Love Bugs

I wasn't full teaching this week.  It was a nice break from the hectic life of me trying to rally in my 4th graders from changing classes, marking charts of kids that aren't prepared/talking/throwing objects across the classroom/forget their homework.  So I decided to brainstorm how to describe each of my class periods and this is what I came up with.

My 1st period are my Patty Procrastinators.  I race the halls every week trying to gather all of the assignments that they haven't turn in on time.  Their behavior charts resemble a mosaic of colorful "2's" and "3's." 

My second period class are my hardest workers.  They are good at following directions the first time and still "aim to please." If they could receive a TAKS score for their effort, they would have commended performance.

My 3rd period class are my frequent flyers.  IF they earned points for how many times they came up for help, they could earn a trip to the North Pole to if Santa is real.  Ironically, this is the cream of the crop group.  They constantly question everything.  You name it.  They will ask it.

Attention Getters.My fourth period class is filled with class clowns.  They are the quirkiest and most theatrical group.  The class ratio is 13 boys and 7 girls.  I often find the boys desperately trying to to get my my attention

One of my favorite parts of my career is the statement of fashion trends.  In our 4th grade, we have it all.  We have the t-shirt/jean short trend, we have the sunday dress and running shoes look, we got the more barrettes in one's hair than someone can count look, we have the socks that are pulled up to the calf look and even the argyle sweater and wind pants look.  I love it.  They are so confidence in their own fashion ways that they could care less what everyone thinks one of 4th graders.

One of my 4th graders yesterday asked me if my boyfriend's name was J Crew. I told him yes.

Snippets

I can't remember the last time that I wrote a blurb about my whereabouts so before I hit the hay, I will give you brief snippets of my life and what it entails.  

On Friday, I turned in my Teacher Work Sample.  62 pages double spaced with charts.  Probably the most strenuous and insane project I have done to date.  I had to write a unit covering either Science or Social Studies (I taught about Early Colonization in Texas) then devise learning goals that covered TEKS that also related to the Contextual Factors that were found in my class, teach the unit itself, produce a pre and post assessment to see what the raw scores of each of the learning gains were and after teaching the unit if they were any learning gains out of the students (I'm proud to say that all of my students had positive learning gains. I must be doing something right, eh?) discuss any changes that were made during the unit.....I think you get the idea.  I'm glad it's done.

O yes, I have come to the realization that my favorite subject to teach in school is science.  I love doing experiments with my kids.  Next year, my goal is to have a garden somewhere at my school where my kids and I can learn about the growing process of different plants (ie. fruits and vegetables) and have a garden of our own.  Wouldn't that be neat?

I have the Teacher Job Fair on March 4th.  It's just around the corner and I haven't even begun thinking about it.  Part of me is freaked out because all I hear about is how awful our economy is and how there are no jobs to be found and then the other part of me knows that I will find a job at the perfect little elementary school and will begin the great adventure of refining my teaching tactics to be one of those teachers that kids talk about at their high school graduations and how they made an impact on their lives.  That's what I want to be.  Pretty neat dream.  You should jump on the band wagon. I'm pretty psyched.

Okay, that's all for now. Until next time...