Week 2 Lead- Courtney

This week I spent a lot of the time feeling like a zoo keeper. Emotions are flaring, behaviors are decreasing, and the students just seem to want out. I could not blame them yesterday with the beautiful weather, but it got out of hand. Right in the middle of my lesson, I noticed students that were all paying attention to something on the other side of the room. I stopped and tried to redirect, then ended up going over there cause it was a little out of hand. There were a bunch of push pin thumb tacks and the boys were playing with them. I inquired about who they belonged to, and a boy fessed up. He had about 15 on him that he gave, if not more. Then the kids told me that the new thing they are doing is flinging these with rubber bands at one another. I was completely outraged! That could hurt someone terribly. We tried it out at lunch (not at a person) and these things really flew. The other part about it was that they are stealing them from our bulletin boards and from teachers that have them. One teacher brought up, do we need to baby proof our rooms. No more staplers, scissors, or push pins in school at all. We have had the rubber band issue in the past, but this was just way over the top. On top of that yesterday felt like everyone was mad about something. One boy ran out of the room screaming about how rubber bands were flying at him from all directions. I looked on the floor, not one piece of evidence. This was a totally different class than the one we had the discussion in.

From what I hear it is that time of the year and that mixed with the weather made yesterday a very trying day not just in our team. I did have some success however. I was trying to do center based games, but it didn't turn out very good in my first class. They wanted to take it as a time to socialize and not do work, minus a few groups. I changed it up later and did one at a time and it went really well even though we only got to one or two games. I feel like although we want it to be, Friday should not be the day that we tend to get more unstructured. Monday or Tuesdays behaviors lend themselves so much better than Friday. I gave them an inch and they took 5 miles, so I had to tighten up to get things more smooth. I am glad that I tried though, it was something I normally would not have done.

The rest of the week went pretty good. I wrote report card comments on Wednesday and I feel really confident with them. I had so much to say for all the kids. I had not even realized that I knew them that well. I was glad to be able to have a part in the process. This week is conferences, and I am excited to be able to take the lead. I am nervous for some of them, but I think that it will go alright. I have been working a lot on parent communication this week, and I think I am getting it better and better. I am still really scared I will say the wrong thing since I tend to have a big mouth, but I am working on pausing and thinking before I speak so I do not say something I shouldn't.