Tuesday

I had my first sub today and she said it went very well with the kiddos. I hated to leave them but I couldn't have left them with a better sub! (Thanks Jilly!) I participated in a training about working with parents of color and I was there along with the principal, school counselor, and one of our secretaries. It was so great to get to know them a bit better since I am new to the staff and I am really excited about the work that we will be doing with parents! We have another session tomorrow afternoon, so I will have Jill coming again to cover the afternoon class. It was one student's birthday today (according to my class info) yet he was adamant that it wasn't. He said that his mom sang happy birthday to him, yet he still insisted that it was not his birthday. He wanted a birthday sticker, but when Jill tried to give him the birthday bag he once again said it was not his big day. It will be interesting to see what he writes in the birthday journal about his un-birthday!

I got two new books in the mail today that I ordered from the International Reading Association. They were having a great sale so I took advantage. I got:

 

I haven't had a ton of time for reading lately and that will get even worse once my classes start this weekend, but I am going to try and incorporate these into my planning time at school because I really want to maximize every minute during my days! Pretty soon, some of my students will start getting pulled out for 30 minutes of English Language Development each day and I really want to use that time productively with the rest of the kiddos despite the fact that I cannot do any new instruction during that time. Some of the kids who really need additional support in reading and math skills will be taken out so I won't be able to work with them individually, but I really want to use this time to review and work with kids in small groups. I am realizing how important it will be to get parent help during that time because it is hard to manage kids who are doing other activities and teach small groups at the same time. In theory good classroom management makes it possible, but at the same time, self management is tough for Kindergartners so having extra hands will be great. I still haven't really organized my volunteer list so I need to get on that!

Very excited to watch The Biggest Loser and Glee tonight!