Teacher Camp Week 2

I'll start with my dedication:

Thank you Weepies radio station on Pandora for helping me unwind and center myself.

Thanks everyone in my life who has understood how anti-social and exhausted I have become, I am especially sorry about my lame-o personality at Misty's wedding. P.S. What a beautiful bride!

Thanks to my mom for calling me every morning at 5:40 a.m. to make sure I wake up and make it to my bus because with 2 hours of sleep this is actually hard to do on your own.

While I'm expressing gratitude thank you Stumble for giving my brain a break in serious times of need.

--Disclaimer: This next blurb may be too graphic for some audiences, please approach with caution:

This morning I was so fatigued that as soon as I got to my school site I regurgitated my boxed breakfast.... I'll just say that bagels do not come up very kindly.

Now for the cool teacher stuff:

I started teaching Monday!

My unit objectives this week was to teach my 22 awesome kiddos the difference between living and non-living (harder than one might think!!!!).

One of my pre-kindergartners is a legend at our school site. For the past three days he has thrown incredibly passionate tantrums about being separated from his mom. The image of his quivering little lips surrounded by his chubby face still haunt me as I wonder why I agreed to his mom's request of "distracting him" so she could "sneak out." I spent my lunchtime on Wednesday chasing him around in the parking lot. I should also mention he does not speak English, so the challenge get's even harder. He punched me 4 times in the arm when I had to physically restrain him from running into the parking lot for a 3rd time.

My class of 22 has a total of 5 criers, with the boy I mentioned above being the worst for sure.

Also in my class you can find 4 non-English speakers, and one sweet boy with an evident learning disability.

I have to toot my horn here though, though I'm not really tooting my own horn but rather my student's horns, all week at least 84% of my students mastered the objective, and I am soooooo proud of them. They are just so brilliant.

Word to the wise, bad idea to keep 4 and 5 year old locked up in a classroom from 7:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. with only a 15-minute recess.... I blame the school district for poor planning. Poor lil' guys (and I meant the students not the district administration).

One of my students somehow talks with a French-ish accent (which is only odd because he is not French) and I love it. I wish I could record how he says my name. He reminds me of a little Romanian vampire with the bags under his eyes and pale skin and all.

Most of my class knows my name and now I wish they didn't, they never stop calling for me. Okay I actually REALLY love it.

One of my girls told me that her boyfriend was her dad, and then she changed her mind and decided that her new boyfriend was her sister. :-)

When asked to draw a picture of a living thing and a non-living thing one boy drew a shark for a living thing and a robot t.v. for non-living. Though my favorite non-living thing that one of my students drew was a snowman.... these kids are deep.

I love the way they say "ooOOooooooOOOooo" in the sweetest little coo every time I stick a star sticker on their name tags.

Overall: Teach for America was the best choice I have ever made. Aside from the high demands, little sleep, and other irritating issues the kids make it all better and remind me that my role here is to be the best teacher they deserve.

TTFN,

Ms. Toll