Possible Good News

Friday my principal told us that he is going to hire a new 6th grade teacher. This would mean 2 absolutely fabulous things: my class sizes would be normal, around 26 AND my students would have 1 hour for writing and 1 hour for reading. The only issue here is that these two subjects cannot be taught in isolation. I have to decide by tomorrow what I am going to teach. I am tempted to choose writing and have the kids read novels and use those novels as models for writing and to give us things to write about. Then the reading skills/basel reader would be taken care of during reading and we could focus on reading as authors. I don't really know. Teaching both reading and writing is really tricky! There is one part of me (a very silly part) that doesn't want to give up teaching reading after I just spent so much time writing a summative assessment for reading. I think I need to sit down with my PD and my vice principal to talk about what my course will actually look like. hmmmm.

This coming week, I have decided, is going to be better than the week that just passed. I have rearranged to desks in my classroom and soon will make a seating chart. I hope that this seating chart will alleviate a lot of the management problems I've been having in my classroom. Classroom jobs will also begin on Tuesday. The kids are writing letters this weekend to apply for them. I hope that investment in our classroom--if not the course itself--will increase with having students with jobs.

There are so many things to fix...so many things that are NOT working in my classroom, I just have to fix them a couple at a time. This is hard because I want everything to be perfect NOW. Well, not even perfect, but functional.

I am going to attempt to not think about teaching for about 30 minutes now before I get going on a long sunday of planning and preparation for the week.

Post me a comment so I know someone is reading :)

Mama said there'd be weeks like this....

This past week was so filled with highs and lows I can't even believe it. I started off the week with a bang, spent all day Sunday planning and was inspired to be more consistent with my students. Monday went great! Tuesday was fine. Wednesday was a disaster. I woke up (late) sick. I was frazzled, I didn't feel well and as a result I was not patient or consistent with my students. Therefore, lessons did not go as they should have. I felt awful physically and emotionally. I started crying in the faculty restroom and when I returned to my staff meeting my vice-principal insisted I go home and get a sub for thursday. I did not argue with her. I went to bed early on Wednesday and slept for 12 hours. Friday I was feeling better and had it much more together...which was a good thing because we had a LOCK DOWN. 35 6th graders in my classroom for 3 hours straight. AWESOME. Actually, it went fine, I figured out an activity for them to do and then made them read silently, but it certainly mixed things up.

I realized again that I still don't really know how to do effective literacy instruction. I have been looking at some sample long term plans and have decided that I need to follow a pre-made one instead of trying to make my own. I will have to adapt it because the ones that I am provided with are designed for 2 hours of literacy instruction each day and I only get one. I am not sure exactly how I will teach them everything. I am going to have to prioritize and be creative. I know I can do this, but I also know that it is URGENT that I get my long term plan in place because right now my instruction has OK but doesn't really have direction. These are all things that I know and have known it is just a matter of finding the time to do it.

In other news, I am losing a roommate. This is rough. She has been having a really hard time and has decided that it is best that she not continue teaching. It is strange to think of Phoenix and this apartment without Julie. She is leaving on a trip on Monday and I'm not sure when she will be back and how the whole moving process will work. Hopefully we'll get to talk about that before she leaves. I still can't believe it.

I continue...I woke up at 7:30 this morning and my alarm was not set til 9:30. Those of you who know me well will understand how strange this is. I woke up and couldn't go back to sleep...so I ate some fruit and got to work. It is time for my break to be over. I need to clean my room, something I haven't done since I started teaching 6 weeks ago. Oops.

A few quotations from my students...

"Can I eat cheetos during healthy snack time?" -Na Quay
"No. You already asked me that question and I said no." -me
"No, before I asked if I could eat spicy cheetos. They are different. Spicy cheetos are spicy. (sticks out tongue and squirms it around to illustrate spicy)" -Na Quay
"No. You cannot eat cheetos of any kind during healthy snack time." -me


"Ms. Burns, is that your husband?" a student, about the picture of me with my dad from graduation.

"Ms. Burns, is that your boyfriend?" a student, about a picture of me and steve from graduation.

"Ms. Burns do I have a beautiful smile (GIANT toothy grin to illustrate)?" Na Quay
"Yes, you have a very nice smile. Now sit down and get to work." me

student raises hand in the middle of my lecture "That's a really pretty shirt"
"Thank you, Na Quay. Let's keep it on topic." me


"Ms. Burns gots skillz!" --several 6th grade boys when I played basketball with them at lunch