today i started observing in the other 4th grade room. i'll be teaching social studies/writing to two different classes. it's all the same kids, though, which is nice because i don't have to get to know anyone knew. in my first class there are only 7 kids because the ESL kids have ESL during that time.

social studies is 70 minutes long. today all they did was watch a very strange video about a cow that subs for a class and teaches them all about dairy. then we made homemade ice cream. that's all they got accomplished. in SEVENTY minutes. the unit they are working on right now is the midwest. i know wisconsin produces a lot of dairy but i really don't see how watching a horrid video and making some ice cream taught them anything. the ice cream was really tasty though.

i now have 2 cooperating teachers because i still do most things in sheila's room but i am now in social studies for a major part of the day with rhonda. she wanted to meet with me quick at the end of the day to discuss next week since i'll be taking over. when i went to her room she didn't mention anything about what i'll be teaching. she only talked to me about casual friday and how, since i'll be in her room now, i need to think about how i dress on fridays. "I know that a lot of people dress very casually, but they already have jobs. if you do wear jeans you need to dress them up with heels or jewelry." i was really mad. there are teachers at the school that wear sweatpants. SWEATPANTS. and not just on fridays. and she was telling me that i can't even really wear jeans anymore. ugh! i was annoyed.

the rest of the day went really well. it's been so nice to have less to be in charge of. i am able to talk to my students a lot more and am not constantly thinking about the next lesson i need to teach. plus i've had a lot more time to work on my semester projects so that i can get them done before i go to alaska.

today was seminar. it was basically 30 people sitting around and talking to each other about student teaching. that's pretty much what i do all the time so it was no different. we also talked about resumes and applying and other horrible things to make me stress out.

i also had an alaska meeting. we didn't really find out anything new, though. my professor did bring in some pictures from when she was there and they made me even more excited. i keep forgetting that i actually have to do work while i'm there. i feel like i'm just going to be exploring barrow but i'm going to be really busy.

tomorrow's another day. i have hardly anything to teach this week and i'm looking forward to having time to work on my other projects for the semester. blah blah.

this weekend went by too fast and i got very little sleep. boo. i did get a lot of work done, though; i already have all of my lesson plans done for next week mostly because i have way less to teach. i'm done with full time!! wooooooo!

my birthday was a really good day. it started with being sung to by my carpool friends and ended with phase 10 with julia, lisa, and deja (i had a real kitty in my house! it was awesome!). in between there were many cards and a lot of good food. overall it was one of my better bdays!

tomorrow i have seminar which means i get to sleep in an extra 2 hours! woohoo! but seminar is extremely boring. but i do get to see all my education friends that i haven't seen since the last seminar.

sorry that this isn't very long, but i have laudries to put away. seacrest, out.

my ebd boy had a terrible day. he swore in spanish at kids, slapped someone, and lied constantly to me and all his other teachers. i'm making him stay in at recess tomorrow.

i gave my math test today and they all did way better except one girl who did worse. frustrating!!

i feel like more must have happened today but i can't remember any of it. today was a loooong day and i don't want to think about it any more.

in other news, tomorrow is my birthday! hannah is buying everyone in the carpool breakfast!! yay! and lisa is coming. we will be consuming lots of cake and ice cream.

also, lost is awesome! i don't how i will be able to wait 2 whole weeks for a new episode!

i did a lot of yelling today! sheila was out of the room pretty much all day and i don't know if that's why but my kids were out of control today. we played a review game and for my second class i had to stop playing early. i made them sit quietly at their desks and study on their own. i was really dissapointed because up until the last 15 minutes they were doing so well. they were understanding the material and were doing what i asked, but then they started getting restless. i gave them several warnings and then decided they had had enough and made them stop the game. i really really really hope they're ready for the test tomorrow. i want them to do really well. mostly because i just want them to do well in school but also because i am using this test for my project and i want there to be a lot of improvement from the pretest.

we're working on plays this week and today we tried one out all together. i let them pick their parts after we had read through it once. c (a boy) thought it would be hilarious to be mother bear. they all laughed so hard whenever he had a line. they were really cute when they read through it because every so often they would forget and would read the parts in parenthesis. lolz.

for your viewing pleasure, here is a picture of hannah's cooperating teacher. she once had students write something they liked about everyone in the class and two of the comments she received were that she had hair like a sheep and "i like your fro."

i'm watching arrested development. i can not decide who my favorite is. probably gob, but tobias, buster, and lucille are also perfect. it's the mrs. featherbottom episode.

school went well today. my kids were good (at least until pretty much the end of the day). we're working on reader's theater this week so i'm basically having them read through different fairy tale scripts during guided reading. they love plays and they love fairy tales so they are enjoying it so far.

math went well too. today was our last day of new material before the test. we worked on input/outputs. most of them caught on right away--i just had a few who got really frustrated but i was able to work with them one-on-one and i think they started to get it. we have a review day tomorrow so they'll be able to practice even more. they've actually already taken the test because i gave them a pretest. one of my semester projects is to show how students have improved on a certain unit. we have to give a pretest, teach a unit, and then give the test. we then have to show how each student did and whether or not they improved. blah blah blah.

my birthday is on thursday!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

because it seems to be the cool thing to do

click the picture to see the full version