hurricanes, earthquakes, floods, oh my!!!

Actually... there are no hurricanes or earthquakes... just flooding!!  Check out the photo above.  It has been week filled with peculiar weather.  Snow Monday night, leaving us with a 2 hour delay for school on Tuesday.  Pouring down rain yesterday and today... leaving us with insurmountable amount of water on the roads and grounds.  What a week!  The Salem-Keizer School District declared that :

It has been quite the week to be back at the Middle School! On another note I helped out in the ESL Newcomer class, and supported my ESOL cooperating teaching in the ESL II class.  The ESL class has been discussing natural disasters, and it was quite fitting for this weeks turn of events.  Most students wrote about flooding today! haha. 

 I also led the warm-ups for the last two periods of the day (The classes I will be taking over in two weeks!).  The first class had more students and were more willing to volunteer.  They stayed focused and quiet even when my cooperating teacher stepped out for a moment.  The other class had less students because most were picked up by their parents.  Even though it was smaller I had to pick on students to participate for the warm-up, and when my cooperating teacher stepped out they were more talkative.  I will get more classroom management practice with the three classes I will be teaching.  :) I feel that I am ready to start teaching, and I am looking forward to it.  Time to start planning lessons and getting organized with information, grading, papers, lessons, activities, etc.

inter.VIEW

Yes, I had an interview today for a tutoring position. It was a group interview, and it went pretty quick! The organization that I interviewed with came about after the NCLB (No Child Left Behind) Act.  It's designed to raise math & reading levels in Title 1 schools who did not raise the scores that met adequate yearly progress scores. Oh yeah~ there's an incentive for students who participate in the program... a free iPod Touch. Lucky lucky!

Cooperating Teacher Notes for ME!

Today I was feeling a bit sluggish... even with the FRS energy chews! I stayed up last night playing Angry Birds. haha. :) That was my choice... Anyhoo... today in one class period a lot of the students reminded me of some Step Up students I know!! AND I received a message from a student today inviting me to visit the school the student is currently at! What a coincidence!!!  I led two warm-ups today for Math 3. My cooperating teacher gave me some notes from observing me yesterday... here it is.


I also went to the 2nd Period 6th Grade ESL Language Arts class to observe a bit and help out a bit here and there.  There is one student who asked me last week... "Are you Asian?" I said, "Yes!"  He replied, "What kind are you?" haha. He's Asian too, and when I was in the room again today I noticed he is more physical with the other boys and verbally aggressive... AND as he was telling me about his parents and grandparents he was calmer and focused.  Randomly when the teacher was talking he turned around and looked at me and asked, "How old are you?" 


I have just started getting to know the students better and knowing their names!! It'll be hard to fathom that I won't be back in their classes until DECEMBER??? eeeeeesh... There is a volleyball game and football game next week that I will go to. Hopefully, I can stay connected through going to games and tutoring.