School days.....

Wednesday, February 25, 2009

School days..... Current mood: cheerful

So school is in full swing, crazy how fast it all goes by. Only a couple weeks until spring break, woo hoo!! Which means my hobby house hill retreat is almost here! I can't wait!!!!

I finally got into a classroom yesterday with my observation. I am in the 4th grade class, and my teacher seems very good. He has been a teacher since 1987, so I would hope he is good by now! But really, he is very good. I think I am going to really enjoy my observation. I didn't do much this first time, just observed, got all my contextual info (# of students, # of girls, # of boys, ethnicity of students, room layout, etc) and watched him teach. Next time he said he would put me to work, which is good. I like being busy instead of just watching. I also got to stop by the Special Ed. class and stay for 30 mins before I left. I love that room. I just want to spend more time in there. Maybe this weekend I will finally blog more about it, but I have a feeling it will be a very long winded blog, and I just don't have it in me at the moment.

I am tutoring a 2nd grade girl named Daisy in my reading class too. She is 7, and her mom is having twin girls this sunday. She also has a 2 year old brother, and two 6 year old brothers, but they aren't twins she says. She said her dad died several years ago while they were still in africa, and that they moved here not too long ago. Her 2 year old brother was born in africa (along with the rest of them) so I assume 'not too long ago' means in the last year or so! She said these new babies will be the first to be born in the USA, and she said "They will be the first white babies too, I think. I don't know." Which was such an odd statement! I don't know if she thinks that if you are born in the USA you are white, or if she knows her mom has a white boyfriend, or what. I said "Well, is your mom black?" (I assumed that she was, but I thought I would ask because you know what happens when you assume....) and she said "yes" and I said "well since the babies are coming from your mom, they will have part of her in them, so they won't really be white." I didn't want to ask if the daddy of the twins was white, since I'm not really sure she even knows since she said she didn't have a daddy anymore, and there wasn't a man at home (I had to ask who all lived at her house in our initial interview, as a part of my portfolio I am keeping on her tutoring) and she didn't mention any other guy. But who knows. She is very bright though, she has already read up to the 4th grade level in the passages I have to have her read. And she's only in the 2nd grade! So she really doesn't need tutoring, but her mom signed her up for it, so I get to learn on her! I asked if she liked living in Africa, and she said yes. That everyone lived so close together that she never had to ask if she could go over and play with someone, they were just allowed to go. She also said they didn't even have to ask to sleep over, they just could go over and sleep at eachother's houses. She said that they played in mud alot though, and got really dirty. I said playing in mud is fun! She agreed. I like meeting new kids. I can't wait to have my own classroom full of new kids.

In science we have been doing some fun experiments and such. Today we started a mealworm investigation, so we handled mealworms and drew and labled them and all that good stuff. Last time we made rockets our of empty film canisters, water & alka seltzers! Which reminds me, I need to ask any one who still uses film for cameras, to save me the little plastic film holders for me! I want enough for my future classroom, so we can make the rockets too. But since we are all digital, I don't know how I am going to get the little film holders!! So if you, or anyone you know uses real film still, save me the holders and I will figure out a way to get them from you! Thanks!