I did not sleep quite as long today. (I woke up at 8:30 am, and then went back to bed until 11:00 am.) I went to brunch for the first time today, and though I didn’t find that much appealing, I did have some eggs and a biscuit.
At 12:30 pm, I met with my teaching group to go shopping for classroom prizes. Our first stop was the Family Dollar, which contrary to its name, had prices ranging from $1 to $10 (and up). I chose out some good prizes like buckets of chalk and notebooks and stickers and bubbles, all for $1. Then we went to Target, which oddly enough had its own parking garage. I’d seen malls with parking garages before, but I’d never known a single store to possess one except in Costa Rica.
We had to take an escalator to get up into the store. I only found a couple of reasonably-priced school things to buy — a squishy green ball for calling on people, and some stickers for our behavior chart. I also found the movie 17 Again starring Zac Effron. When the other girl in my group found out what I had bought, she grew very excited and asked if she could watch it with me, lol.
We returned to school at 2:00 pm and scheduled a meeting for 4:00 pm. I spent the time in between revising my Monday lesson plan and creating worksheets. That’s because while another member in my group had originally anticipated doing the first lesson, our CMA created a teaching schedule that had me teaching the very first day. I was actually pleased by this, but I’m also nervous as well. Monday is going to be very difficult because we only have 60 minutes to teach two lessons worth of material, and 20 of those minutes has to be set aside for introductions/expectations/rules. I’m also a little unsure about one small section of my lesson plan, and it’s making me quite nervous. I do good at suppressing the nerves, though, at least until the actual day. Once I’m standing in front of my class, they are sure to come to the very fore.
At 4:00 pm, I met with my group to form a collective Vision/Investment Plan/Behavior Management Plan document. That’s because even though we all did one individually, since we would be teaching together, we had to create a plan we all agreed on. The repetition of a lot of what we do at Induction/Institute is really boring for me, but I know it’s for a good cause.
I left at 5:45 pm to go make copies of all my worksheets for the next day. At Institute, we’re allowed to print 400 times, but we can make unlimited copies, so you have to print one master document and then take it to the copier. It was pretty easy. The hard part was that it was pouring down rain, and all I had was a really thin cloth jacket to hold over my head. Needless to say, I got wet.
I opted to go straight to dinner instead of dropping off my stuff at more dorm first, as I would get less drenched that way. Dinner was crowded again today, but I managed to get my food in a decent amount of time. They even had chocolate cake with actual vanilla frosting (instead of whipped cream, which is far too sugary a taste for me), which was quite good.
Upon returning to my dorm, I read over my lesson plan (still nervous…yikes!) and then worked for a bit on my blog. At 8:00 pm, I walked over to another dorm in order to meet with my team again and with my CMA.
THIS WEEK’S WEATHER
My first year of teaching grade 2 after teaching K-3 resource room. I really over planned and two days of lessons actually lasted me four days. I feel that as long as students are actively engaged you will not encounter behavior problems. So go ahead and over plan, it is better than not having enough planned! I tend to really write out the first few days of school plans. I feel like I am writing a script. I did find that this really made me feel prepared the first few days. I didn’t even need the plans. After reading them over about two times, I was set. I would just glance at the plans and remember what I had written. It was like I had already rehearsed the show and the first day was so easy and fun. I recommend first year teachers to script out their first day plans. It really does help!