Keep on

Okay, day two. Also fine.

The main tasks today were to:

-Have every kid take a quiz on the rules and procedures. They will take this quiz every day until they get 100%. Many will be taking it tomorrow based on what I've corrected so far.

-Pass out folders and get names on them.

-Get kids started on writing a "vision letter" in which they pretend they're writing me a letter on the last day of class and explaining why my class was the best class ever.

-Language Arts did their first grammar exercise and Dystopian Lit did a freewrite. Both went well.

The most common issue was students who take my class several times a day (actually they were pretty patient with the repetition, bless 'em). I also got a lot of "Is this long enough?" with the vision letters. I told them one page. Who knew it would be such a struggle? I tried to relax today and use extra time to chat with my students. I need back up plans for students who finish work ahead of time or who decide they won't work because the assignment isn't due until tomorrow anyway. I need to hand them some horrible drill worksheet or something so they decide "oh, maybe I'll work on the original assignment after all." Extra time at the end of class milling around=my biggest demon right now. Not that I dismiss them without having them clean up and sit in their seats like little angels while they wait for the bell. But still.

Advisement was kind of a struggle today, though. My combination of kids in there is either chatty, lazy or super quiet, which is weird when you're trying to have a conversation about life experiences that help or hurt you. It was an interesting lesson, but without anyone willing to share personal experience, it kind of fell flat. Which sucks, because the advisement kids are the ones I'm supposed to be connecting with.

After lunch I did a little work, then met with Jane, Nacia and Bernie about the reading fluency tests Bernie (the para) has been giving all day. We had to look at those scores and figure out which kids were really low enough to be in my Soar to Success class. There was a lot of switching around, so my class list will be totally different next week (hurrah). Also, I have to go get trained in RTI on Friday all day, which means I will need to get a sub for my first week. And get a sub plan together. Lame. In the meeting, we started putting together a list of kids I need to pull out for RTI tutoring and I made a note of which classes I should pull them out of. It looks like I'll be doing a little of that during each of my free hours.

Anyway, I really like the ALC so far. The other teachers and staff there are super cool, friendly and helpful. Despite the horror stories I'm hearing about the kids, I'm doing fine with them so far. Stay tuned for future stories about explosive kids, though. They're definitely out there.