Seachtain deich (Week ten in Irish for St. Patty's day!)

            Today (Monday) we were supposed to have a day to review because we originally didn’t want to test them on Mondays, however… the snow day last week keeps coming back to bite us in the butt.  We were worried that we might have run out of time to test the students because Mrs. Z. might have to administer a test to another class because a teacher is out so we wouldn’t be able to test that day because I can’t administer them. We could get the tests in within the week but if someone misses we wouldn’t have any time to do make up tests.  So this was my day today, morning work was handed out then after 5 minutes we went to library for an hour and a half for them to research their social studies projects. Then we actually had a few minutes where I taught comparing and ordering decimals and fractions which went well. Then we went to gym, then 10 minutes to work on their assignment because we don’t give out homework during ISAT week, then they went to lunch and that was our morning. After that we had to get in 2 tests before an assembly addressing the social studies fair that ran to the end of the day. Then they left and I felt like I got next to nothing done.

            One thing I forgot to mention next week is that one of my students with an IEP is having an extremely difficult time with the math project that is due today. So I gave him a completely different assignment (which wasn’t a big deal because he hadn’t done anything on the first one anyways) and I’m hoping he will understand this better but he desperately needed the differentiation.

            Tuesday was another day that seemed like I didn’t have more than a minute with them, and what few minutes I did have I had to either take care of some housekeeping business or put out fires. If it wasn’t making up and copying a parent note it was “this person pushed me” or “this person said this”. It was constantly one thing after another all day. Then I had 15 full minutes and I had to go through everyone and pick the students so they could choose Native American tribes for their Social Studies Fair projects. I am really excited about this project because I am actually on the committee for it so it’s nice to see both sides of something big like this and I’m taking a little extra pride in it. We also had to make a permission slip for them to watch a movie Friday, then I had to get both permission slips translated into Spanish, it just seemed like one thing after another after another. I’m really starting to hate ISATs for more reasons than just the basic premise of them. 

            Wednesday we finally finished our last ISAT test! I was so happy when we finished. We have been learning and talking about these tests for the last few years and sometimes we were aiding in a school when the students were taking them but this was the first time I really saw the full effect of them. It was so hard on our students and emotionally taxing that by the time they were all over even I was drained. The rest of the week we are honestly just doing mindless activities that aren’t hard on the students. Plus there are still students who have to do make up tests right above us in the conference room so we can’t be too loud anyways. We did a lot of silent sustained reading or coloring the rest of the day in between specials. Then at the end of the day I started the James and the Giant Peach unit. I like reading to the kids but I really have to work on the voices I use for the characters, and even the ones I have I feel sort of dumb using them. But at the same time I really don’t care because the kids love it and if that means making a fool of myself using funny voices then so be it I don’t have a problem with it.

            Thursday I checked out a bunch of books on Native American tribes for them to read. First I went through their textbook with them and showed them how to look through books to find information so they don’t spend hours reading a book with nothing to get out of it. Then I had them go through on their own and find just 5 useful pieces of information and write them down with the page number as a reference. Then in the 15 minutes before lunch I had half the students silent read their own books while the other half read the books on the Native American tribes, the after 5 minutes they switched, and then they lined up for lunch. I went through the grade book and found all of the missing work and had students try and find them while the others read. I taught them adding and subtracting decimals because it’s absolutely no different from adding and subtracting regular numbers except the decimal point itself. As soon as I told them they started moaning and groaning, but once I showed them an example their attitude completely changed and they handed it well. Then they worked on their assignments while they were trying to find their missing ones. Then we finished the day with James and the Giant Peach.

            Friday we started with reading and working on the writing follow up. That took us to gym, and then I had a math minute for them to do during the bathroom break. They had some more math follow up on what we covered yesterday. We went to lunch, we switched library times with another class so we went to library immediately after lunch, and then finished the day watching Despicable Me.

            Next week I have to figure out what to teach the week before spring break, after they are wiped out from ISATs, I’m going to try and teach like normal, using multiple different techniques that are engaging and fun for them to try and keep them interested while having them retain the information. I just remember when I was their age the week before spring break was the worst so I’m going to do everything I can to change that.