Wednesday

The goal right now is to reform this group of kids. The goal right now is to remain faithful to my calling and help this group of kids get through the year and learn as much as possible. The goal is to do absolutely everything I can in order to help these kids learn to be more responsible for themselves.
At times it seems as though these kids need things handed to them. Many feel they need to shout my name to get my attention. They feel they can interupt when another kid is talking to me. I have not been paying enough attention to the positive things going on in class. I really enjoy the personalities we have combined but together-as a group- there are many who seem to have just gone bonkers and it is not in my nature to take everything away from them in order to get what I want. What I want is for them to become self-reliant. I want kids to bring their homework instead of an excuse.
It is not as if this group is terrible or full of awful energy. I do have one whose energy I question and has dared others to grab a girl's bum and tell her it is "big". That I could do without but it is more the little stuff that occurs that adds up to so much that I just want to yell at times. I need to meet with my teammate so I can get some ideas.

Today is now Firday and yesterday was my best day with the class so far. It seems like they had control of themselves for the most part during class and they did well at pusing in chairs, the moring routine and not calling my name out to gain my attention. This has been a serious issue this year and still is. I have not had this kind of calling out before. I do have to say that the reporting of other people's small problems (tattling) has been nearly non existent so far this year. Of couse I have been better at dealing with it than ever before. Asking if the problem is big or small is certainly a help.

I have also tried hard to keep things from becoming big issues. Like name calling on the bus- I said I do not want to hear a single thing about it today because the event is over. As soon as the two kids were talking again, I put a stop to it by asking one girl if she had finished her morning work.
There was an incident midweek involving a boy "daring" another boy to grab a girl's rear end and tell her "you have a big butt." This incedent closed with me yelling at the two involved boys and calling the mother of the one who voiced the dare. The dare was not carried out but I let them know that this is not third grade behavior and should not occur EVER. The mom seems to think this comes from the boy watching too much pro wrestling with his father. This may be but controlling a child comes down to more than just setting them in fron the of the television and having them watch in place of a sitter. But it must be hard for a kid who spends half the week in two different places.
Lucy Caulkins, if you are out there. I am working with another teacher to use your lessons and sessions for wrting. We are trying hard. Your ideas are wonderful and make tremendous sense. These materials along with my reading "Writing Essentials" have been a great blessing.

Nothing Predictable

So I have gone outside of myself and become a drill sergeant, telling my class of third graders, "I am going to break you down and build you back up again." Of course I won't and it is so ridiculous to say that it should not even have come to mind but I am dealing with a class that has a very wild temperment and seems to need their little hands held to do just about anything.
On Friday a kid went to the busses when he was supposed to get picked up. His mother sent me and the seceratary a note telling that she would pick him up but I take this as a "just to let you know." as opposed to "you need to tell him and make sure he gets to the office." I do not know if she even told him. It seems as though she would expect me to take care of the manner. In three years I have not needed to do more than say to a kid, "you do this today instead of this" and that is usually a message sent down by the office in the middle of the day.
Of course I screwed that one up this week too. A kid was supposed to take bus 45 instead of walk home because his mom was going to be driving that particular bus. I ended up running half way to his house, only to not find him and causing a complete panic by telling his mother that he got into a car with somebody, information given by a kid who knows next to nothing more than how to ride dirt bikes. So I took that pretty hard. The kid did walk home and his dad was there to let him in. All was well.
The environment in our school seems pretty good right now. A colleague of mine and I have actually said positive words to one another for the first time months, and she actually seems to want to know something about teaching besides art. Who knows though? My guess is that she feels threatened by others in the building and is trying to understand how our instructional materials work. We have bought two sets in the last two years and trying to understand them is not an easy task. One could spend an entire year using them and still not get the hang of it. My guess is that my teaching partner and I will get things down with the reading series by Christmas. The need is getting to know our kids and getting a groove with the reading while using ideas from Regie Routman, Lucy Caulkins and Stephanie Harvey to boost the reading and writing past what could be expected by the curriculum writers from HM. There are good ideas in this set of reading materials but there is minimal depth in writing and they expect a child to go from prewriting to published copy Monday to Friday. This is each week. Insane.
Besides the Daily Five my biggest management concern is getting the classroom routines in order. It is going to take time for this group to get done with their morning tasks before PE and Music in the morning. I am going to keep working on this with them and really try not to get frusterated by their ways. I need to be patient and understanding while getting to know their individual needs.

