My Placement

I forgot to take my camera today so I could take a picture of my school and classroom. I am doing my student teaching at Hal Smith Elementary school. It is in the lower economic part of town. School starts at 9 am and ends at 3:10 pm. I am doing my regular education part first with Miss April Daughtery. She teaches 2nd grade and says that she loves going to work every morning. She told me a rhyme to help me remember how to say her name. It is darty party, you say like party but with a "d". It took me all day to finally get it. She grew up in Las Vegas and got her degree at University of Phoenix. She is African American and has two little girls. Her husband and 3 year old little girl came in today for a little while. Her daughter is so cute, she is so spirited and loves to help. She helped me clean and set up the desks and sharpen pencils. Then she painted me a picture and I gave her some watermelon gum. She liked as much at Prestyn does and asked for more when it fell on the ground. Her mom gave her some but it was not as good as the one that Miss Hall gave her, so she tried to get some more out of me before she left. I think that April was afraid that she was getting on my nerves but I told her that it was quite the contrary, everything that her daughter said made me laugh. She was so polite and helpful. April said that I could practice my preschool skills on her anytime that I wanted. I bet she can be exhausting.
Dominoes provided lunch today, so it was pretty good. I found out that they serve cooked subs now. They were pretty good. All the teachers were really nice and excited have us. April had me do bulletin boards and clean and set up desks today. She is really soft spoken and laid back but I think that I am going to enjoy her class. She seemed pretty structured from her practice. She has been teaching for 7 years now. This school has a track system because there are to many students to do all at once. So there are 5 tracks and the teacher and her class get a 3 week break every 6 to 7 weeks, then they come back and start where they left off. I have never heard of it before but April says that she likes it because then she just plans her vacations around it and the kids and her don't get burned out to quickly. She also said that she has not had it any other way, so she is speaking from just her experience. I could not believe how tired I was after today of being on my feet all day. I had to take a little nap when I got home.
Oh the principal gave us a book to review that she also had all her teachers review. It is called "How Full is your Bucket?" Positive Strategies for Work and Life. By: Tom Rath and Donald O. Clifton, PH.D. It only has about 150 pages with big print and it is really quite interesting so far. Mom I think that you would like it and I recommend it to anyone that is interested. It makes you look at life more positively and how to be more genuine and fill not only yourself but others around you. It gives statistics of how much positivity can prolong your life. Good read.
I will try not to gain to much weight or go over my budget while I am here, but if any of you come to see me then it will be an excuse spend a little. :)
I am excited and nervous to start my class on Monday, for now we are just going to meetings with our cooperating teachers. This is what I love to do and it will be what makes fun for me hear. I like being here already.