I cleared my CTI pregnancy test but now have 30 kids

I've only been in the classroom for a total of 3 days and I am loving this long weekend! Monday I was dropped into my 2nd grade class and just told to be an aid to the teacher. So I spent most of the day grading homework, making copies, and walking the classroom to make sure the kids were paying attention. Tuesday the kids knew me a little more so I was able to interact more one-on-one with them during group work and help them understand the concepts better. I LOVE tutoring! I love finding the questions to help lead them to figuring out their own way to the answer. I love the light that happens behind their eyes when they figure out the answer. I love explaning things to them.

In my class we're learning how to regroup to help them learn to add. So if you have 13 and 9 you have 3+9 in the ones column and a 10 in the tens column. So 3+9 is more than 10 so you have to regroup. You group 10 of the ones together and "take it to the bank" to exchange for a ten-stick and now you have 2 tens and 2 ones. Making your answer 22. On Wednesday my teacher let me teach a section of the lesson using the SmartBoard. This is definitely the COOLEST bit of learning technology ever. It's a touch-screen overhead projector. You can highlight pictures and move them around, write on it using special markers, and then you can select to change your handwriting into text font. It's so hecka cool! I also got to do an art project on Wednesday with the kids. Earlier in the trimester they cut out autumn leaf shapes so I got to help them use temper paint and sponges to stamp-paint them. I was so proud of my kids. They got all the extra paint on their hands and the table and none of it on themselves or Miss Kate.
They call me Miss Kate- which I love. At first they just called me AmeriCorps and when the teacher addressed me by name, they all seemed confused and were very surprised to learn that AmeriCorps wasn't my name. So they learned to call me Miss Katie. But some of my problem children decided it was funny to call me Miss Cake but now it's settled into Miss Kate.

There's such a range of abilities in my class. It's kind of humbling to realize the diference between an elementary school here and back home. It makes me greatful for the schools I went to. When they say California schools are in trouble- they're not kidding. Within my class of 30 students, most of them have reading levels waaay below the lowest standards for their grade. Some of them don't even know the letter sounds. On Tuesday I lead a small reading group. We played a game of text twist. I gave them the letters- a,d,d,i,i,n,o,t on little cards and we used them to spell words like "add" "ant" "dad" "idiot" and worked all the way up to making the word "addition" which used all the letters. I did this to show them that big words are just made up of letters we know and you can break a word into more manageable bits by sounding it out. On top of being placed in a 2nd grade class, I was assigned to a specialty class- RSP. Basically it's the Learning Center to provide extra one-on-one time to those who really need it. I helped some 6th graders take a theme test by reading them the questions and answers and then reading the question again. On Monday I start work with a 6th grade boy who reads a little below a 2nd grade level.

By far my favorite time of day is the after school program with the Boys and Girls Club. It's set up to have the Power Hour first up where the kids go into a classroom and do their homework for a whole hour and we walk around helping them if they ask for it. I've stationed myself in the 4th grade room helping with math. We're learning about points, lines, rays, parallel and intersecting lines, and angles. Like I said, I love tutoring those kids! After Power Hour it's free time. They can rotate between art projects like coloring pages or decorating seed planters, playing board games, and going outside to play basketball or tetherball.

I know all of us on the team look forward to the school day being over so we can go to BaGC. It's a more relaxed time to spend with our kids and get to make better connections with them. I think, really, this is the point of why we're here. Yeah, it's great to be in the classrooms and help the teachers, but being there to make those personal connections with the kids, I feel, helps with the attendence rate. If getting to BaGC is what gets me through my day, is it the same for those kids? Would they show up to school just to get to go to the after school program and hang out with us? I've learned all the names of the kids in my class and know at least one thing about them. I know maybe 20 kids at BaGC and it's my goal to know them all by name, if not all the kids in the school. There are 500 kids enrolled from pre-k all the way up to 7th grade and I have until December 14th.

Thursday was Veteran's Day so we were off and Friday was a staff development day. I know I've been sitting in trainings for the last month, but this was especially boring. I don't know how you did it all the time, Mom! It was weird to be back in a classroom sitting in those desks with the chair attached and I have a bruise on the side of my right leg because I kept forgetting about that dang side bar under the desk. But I did remember how awesome it was to crack your back by leaning back in the chair!

The first guy was fun- kind of reminded me of Will Forte from SNL. His lecture was about reminding us what a different level these kids think on because most teachers assume kids have the cognative function to interpret actions, facial expressions, and vocal clues the same as adults. He also talked about separating your opinions from fact. Just because you've been teaching for 20 years and had multiple children in your class who have been diagnosed as bipolar and now you have a child acting in similar ways to those past children who hasn't been diagnosed does not mean that child is bipolar. He kept it light and interesting. The second lecturer for the day could have learned from him. He was so dry and, for being someone to teach teachers to teach better- he could work on his instruction skills. Multiple times he wanted to work on a choral responses and wanted everyone to recite answers back, but then changed where he started reading and then chided us on our unability to follow directions.

The best part of that day was the lunch break. You could definitely see the age groupings when lunch was over. We ate in the cafeteria and the adults were content to sit and the tables (after we had spent the whole day so far sitting) talking while the AmeriCorps stood in a circle playing hackey sack, dancing, and of course- since my team is never content with silence- we sang our two Team Theme songs- Build me Up Buttercup (my most favoritest song ever!) and Waka Waka by Shakira.

I just know tomorrow is going to fly by, as the weekends always do, and we're going to be back at school. My teacher told me she'd let me do more teaching next week. It's a short week again because there are parent-teacher conference days on Thursday and Friday. So we'll be using that time to help out the janitorial staff (which has been reduced to one guy who comes in twice a week due to distric budget cuts) clean the campus and painting. The playground is not as bright anymore and a lot of kids have felt the need to write profanity on it and the bathroom walls. We were told we could paint whatever and where ever we want to. So yay! A couple days to wear our coveralls, aka- AmeriAlls