Week Two

Today I started the Daily Five with my kids. We talked about how to read a book, the first two ways anywhow, and I read The Rain Came Down without using words. Then we talked about what independent reading looks like. The kids had a lot of ideas for that and we focused on reading the whole time and how that is such a vital part of independent reading. I then had one child model what that should look like. I had another, one who has been a bit wiley, model how to and how not to read independently based on our ideas for what it should look like. The class did well on the whole, at building stamina, but there are still a couple kids who need more work that the others. Tomorrow I certainly plan to have another wiley one doing the demonstrations for what to do and what not to do. Perhaps more modeling is needed. I know these kids can do it and I know there are a few who really want to get moving with reading and writing but I am trying to get the entire class community on board as well. One thing I WILL do is keep at it. I think that stamina in patience for the teacher is just as essential as reading for the kids.
One boy decided that he would sort of raise his hand, then scratch his head, when I asked "How many of you don't want to be successful in reading. You can bet he looked around to see if anybody else saw him. You know the type. Perhaps it had been building up in me but he needed a little bit of medicine. During the day he ended up losing ten minutes of recess (step 2 in my class) but that will not end up being served until tomorrow. The problem with losing recess at the end of the day is that the kids do not remember what they did the next day. There must be a way for them to still get a consequence when they earn it at the end of the day and still learn from it. Perhaps he can do extra work during read aloud at the end of the day.
We are still working on the Loo issue. That is getting the kids to use the loo during recess. Kids are coming in right after recess saying, "I have to go really bad." I had to break it to them but I am being a Nazi about it. You use the loo during recess or no less than 15 minutes after. This can be more, depending on if I am talking. I know, they are kids and they need to be able to use the bathroom. I agree with this and my professors in college would probably refuse to aknowledge that I went through their program if they found this out. However, this is how I am doing it. These kids have too much to lose by using the loo every 20 minutes. They have three recesses and can use it just about any other time. On the other hand I do not mind if somebody else has another idea. Let me know what you think.

Numbers

Typically, at our school, numbers are all the rage the first week of school. Heck, even the first two weeks of school. They're something to complain about. "What do your numbers look like?" they ask. Well, she has this. He has that. If we each lost this many, we would have enough. Get a grip man.
The numbers being asked about are the kids. I have 27 third graders in my class. And if each third grade teacher had 27 few kids, some teachers would be in the negatives. Just ask Mrs. Davidson, the self-proclaimed professional on classroom numbers. Every day she asks you how many kids you have in your class and, on some days, I have no clue. Because I don't give a crap because I do not control the hiring or the numbers. I am so worried about what I am going to teach and the giant mess in my room that how many kids I teach is just a number.
Of course it is the first week of school and once kids get comfy this can all change. I can tell , though that my kids are getting used to me. They all came in quietly, looked at the board and commenced to working. They all were ready to go over homework at 9:05, just as I had specified. And only two kids did not do it. Okay, three. One did it right before we corrected it. I called the other two parents and had it taken care of first thing in the morning. I felt like a Nazi for it but these things I want taken care of NOW. And I value parent/teacher communication. i do need to throw in some positive information though. Because I want the kids to know that I care about the good things they are doing as well. This is proven to be beneficial to kids' education. So that is something I will work harder to do. It is a simple thing but it takes time and at this point that is something I do not feel I have enough of.

First Day

The rush was on until the first bell rang. I felt like I was going to be playing in a football game. The energy was flowing and I was pumped. I was jumping up and down at times and just felt like pushing somebody around, with the expectation of someone pushing back. I was excited.
Be that as it may, there was still a job to do. Having PE and Music near the beginning of the day, it was my job to get kids semi-settled and out the door to Music. But when the doors open upon the first bell ringing, it is literal pandamonium and difficult to settle everybody. Parents, new kids and loads or papers hinder a teacher from really getting in to the process of getting everybody geared up for transition. I had a kid not on my class list who another teacher said, "He is in your room." I sent him to find his seat without knowing he was not on my list, and did not have a name tag. As he circled the room I thought about the predicament in between the many questions from children and adults. Once the kids were off to Music, I went to the office to find out what was going on. After some sorting out, we learned he was supposed to be in Mrs. Tender's class. This was fine because I could tell the kid was going to be a handful. But I fell sad because I could also tell he needed a teacher like me and, that teacher is quite nearly the opposite of me in style.
So the day went on. That's it. It went on, seemingly without stop. We cooked through reading and predicting. Then came lunch, then Math. And while we were entrenched in the end of the day and getting to know one another, we ran over in to our read aloud time and settled for missing it.
My feeling on the day is that it went well for the most part. I am not at all used to such a scholastic first day of school but more of the technical stuff with a little academics. Routine and knowing names is how I started last year. We are getting to that but I do feel as though things are falling in to place as we are going. I wonder perhaps if I am on a continuance of last year when I had the best kids in the world. This is not at all a similar group besides the fact that I do have great kids who are very likeable. But there are some very interesting personalities that do not all mesh.
My team teacher and I are working on starting The Daily Five next week and I need to make sure I have a pretty good grip on these kids before I can get started on that. Admittedly, I am a little nervous about this but know that I can get these kids under wraps. No problem.