Another Week Down!

Phew! It has been a crazy, but fun week this week. The kids continue to be great students, although I am having to get after them for not turning in some of their work, now that we are really getting into all the nitty-gritty stuff. Also, I started spelling this week. I am doing a new way of spelling that I learned at the university and did while I was student teaching. It is a little different than the regular way we all did it, like write words 3 times each, use them in a sentence, etc... I put them into groups based off of where they are at from a pretest I gave them. There are 4 groups and each has a different list of words. Each week the words have some kind of pattern in their spelling that help the kids recognize them easier. Each night, they have to do some kind of activity with their words with their parents. Well, some of the parents are getting confused about what their kids are doing and the kids are a little confused too, because it isn't the "norm". So I have struggled with trying to explain it all, so hopefully next week will go a little better. :0
Other than that, I have been teaching a lot about Utah's Geography, multiplication fact memorizing, and they are writing an "autobiography" about themselves by using the writing process. I really am having fun, it is just a lot of work keeping up with all of the paper-correcting and recording scores, and making sure that students are turning in their work and all... A lot of planning every night too!
On Wednesday, it was my birthday, and the kids were so excited about it. A lot of the girls brought me little presents and wrote me funny notes and drew pictures. My mom also brought in balloons and doughnuts after lunch. They loved that part! All in all, it was a fun day. I got to hang out with the fam afterward by having dinner at the Olive Garden and homemade cheesecake at my house. By the way, I finally got my very own camera for my birthday, so I was able to take some pictures of my classroom.




This is the front of my classroom. The desks are arranged in groups of three and yes, I have a stove/oven in the corner next to the TV! ( I most likely will not be using that, but who would have thought to put a STOVE in a classroom!)

This is my desk. Notice everything I own is on metal rolling carts, so I can move from one classroom to another! FUN, FUN, FUN!

This is the side of my classroom where the kids hang up their backpacks. It is also my "word wall" (vocabulary words) and my classroom rules/helpers wall. And yes, that is a piano too!

This is where my kids put their textbooks, take lunch count/attendance, do "think time" and get books to read.

This is the other side of my room where all of the EMPTY storage cupboards are because it is pointless to store anything in them when you are just going to have to move it all in 9 weeks! The kidney-shaped table is where I will do reading groups.

First Week Over... and I Survived!

I can't believe I just made it through one whole week of teaching! The kids have been great! No real major problems; I just have a pretty diverse class as far as the level each kid is on. It will be quite a challenge reaching all of them at the same time. I don't want to make the slower kids lost, but I don't want to bore the "faster" kids. They are all very patient with me as I get our routine down and help them to remember their routine. I was able to meet a lot of their parents this week also at Back-to-School Night. None of them were really scary. They all seemed pretty supportive of me and are willing to help out with whatever I need, which is great, because I am going to need it! I am still putting up my classroom little bits at a time every day, so I will take a few pictures next week and post them so you all can see my home away from home! :) I still feel very unorganized as far as what I am teaching every day. I think my favorite motto at the moment is "Fake it until you make it!" It seems to be the story of my life! Anyway, I better get to work on planning for next week. Thank you all for your support! I couldn't do it without you!

Welcome to Miss Lloyd's Class!

I am alive! The first day is over and it was actually pretty good! My students are great! It was a long morning just explaining all of the procedures and rules, but after that, we went to lunch, did some writing, recess, then more writing and some art. The only really crazy part was the end of the day. I didn't plan enough time to get ready to go home, so I had to keep them a little after the bell to get everything done... :) Tomorrow will hopefully be a lot better and we can get more into a routine. I have a really good class. 16 of them are really sweet girls and then I have 11 boys that are awesome (just a little chatty though, but that could be because the morning was really boring!). Anyway, I could probably see a little more personality as the week goes on and have to deal with a few issues, but let's cross our fingers I won't have to!

Moved In!

Well, I finally moved in today! I am so happy to have my own classroom! I think if I hadn't of gotten kicked out of the building at 6:30, I would have been there all night. I just kept thinking of things to do! I can't believe I made it to this point! I am so excited to meet all of my students on Monday. I have met a few of them already and they are all such cute kids. I think I go through these waves of excitement and then a "what am I doing!" moment. I guess that is normal though. I will let you know how it all goes on Monday!

A Lot of Work!

I knew teaching would be a lot of work, but I never expected to feel this overwhelmed! Don't get me wrong, I am excited to teach but I am having a hard time knowing where to start! I have been going into the school to work on things this week, but it seems like I am not even TOUCHING the list of things I have to do! I really just want to start though. I remember feeling a little like this when I student taught and once I got into the "groove" I was okay and knew what I needed to do. It is just so different because I get to do what I want to do and don't have to do somebody else's routine. I guess that is good though, it's just putting all the ideas in my head into order! Only a week and a half to go though! Yahoo!