Week at a Glance

Monday October 3rd, 2011
Mondays are usually my crazy days, but having a short day today I had to cram more stuff into less time.  I didn't mind too much because I am to be starting SEP's (Parent Teacher Conferences) this afternoon.  There are really so many acronyms in this business I don't think anyone knows what they all stand for.  I feel really well prepared for the SEP's everyone keeps asking me if I'm nervous or overwhelmed and I really am not at all.  I guess having years in the Title business where I had to work with complete strangers and really beefed up my customer service skills I feel confident meeting new people.  I have always felt that this portion of teaching wouldn't be hard for me.  Many people have mentioned that working with parents can be the worst part, but I think that I am actually pretty good at working with people and know how to keep them happy.  I have prepared for this SEP all positive comments with the kids and parents.  I have simple printouts with their grades.  I have put them all together in a little paper folder with the kids name on the paper.  I have done everything I planned to do and have cute stories on the wall that the kids wrote, so I think they are going to be fun :D.

Wednesday October 4th, 2011
I feel like SEP's went really well.  My only concern with them is that I was getting done fairly quickly, they took about 10 minutes.  There was only 15 allotted so I wasn't too far off, but I didn't want parents to feel like they didn't get much out of it and wasn't worth their time.  I apologized to a few about it, but they didn't seem to mind at all so I hope that was true across the board.  It really was very fun to meet all of their parents and get to know them better.  A lot of nice, fun people.  I really appreciated some that asked what they could do to help me, that was really nice to hear.  :D

A few things I wanted to note after talking to a few parents:

C: Needs a lot of positive reinforcement, has conflicting values at home and encouragement at school could really help guide in the right direction.  Very intuitive and sweet, really really avoid punishment or cross instruction, will not work and be a bad choice to get him to act appropriately.

K:Needs to be pushed and given a time-limit, any extra time or a lack of "pressure" leads to a lack of focus and therefore wrong answers and incomplete assessments.  Needs to be encouraged and taught how to finish things on her own without help.

B:Lack of motivation to achieve. May do well with a competition involved, and maybe some extra incentives along the way to give him some kind of motivation.  Intrinsic is not there yet ;D. 

L: Really is a good student, parents trying to help with english at home and seems to be a good support for him.  Needs help staying focused needs time outside to run and stretch.  Also doesn't seem to have much motivation for doing well.

Thursday October 4th, 2011
Today was a good day.  I tried to give a test today instead of tomorrow to try and break things up a bit with them and make sure that they didn't get tested out and felt confident with them.  I also read the phonics portion out loud to especially help the ESL students and make sure they heard what each word was supposed to sound like.  I haven't graded them yet today but we will see if shorting them a day was worth it.
I also felt that I had some helpful problem management between two students.  We had a sit down and I tried to you a you - me type conversation and we discussed what we could do to make the situation better.  After talking both felt better and I gave them a smile and small hug and they left happy and back to normal. 

I felt a little unorganized and feel that I haven't been able to quite catch up this week.  The fact that I'm writing in my journal is amazing.  I usually type up a daily plan of what I plan to do and haven't been able to the last few days.  I rarely look at it but I think having typed it I have the plan in the back of my mind and I do occasionally reference it, so I am definitely going to keep doing them and get them ready every day.