I cannot believe how fast this year is flying by! It only seems like a day or two before it’s time for me to post another summary from my latest week!
Week 14 started off with a sweet surprise. Tigger, MartytheSmarty, and BigTimeGleek bought me a surprise from last weekend’s Festival of Nations…
This is my first-ever teacher gift!!! I was so touched that they would think of me!! I just love these girls!
When my students entered my classroom, they were greeted with a different setup…
Because my largest class only has seven students, I decided to remove the two extra desks to allow everyone to have a bit more elbowroom. It was interesting to watch everyone’s reactions when they realized that there was something different about the room. This new setup is taking some getting used to, but we’re getting there.
Monday ushered in the beginning of new units in most of my classes.
My 11th and 12th graders began discussing The Scarlet Letter. We studied chapters one through six this week. I do not remember enjoying this book nearly so much when I was in high school, but my students seem to be enjoying it. In fact, several keep asking me what is going to happen…who the father is…etc.
My sixth graders had to turn in the science fiction stories they had written over the weekend. We had a good time listening as each story was read. These kids are very creative, and their use of their classmates’ names (along with my own) kept us howling!
My ninth graders were in for a shock when we started a new unit on grammar. Monday was one of those rough days in which we flew through the unit, and I assigned a lot of homework. They groaned and even whispered, just loud enough for me to hear, “Well, that’s another zero.” I was not amused.
Fortunately, my tenth graders were on their way in the door. They were greeted with this board…
The week would be all about verbs. Verbs are difficult, but we pushed through direct objects, indirect objects, and lots of other fun stuff. Blech.
Tuesday…
My sixth graders began reading The Emperor’s Silent Army, which is about a terracotta army that was discovered by farmers in China. I pulled their vocabulary words from this story. The kids sat in fascination as we read. I just love history, so it was the perfect opportunity to combine it with reading skills.
My ninth graders saw this when they entered class…
The day before, I had gotten the inkling that they did not understand how to find subjects and predicates, so I had prepared my board for when they entered.
Boy, was I ever glad too.
After the bell rang, my school’s education director walked in and had a seat.
“Don’t mind me,” he said. “I’m just going to sit here for a while.”
Oh my word. I was a nervous wreck. I realize this is part of his job…observing and evaluating teachers, but it was my first time being observed.
God is merciful, let me tell you, for every one of my students had done all eleven exercises that I had assigned the day before.
This was the first time that all of my students in this class had done their homework…on the same day!
Before we started, I discussed the information on the board. As we reviewed the answers from the homework, I repeatedly reminded them of the tips I had written on the board.
Over and over…round and round…the students took turns answering questions.
I could see the director taking notes.
I was so nervous.
Just before the bell rang, he left, and I mouthed the words, “Thank you,” to my students.
I was so proud of them.
Wednesday…Hump Day…
Wednesday was about the same as Tuesday.
Thursday arrived, and my juniors and seniors had a quiz on chapters 1-6.
My sixth graders took a vocabulary test…
I took my students to the book fair after they were done…
Book fair at a Muslim school is a little different…
Thursday was good. I only had to teach three classes because my ninth and tenth graders were taking a standardized test.
A couple of my students came out of class and brought me the pencils they had borrowed. They told me that they had seen some of their vocabulary words on the test. In fact, “M,” one of my tenth graders, told me that because we had discussed synonyms for the week’s vocabulary words, he had learned a new word (the synonym), and this new word was on the test! Talk about timing! And, the lesson we had the week before on possessive nouns helped him in the many questions that involved apostrophes!
It excites me to see how some of the things that I’ve been doing instinctively truly are preparing my students in a very tangible way!
It was also a half-day, but my day wasn’t over when the kids left. We had a monthly staff meeting, and we had all signed up to bring food…
Oh yeah. I went home with a huge bellyache, but it was good going down!
An interesting thing that happened after the meeting was that the education director…the man who had sat in on my class a couple of days before…pulled me aside to tell me that something interesting had happened that day. In the middle of him sitting there observing my class, he forgot that he was observing and instead became just like one of the students. The notes I had seen him taking were not about how I was teaching but WHAT I was teaching.
Because he is originally from a country in the Middle East, he is a little unfamiliar with the English language. Sure, he has a Ph.D., but he doesn’t know the in’s and out’s of sentences, subjects, and predicates.
He went on to tell me that the day after my class, his young son brought home English homework, and he was able to help his son with it because of the information he had learned during my class!
I was incredibly humbled and thankful that God had gone before me and prepared that lesson!
Finally…Friday!!
The day had turned cooler, so I donned my Kai Mei socks and chugged down a cup of hot chocolate before the bell rang…
This was vocabulary test day for all but one of my classes (the sixth graders), so the day was fairly quiet.
My younger students got to read a Time for Kids magazine. We worked on a handout that I had made copies of…
We read a story about a proposed law to change lunches in public schools. One student said, “Mrs. AuburnChick, so far this year, we’ve done every subject except for Arabic and Islamic Education in your class.”
I laughed because they are starting to understand how important reading skills are in every subject!
And so Week 14 ended. I am worn out, again, but I continue to be thankful for a job in which I am challenged on a daily basis and for students who continue to inspire me. I’m looking forward to a couple of slower weeks (you’ll be reading about them) in which I can hopefully catch my breath and take advantage of some time to get ahead.
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