"Can you imagine moving as slowly as some of the students?"

I overheard one of the middle grade teachers saying that today and it made me laugh.

We got a HUGE rug for our room today! One of those ones that has the colored squares to mark each spot and to keep the class in straight lines. Also good for doing graphing activities and for looking really impressive when visitors come in. It was really exciting when they delivered it. The kids were at lunch but I kept it wrapped until they came in so they could "help." They loved it and as Fuad said, they "got strong."

I have been doing some really fun things in reading. I feel like we accomplish so much each day and that the kids are maybe getting a lot out of it. I have done some kind of word wall activity every day that reinforces the old words and helps teach the new ones. We are also working both in the curriculum basal reader and with some poetry. There is a lot of up and down that I think helps keep the students engaged. I need to start with reading groups but they said that most teachers don't do that until Septiembre. Since I started late, I figure I have time. I want to do some picture flash cards with some of the Spanish speaking kids on top of reading groups.

Math has been a big success lately. I have been doing about an hour a day with lots of different activities, songs, and student involvement type stuff. I think it is going well. They took a little progress check test today. I didn't have a chance to grade it because I had to go to a dumb meeting after school but I am interested to see how they are doing. Today we talked about making a sequence of events. Instead of using the stupid stories in the book, I wrote our schedule on to cards and we put it back in order. They did a great job and learned!

Yes, I had a boring new teacher meeting at the district office and had to leave work at 3:20 to get there on time. Why would they think it would be better to sit in their stupid meeting room than to just get our work done? I guess it is really important to know when you need to "call a time-out on yourself..." The good news is that I got to see some Griffith friends and that was awesome.

The only other bit of news is that I am trying to set a time limit for how long I can stay at school each night. 4:30 has been my cut off. For the one day that it has been in effect it was a success. Hopefully tomorrow will be!

Love,
Miss Bee