Today I taught a lot! I guess I shouldn't have expected to just sit back and relax this week. :) Aryn had to go sub in 5th grade this morning so I taught all morning and then half of the afternoon while she was at swimming again. It was almost like being back in my ICS weeks -- having TOTAL control of the classroom. It was kind of a hard day, though, because I just really felt like the children were super loud and nothing I said or did could calm them down.
Christina (Margie's student teacher and my classmate since Block I) made a good point today during our final supervisor's meeting -- she said she feels like these days since she's not teaching anything, the only time she has to address the whole group is to "yell at them." I kind of agree: we're not (or most of us are not, anyway) teaching anything at all this week, so there's a lot of sitting and watching like we're back in Week 1 again. If we do have to get the whole group's attention, it's because they're being too loud or something is wrong or whatever. I'm going to consciously try to make most of my interactions positive. I should be doing this anyway, but it's hard right now. Especially since I'm back in charge, I have to be more "grrr" with them at times. I do feel, though, that when I am doing opening or reading, I keep it pretty calm and sweet. I noticed a few weeks ago that when Aryn teaches the whole class, she lowers her voice to almost a whisper and keeps their attention by drawing them in. I tried that this week and BAM -- it's like magic!
Tomorrow they have Music at a super weird time (like 1:15 or something crazy) so it's going to mess up our schedule again. I've been taking my computer to school and working on my final projects during my breaks (when they're in Music or P.E. , or even on my lunch break sometimes), so tomorrow I'll probably do that at our weird Music time. I'm almost done...I can see the finish line! I have ONE more project to do (a one-page paper for my night class) and I think I can do that over the rest of this week. This race (more like a marathon... this semester took forever) is almost over! I am almost a certified teacher!
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