Homework

Today was picture day so I put a little eyeliner and mascara on to look somewhat decent for this picture and of course, some of my students are so confused.  One of my boys refused to look at me for a solid 5 minutes until we had to do the Pledge of Allegiance.  Another boy said I looked like I had stayed up all night watching movies because I had black stuff around my eyes.  I love how honest they are sometimes! It made me laugh so much!

Overall, they were not as chatty as yesterday which is good.  I got through Math and Grammar thank goodness! No handwriting lesson but that's okay.  Mrs. Lopez made a schedule with our minutes from the Archdiocese and didn't put handwriting everyday so I guess it's okay to not teach it everyday although I'd like to.  I still need to make more time for Social Studies.  I always feel so bad for that subject because it's the first to go in terms of time but it's really a fun subject to teach! We made it through the day and no one died or hurt themselves so that's another successful day in my books!

After school, I went by Target and picked up the Lady Antebellum CD.  For all you country fans, go get it! It was only $8 at Target! If you don't like country, get it anyway.  After that, Patricia and I had what we thought was going to be a 3 hour long Virtus training.  Virtus is a program required to make sure we act properly around children and vulnerable adults.  We got there and about 30 minutes in, we heard the priest say he was calling 911.  Naturally we all turned around to see what was going on.  His mom was there and I guess she started not responding and then the left side of her face started sagging and saliva was coming out of her mouth.  He also mentioned that her arms went in the air.  When the EMTs arrived, they mentioned that she might have had a stroke.  We all left and rescheduled the training.  I was very sad to be leaving the training due to this circumstance so please same some prayers for this 83 year old lady and her son!

I have spent the rest of my evening grading papers and have been in a mental battle about homework since I started school.  We were told that they need to have no more than 45 minutes of homework each night.  The parents expect lots of homework and want more for their students to do if we don't give enough.  At ESU and after student teaching, I have realized that giving students too much homework can be overkill.  If you can accomplish and achieve the skill in class, I don't see a need to drill it in even more that night with a bookbag load of homework.  Especially with my 2nd and 3rd graders.  Sometimes their bookbags are too heavy for my liking and I know that part of the time it's my fault.  I am working really hard to get as much done in class as possible so they don't have to take much home.  And then there is the selfish part of me that does not like taking home the large amounts of paper constantly and then having to sit and grade it each night.  I used to like grading because it was easy but now I am just a little bit tired of it! It's time to change up my teaching and make sure that these students are hurting their backs already.  They are only 7-9 years old and need to enjoy being a child while they still can! In 5th grade, they did tons of in-class work for a grade; we always got our lesson done and I am pretty sure they all made it to 6th grade so it can be done! Now I'm just trying to talk myself into it. 

Well, the week is almost halfway over.  I get paid on Thursday. I get to see my Aunt Michelle on Friday and stay in the hotel with her for a night! I would like to deep clean the apartment sometime this week but we will see if that happens.  There's a lot of things I would like to do and maybe once I get a good handle on teaching then they will happen.  One of these days.

I better not stay up too late again.  Sister Kathleen told me I look tired today and I was pretty awake at the end of the day.  Good night and think good thoughts for the lady at my training earlier please!