http://journal.starwidget.net First year teacher extraordinaire! Tue, 26 Aug 2008 03:36:13 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en Day one finished. 179 to go. Holy shit! (Too tired to talk about it now, but there will be more substantial updating this week.) http://journal.starwidget.net/2008/08/25/go/ Open House came and went with a decent crowd and much broken Spanish. I have a class of eighteen: nine boys, nine girls, ten black, and eight hispanic. Two of my students speak no English (Spanish and Chatino, an indigenous language of Mexico that is nothing like Spanish), ... http://journal.starwidget.net/2008/08/23/set/ New Teacher Orientation is done. I have been inside my classroom. Teacher workdays (read: meetings ALL DAY) start tomorrow... My room was completely empty when I came in... I had nothing except a teacher desk, a kidney table, some chairs, two bookshelves, an overhead, and computers. I ... http://journal.starwidget.net/2008/08/17/ready/ Well, I start new teacher orientation on Wednesday. I'll be teaching 3rd grade and I'm very excited about this. I cannot wait to get into my classroom and get it all set up, though the whole process is a bit intimidating! So much to do, so little time! http://journal.starwidget.net/2008/08/11/here-it-goes/ So, I'm finishing up my student teaching, this week. Wow. It's been a long, hard year - and I've accomplished quite a bit. I wish I had documented more as I went, but I had a hard enough time keeping my head above water. Maybe over the next ... http://journal.starwidget.net/2008/04/22/what-a-year/ The title of this post is also its inspiration. It's a search string that brought somebody here, and I was actually disappointed when I realized that my site probably didn't help them at all. I have first graders. They cough. I try to teach them how to do ... http://journal.starwidget.net/2008/02/25/teaching-first-graders-to-cough/ Ah, the age-old question. How should I manage the behavior of my students? Everyone gets pretty heated about this issue, because there are such differing opinions on what works, what doesn't, and why. Being new to this, I have my opinions, and what I've been told to ... http://journal.starwidget.net/2008/02/21/classroom-management/ (1) Don't plan until 3am and expect to be useful the next day. (2) I'm never going to plan the way my supervisor makes me do it. (3) Yoga is a necessity. (4) A masseuse would be awesome. (5) First graders are smarter than most give them credit for. (6) Breakfast would be great, if ... http://journal.starwidget.net/2008/02/12/things-im-learning/ So, I've mentioned once before that my school system uses Handwriting without Tears to teach handwriting. My teacher gave me her teacher's guide at the beginning of the year, but I haven't had much time to look through it. My school finally got the student workbooks this month, so my ... http://journal.starwidget.net/2007/10/19/no-more-tears/ I do apologize for not being very good at updating. I doubt I have any regular readers (it's hard to have regular readers when you don't have regular contributions), but in case you are out there, I am sincerely sorry. My hope was to update weekly with my student teaching ... http://journal.starwidget.net/2007/10/14/life-is-what-happens/