Finally Grown Up

Tomorrow, I will say goodbye to Stella Hills 4th grade resource class. This experience was at great one for student teaching. This resource class is the best resource class that I step foot in. Resource class is suppose to be extra help for students having problems in certain areas. The teacher actually taught 4th grade work and not 2nd grade. The teacher taught at the grade level but took extra time to teach the information. This was a true resource class. I would like to be in a resource class and I now saw a resource class that I can base my own classroom on.

After tomorrow, I will have two weeks before my second half of student teaching starts. I am looking forward to it. Once again, I will be in a resource class.

Today is May 23, 2010. The weather should be sunny and warm. It is spring/summer. We woke up this morning and white stuff was coming down. Where did the snow come from? I lived in this town in California for 11 years and it has never snowed this late in the year. Now, I look at the window, there is almost no signs of snow.

I always wondered what happens the day after the regular teacher is absent. I leave a note for the teacher and sometimes the note is good and other times the note is bad. I try to leave some sort of message that shows the students were good but sometimes it is hard. I had a opportunity to see it in person because I am a student teaching. The first 20 minutes of the class, the students were pointing fingers at everyone accept for themselves. This is what I heard. He did this. She did that. I was doing my classwork. I did not do anything wrong. Watching the conversation was really funny. This should be a comic act on the Last Comic Standing.

The Word of the day is focus. This is something that the students in the resource room can not do. I am in a general education class with three resource students during the first two hours a day. These three students cannot keep focused for more than five seconds. This is not a joke. One student tries to sleep while the other two students want to play swords with their pencils. The problem increases when there is a substitute in the classroom who can not control the class. It is interesting to watch another substitue teacher try to control the class since I have been a substitute teacher for many years now. I felt sorry for the teacher a little but it was kind of funny watching him fight a loosing battle. I have been in his shoes many times.

The teacher that I am student teaching in told me many times that I need to keep the resource students focused in the class. This is challenging but almost impossible to keep the students focused.

Tomorrow, I will be teaching my first lesson in the class. I am going to have the class make a multiplication house and than the students will practice multiplication using the houses. Let's see how I do.

Finally, I started student teaching about 10 days later than I was suppose to. I have to drive a little over an hour to get to the school. I am not looking forward to this drive every day but at least I am student teaching. I am in a 4th grade resource class. The class is set up like this. The first two hours, the students are in a general education 4th grade class. There are six students and the students are split between two 4th grade classrooms. I am to help the students with their work and keep focussed on their work. The students get off track easily. After recess, the students have math in the resource classrooom. First, students have a math minute to do and a math lesson. Today, the lesson was on multiplication with decimals. The students then proceed to lunch. After lunch, the students work on a DOL sentence on the whiteboard followed by working on SRA's. I worked one on one with a student who is a first grade reader who will not do anything unless someone is sitting with him. At the end the day, the teacher reads Charlotte's Web to the class. The last hour of class, there are not any students in the resource class. Tomorrow will be another day of observation. The teacher has given me an assignment to ccome up with a couple of math art projects for next week. I am excited to do my student teaching in a resource classroom because I want to become a resource teacher.