Week 10

Last week was a huge stepping stone in my intern year. Not only do I feel like I am a major part of this class, but it is starting to show. On Friday, we had, what i called a "Fun Friday". It was a learning celebration day for Halloween. There was just one catch to this, Mrs. Decker was out Friday which meant we had a substitute on what was pretty much a laid back eventful Friday. When I was a tutor I had Mrs. Karr, and I can remember asking her, "Why do you always do the same things during each day?" She told me, and I'll never forget, that routine is great for students in elementary grades. Well, on Friday, when the routine was thrown off for our students, I could tell that it was going to be a tough day of managing our class. In the morning, the second grade rooms turned into giant stations for the students as each class switched to a different room every forty minutes. This made me feel as if I was in control of the whole second grade, which tested my management skills. Then, after lunch we had a movie to watch all afternoon, which of course was taking place in our room. The sub and I had to literally move all the desks up against the walls to make room for 75 students, who would have drinks and snacks. I set everything up and talked about the movie. I felt as if it was a big day for me because I felt like I controlled second grade that day. By the end of the day, I was whooped, and ready for a nap, but also excited about how well I did during the duration of this day.

On a separate note for this week, I finally got the chance to integrate technology into my action research, and the students fell in love with it. I integrated a website called spellingcity.com, and it sure paid off. Out of 24 students, 22 of them scored a 100%, which was by far the highest total of 100's through the whole year. Only one student scored under a 70%. Technology seems to be an attraction of these students.