and ask us questions. It's great but sometimes we just kind of want to get away. I don't mind too much though because it is kind of comforting.

All in all, this week is going by fast and I'm liking the class. I just have to stay firm. I am also getting used to the town. As we walk around, we hear, "Hello, teachers!". It's a pretty small town so we see the same people a lot.

Hope everyone is doing wonderfully at home!