Finally Grown Up

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.

The submit button can be scary. At the beginning of the month when it is time to pay bills, you sit there at your computer and think I cannot afford to pay the phone bill or car payment. You look at the submit button on your computer for minutes before you have the courage to press the button. When you press the button, you also cover you eyes. Maybe if you do both of these things at the same time, you pay the bill, but also your money stays in your bank account. Wouldn't that be amazing!

This week, I had to push the submit button on my computer. This submit button was not hard to press. I did not wait for a few minutes and I did not cover my eyes. This submit button was to send my last National University paper for my special education course work. I have been going to school for so long that I do not want to ever have to press this kind of submit button again. I will avoid it like a plague. You know like the plagues that was sent to the people of Egypt.

The first college course that I took was through Bakersfield College in the fall of 1999. The course was Intro to Microcomputer. I believe my wife made me take this course. This was a few months after we got married. I think she did not want me to be a couch potato. Hmm...This is 2010 and I stll do not have a real job. On Wednesday, I submitted my last paper to finish the course Instruction of Learners with Mild/Moderate disabilities. SUBMIT!

I entitled this blog Finally Grown Up because I thought I would finally obtain a REAL JOB. I have faith that this will really happen!

I believe that the best and toughest job in the world is the same. This job is being a parent. It is exciting to see Jane learning so many new things. She talks all the time and sometimes I do not have a clue what she is saying. My oldest daughter who always complains that math is hard recently brought home two math test with a 100% and she is so proud of the grade. Emma is also starting on her science project which she is excited about. When my children are excited and happy, it brings joy to me. On the other hand, it is difficult to see a child who is struggling. It is difficult to hear my kindergartener say that no one will sit by her on the bus or at lunch. She often sits on a bench at recess by herself too. This breaks my heart to see her so sad. I wish I could take all her sadness away but as a parent I can not do that. This makes being a parent the toughest job in the world.

Yesterday, the day started out like a normal day. I took my oldest daughter to the bus stop. I watched the Baby Can Read dvd with Jane. I received a call from school. Eliza threw up on the bus. I am not sure where that came from because she was fine in the morning. I went to pick her up school. As soon as she got home, she puked again. I cleaned up the mess. I tried to feed Jane lunch. I tried like eight different foods but she would not eat. I thought she was being the normal Jane but she would not even eat her favorite foods like banana, yogurt, and bread. I put down Jane for a nap. Not even 20 minutes later, Jane was crying. I went to check on her. She puked. She was kind of laying in it. She had some in her hair. I cleaned Jane up (not goog enough because she smelled like puke still) and took her sheets out of her crib to wash. This was not a normal day.

We have friends that own "My Baby Can Read" books and dvd's. I actually saw their child, who is only about 2 weeks older than Jane, pick up a flash card with the word bubbles. She could read it. That is very impressive. I want Jane to learn how to read before she is two!

We now own the "My Baby Can Read" books and dvd's (courtesy of Ebay). I have watched a dvd with Jane almost every day for the last few months. She does not seem to be learning these words like our friend's daughter. Jane loves watching these videos and I know she is actually learning from them. Her favorite group of words to say is "Arms Up" and "Arms Down". These are a couple of the words in the video. She says these over and over again throughout the day. She loves the songs If You're Happy and You Know It.., Head, Shoulder, Knees, and Toes, Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star, and Itsy Bitsy Spider.

Whenever I mention the word video, Jane gets very excited. I am not sure why I call it a video because it is a dvd. Who owns videos anymore anyway? They are so 80's. Well, we do. We have a lot of Disney videos and a VCR to play them on. Let me see, does anyone have records? Not me. My kids have never seen a record before. I thought I was talking about the video series...sorry I got off topic. Anyway...

Yesterday, Jane did say mouth and baby before the words were said on the dvd (not video), I do not know if that was a fluke or she is actually learning words or not. I have to admit I was a little jealous about our friend's daughter, but I am not anymore. Jane loves watching the "videos" and she is learning from them. That is what counts, isn't it?

Last night, my two youngest daughters were home together. My wife was in town tutoring a senior in high school so he will graduate in June. My oldest daughter was at a Faith in God activity. My two daughters were playing together while I was doing my homework. Eliza repeatedly asked "What can I do"? I kind of ignored her question. My daughter who will be 2 in July began to answer her "What can I do?" by saying "HOMEWORK"! Can you tell what I use a lot of my time doing? I HATE homework. SHH...Do not tell my kids!