*exhale*

Much easier time today. I just need to keep reminding myself that they're getting into the routines just like I am, and it's going to be a little rough sometimes.
Apparently we're figuring out rounding. I still don't feel like I'm explaining it horribly well, but honestly it's something they should have learned before. >_< And some of them are on top of it.

This one boy is really getting to me. He's pretty smart -- can read pretty well, and knows his math thus far -- but apparently has a horrendous home life and acts up ALL THE TIME. I can appreciate that he's got it rough, and I try to give him positive feedback whenever I can, but I can't not correct him when he acts out, and it just makes him sullen and sluggish. I suppose I ought to be content with the fact that his behavior means he won't get to participate in Fun Friday, since he'll be doing all the work he didn't do during the week, but it's still frustrating. I also suspect that he stole a pencil sharpener top from the girl who sits behind him, although he denies it and I obviously can't prove anything. Sigh.

Off to do more lesson plans (yay math! the next lesson is at least pretty straightforward, so I can be reasonably confident that we'll get through it. If they can't add by third grade, we have bigger problems than I thought we had.) and possibly to go to Target. I need to buy some games for Fun Friday.

Well, I wouldn't say the other shoe quite dropped, but we, er... settled in a little bit? The lesson for today is that having specials immediately after lunch is a bad, bad, bad idea. When all the playground they have is an asphalt lot, there's nothing for them to do but get in fights with each other, and they need a good 20 minutes of quiet time after lunch to calm down and get their brains back in order. Having specials immediately pretty much ensures that the ones who are hyped up will stay hyped up, and the afternoon will be much more difficult.

Also, math is obnoxious. I was going to teach a lesson on estimating two- and three-digit numbers today, but that got stalled when it became obvious that half of the kids don't know how to round, thus making the "doing something with rounded numbers" thing a little premature. The other half are on top of it, but the half that don't get it REALLY don't get it. I'll have to talk to the other teacher tomorrow to see if she has any suggestions. I'm contemplating just starting the unit over again.

(at this point i got in a heated venting session with a couple of guys at the Satellite. nice cathartic end to a frustrating day.)

Survived the first day. Considering what I observed with the sub last week, the kids were remarkably well behaved. So much so that I'm almost waiting for the other shoe to drop. No sense in that, though. Assume they're good kids, assume they want to do the right thing, and you'll be proven right. That's the theory, anyway.
Lots to say -- I certainly rambled on for two pages in my paper teaching journal -- but for now it's after 11pm and I need to go to bed. I'll outline the math lesson in the morning.

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There is nothing I hate more than calling people I don't know. So the fact that I couldn't reach eight of the sixteen parents I just tried to call could be viewed as a mixed blessing, I suppose. ;P I'll ask the kids for updated phone numbers on Monday, but who knows how much good it will do. If the kids got picked up by their parents like they do when they're younger, that would be one thing. (It would also be one thing if I knew all the big siblings and cousins who are in the upper grades.) But as it is, argh!

Especially argh because of the discipline system I want to use. I'm a big fan of the card system - the kids each get an index card, with green and yellow stickers on one side and orange and red stickers on the other. If the green sticker is showing, that means behavior is good. Yellow is a warning, orange is a consequence (loss of recess, for example) and red is supposed to be a phone call home. Keeps discipline insular (ie, not involving the administration, who are likely busy anyway), clean slate every day, etc. etc. etc. But if I can't reach the parents? Blah. Maybe I could write notes home. I need to get me some of those "from the teacher" postcards one of my co-op teachers had.

Have basically spent the last 36 hours setting up my classroom. I was in the building by 7am yesterday and didn't leave until 7pm. Today was shopping, tomorrow will be making charts and other fun things, and Monday is it. O_o I'm so tired I can't see straight. There will be early bedtimes for the foreseeable future, I think.

Back again, with a bang.

Spent the summer depressed, largely. Didn't get any of the German jobs I applied for, my car died, substitute teaching was obnoxious, I basically suffered a crisis of faith. I all but ran out of money before the school distric sent me a letter last Wednesday, saying that I should come in on Tuesday to select a position.
After a weekend of utter insanity, coffee, and spreadsheets, I went on Tuesday to pick a school. I managed to get one in my top 5, about which I had been a bit nervous since I wasn't in the first group that day to choose. However, they'd sent a representative, and -- possibly more important -- they had a grade level I wanted (3rd). So I went with it.

Went in to have a look around today. Met the principal, who strikes me as a floral-print outside with a core of steel (about what you want, really), and she introduced me round to all the teachers. I then spent about an hour in my classroom-to-be, taking a few notes and making lists of things I need (Oh, my G/god(s), EVERYTHING). I'll be back in tomorrow for more observation, and probably more list-making. I'm not sure whether to start bringing stuff in yet or not. There isn't much in the classroom, but what there is seems largely to belong to someone else. Maybe I'll bring my plants, at least -- they're pretty obviously mine. And who knows when the person whose office my classroom used to be will get the rest of her stuff out. O_o

The major bright side to this assignment is that I've only got 16 kids. I didn't get a chance to get too much of a feel for them yet, but they seem like nice kids. None of them seem like they'll be too difficult to deal with, and whatever bad habits they've developed over the last couple of weeks don't seem to be too terrible. There's one who's a bit scattered, and one who seems a bit sullen, but hopefully once they've actually got a settled routine things will be easier.

So for the moment, I need to keep making a list of things I need, and work on a letter to the parents introducing myself. I'm trying to think about management things... guess it's time to dig out my master's books.