The Teaching Life

So maybe I'm not cut out for being a Bloggess as I can't seem to keep up with it..but this week my wifi has been espeically rough. And this weekend the wifi went out all together. I'm having to blog from my classroom as I take a break from lesson planning. To be honest, this past week was a tough week for me. Nothing went terribly wrong, but then again nothing seemed to go smoothly either. I was not as prepared as I normally am so lesson learned the hard way: planning planning planning is very important!! I took over literature and started a unit with the book Tale of Despereaux (awesome book by the way) that I planned all myself. Next week I start planning for social studies and co-teaching math so by November I will be teaching everything myself. Jenn has started to let me do things and realize for myself my mistakes which has been hard sometimes, but experience is the best teacher. She has also been in and out of meetings this week so she's been out of the classroom quite often. This makes me feel like its more my own class and I kind of like it (sometimes, not always).

This week my supervisor, Dean Carrol, is here to observe us in action. We met her for lunch today and I am very excited. She is a sweet southern lady who has supervised interns (even in England) for at least 22 years. She has made sure we know that she is more like our fan club than anything, which comforts me. Of course I am still a little nervous, and Jenn has threatened our students that if one of them misbehaves that the wrath of God will be brought down..but I'm sure it will be fine. I have some pretty amazing kiddos :)

Here are a few funny moments from the last week. I have started a "Friday notebook" for morning work that includes review questions and a creative writing prompt. I like to make the creative writing prompts fun so the students will still find pleasure in writing. Last week's prompt was: "Write a day in the life of Mrs. Seguin or Miss Brenner." Here are a few examples (written exactly how the kids wrote them):

"A Day in the Life of Miss Brenner"
"What she does is do morning work with us. Miss Brenner then tells us what we are going to do today. We talk and learn with her throughout the day. Then when it its time to go home, she kicks Mrs. Seguin and claims she is innocent."

"A Day in the Life of Miss Brenner"
"Mrs. Brenner probably reads in her spare time when she comes to school. She drinks her coffee from Starbucks. Mrs. Brenner also jokes around with Mrs. Seguin. Mrs. Brenner then teachers us correctly. Mrs. Brenner also drinks with manners."
(Jenn was purposefully slurping her coffee that morning to annoy the students.)

My personal favorite: "A Day in the Life of Mrs. Seguin"
"First thing in the morning, Mrs. Seguin tries to ignore the alarm and pretend its Saturday. Next she asks Mr. Seguin what t-shirt goes best for tally giving. When she gets to school, her and Mrs. Brenner get into a fight about Cowbows being better than the Steelers and vice versa. Then at the end of the day, she stays after and watches dogs doing hilarious things on Youtube. Then she goes home, plays with her dogs, and gets ready to do the same thing the next day."

HAHA that last one still cracks me up. The student even included a picture of Jenn at her desk. My kids also just recently realized that Jenn is the one that "passes/fails" me on my evaluation. Jenn likes to joke around and say "Hmmmm, kids do you think Miss Brenner should fail today?" And the kids play along (most of them will rise to my defense). Well they finally understood OHHH Mrs. Seguin really does have a say in what grade you get!! Haha Now they really try and convince Mrs. Seguin on whether I should pass or fail this semester :) Sometimes they will bring up how they will miss me when I leave, but I don't think they will realize it til I am actually leaving. I can't believe I ony have a few more weeks here!! I'm going to apply to Dodea as soon as possible once I get back home..I have loved this experience and think Dods schools are incredible. It really is "the best kept secret in teaching" as one teacher put it.

Well I don't have any more trips planned until November (unless we go to Cambridge next week for Halloween..but that isn't decided yet) so you may just get teacher updates for the next few weeks :) I'll let you all know how the supervisor observation goes!!

Always love love love