New School Year – Day 7

Annoyance: I overlooked two boys talking during silent reading time. I finally took their names down and when they said they weren’t talking, I remarked that I had seen them talking 5 or 6 times, and finally had to mark them down. One boy responded, “Maybe 3 or 4 times, but not 5 or 6.”  I said, “Really? Don’t ARgue with me.”

Four classrooms in one day. I covered a Kindergarten class while the teacher went to a 90 minute meeting, and then covered a 2nd grade, a 3rd grade, and a 4th grade. Overall, the day went well. The good thing about this kind of set up is that one only deals with certain students for a very short time. The bad thing is that there is no time to even learn to recognize which kids I am in charge of, so outdoor recess is pretty – generic. I was glad to be out in the beautiful weather, though. Mostly I sit on a bench and keep an eye out for trouble. There’s also no “down time” when one is a floater, so there was no point in bringing in my textbook.

One teacher has her classroom set up so that there are two long rows of desks. Each row has 6 sets of two desks together facing each other – so that’s 12 desks per row, and then a spare one on the end – 26 kids. The great thing about this setup is that it leaves a LOT more space to actually be able to move around the room – I like it!

Got to watch Bill Nye the Science Guy – always fun, and I even learned what a hedometer is, AND how it was decided how large a liter would be.