Foote School

Today was a rough day, not only was it Monday, but it was my last day. I helped the fourth graders polish their biography reports, and worked separately with certain second graders who have been struggling with math. They are just starting multiplication, and I remember how challenging that was for me. I really enjoy working with these kids because I hope that I can in some small way help them understand multiplication better, and perhaps help them to have a more positive experience than I did. The end of the day however, was particularly challenging. Some of the second graders started crying when I told them that I wasn't going to be coming to their classroom anymore. However, I did tell them that my family is on the board at Foote and that I will be around campus in the next coming weeks, and will probably see them in the next couple of years. The fourth graders where so grateful to me, they kept on saying thank you for coming and helping with our papers, etc. It filled me with s

Week 3: Weekly blog This week, like last week I really got into a habit/ routine of working with the second and fourth graders. I found that I was needed most in those classrooms, and also that I could feel like I was helping the most while there too. Like I said in my daily blogs, I am learning so much, and I feel as though I have gained so much from this experience. For the longest time I have gone back and forth in my mind trying to figure out what I want to do with my life, and this experience of working with kids in classrooms gave me the opportunity to explore something that I may be interested  in pursuing as a career choice. This week I spent time not only working one on one with children focusing on writing, and research, but I also was grading and organizing! I felt so useful, but at the same time felt like I was getting almost a full experience of what it may be like to be a teacher. It made me think a lot about my future, and I had some meaningful conversations with my

Friday was a long day. Although there was much to do, it seemed to drag on and on. I spent the morning working with the second graders as we finished up the final touches on their African Animal books, by gluing the pages onto construction paper and laminating their covers. I then spent the rest of the day in the art classroom, working with a separate group of second graders, and then a group of 5th graders. The time I spent in there was full of multitasking, when I have been in the art classrooms the past few weeks I have spent it mostly setting up for the class, and then doing housekeeping around the art rooms for the remainder of the period. However the past few classes I have been helping more with the kids, as well as doing the housekeeping things. So yesterday I was constantly up and down trying to do a bunch of things at  once.

Today I really felt like a teacher... from time to time the teachers have asked me to do organization things, and even grade a few things, but today I spent the whole day grading and organizing. It was pretty wild to think that I am grown enough to grade things! I always thought of that as something that held a lot of responsibility. It was really cool to do, and I was able to work with kids who I found we having a harder time understanding certain concepts. Putting numbers into grade books made my eyes sore! I really do have a greater appreciation for teachers and understand how sometimes they take a little while to grade a test or a paper. Aside from grading and organizing and the occasional sit down with kids to go over their work, I played a really good game of checkers... I am not a checkers player, but a second grade girl asked me to play today and I couldn't say no. She plays with her family so she was surprisingly good, and I was a little embarrassed to be getting beat by a

This morning I was working in the fourth grade classrooms again, working with the kids on writing their biography reports. Although this is a bit repetitive, each day the kids are working on a new paragraph and I find that there is always something that I can do to help. I spent the remainder of the day working in the second grade classroom, I walked them to their specials, worked on math (triple digit subtraction), and they finished their animal reports today!

This morning started off in the second grade classrooms. The kids are finishing up their African animal research books, so it is a very busy time. I spent a good time one on one with this one girl named Dorothea who was very behind on her book. She told me that she has a very hard time staying focused, so I sat with her while she worked making sure everything was running smoothly. After snack the kids came back and started on their scrap books, they are making scrap books of all the things that they worked on while studying Africa. After lunch I went and spent time in the fourth grade classes again, like I said yesterday the kids just finished their research and notecards so they have started their monologues. I worked with many of the children one on one to perfect their introduction paragraphs and go over the checklist that including the important aspects to their first body paragraph.