Another Week Gone

School is really falling into a rhythm. I'm starting to enjoy it rather than feel like I'm drowning. We finally had time to start their Portfolios and start a read aloud. I started reading Where the Red Fern Grows on Friday. They love it so far. Friday was a reading enjoyment kind of day actually because I've been reading a version of the Epic of Gilgamesh for Social Studies as well. The trilogy by Ludmila Zeman is excellent, by the way. Although I hear that she takes some liberties with the story. My favorite part of the day though is singing for worship time with the kids and my guitar. Singing always makes me happy!

I got my new student on Wednesday. Another boy! So now I have 3 boys and 4 girls. After thinking I might only have 3 or 4 kids for a few days, I'm delighted. He's a great kid, although he loves to socialize a bit much. Speaking of which, I have had to move to being a real teacher and enforcing the "no talking in the hall" rule among others by having a few kids sign The Book. Although the first signing of the day is just a warning, it's working nicely. In fact, the first girl that had to sign it had a meltdown at recess afterwards. It took me a bit to calm her down and reassure her it wasn't the end of the world and I still loved her. I'm so blessed to have a great class.

Now that the paperwork aspect is settling in, I'm also able to have a better idea of how my kids are doing individually. I have one boy who is smart, but rushes through things and struggles with math some. I'm having to make myself set aside time to check his work daily to send stuff home to redo. He was homeschooled last year, so his mother is really working with me to get him where he needs to be.

My kids love my "problem of the day" and are consumed by trying to figure it out. I'm excited that they love this game of thinking on their own, but I'm hoping that I don't have to stop it because it's to much of a distractor to other things they should be doing. This is another way I can tell who the smart ones are even if they are lazy in their regular work. I realize there's different kinds of smarts, but it's the kids that are consumed and excited and work hard to figure it out the most that are lazy in work that bores them (and do great work in assignments they find interesting). I wish that I could make everything interesting. I'm a little unsure how to do that in spelling or penmanship or also when I have to follow the particulars of the specific curriculum. I hope that after a couple of years of teaching I can find cool games and things to do for many ordinary lessons.

My goals for this week include having DEAR (Drop Everything And Read) time and teaching them the sign language for "Jesus Loves Me" to teach the littler kids in chapel. I also have a personal goal of not being so behind in my grading.