The Life of a First Grade Teacher

I am going to give this week a 3.  Spring Fever has definitely hit and add to the fact that all my kiddos where together for the first time since before winter break it was a WEEK!  Very challenging to put it mildly. This challenge was felt all over the building even with veteran teachers. I am implementing a reward system for next week whereas each student gets 5 tickets and they must have 10 tickets by the end of the week (which is Thursday for us) in order to go to the prize box. I did this before the winter break and it really worked very well. Friday was a very productive day for me. I was able to get lesson plans completed and my room in order before the students return on Monday. I had a very fun Zoom meeting with my students Friday morning. We can not introduce new content and so I spend the first part of the time reviewing what we learned during the week. In math, the students learned about coins. After our review, I showed my students old coins from my son's coin col...

  This week was our district's spring break, so I do not have anything to blog about. I am already prepared for next week's return of students to in-person instruction for 4 days a week.

 I am going to give this week a 4 1/2. The week started out great and then Tuesday came. My whole schedule was off due to two visitor at separate times that morning. Wednesday was the last day I had my Cohort B students. I only had five students that day. We got through so much. I was able to work one on one with all students in literacy as well as math. Our system had a remote learning day on Thursday to allow  time for staff to get ready for the return of all students 4 days a week starting the Monday after Spring Break on April 12. That afternoon I received the great news that I along with all teachers/teacher candidates passed edTPA. Congratulations to everyone!! Today was an optional work day for staff. I opted to work because I wanted to make sure that my class room was ready for the return of students on April 12. My daughter came with me and she was a big help. She organized my class library, cleaned tables, set up Letterland and much, much more. I'm going to miss her ...

 I am going to have to give this week a 4 out of 5. I found out that one of my students who had moved was going to be coming back. I am so excited about that. However, just as I found out he was returning, I learned that I am loosing one of my girls. She has moved out of district. This breaks my heart for her. I had my 2nd COVID vaccine this past Saturday. Everything went well. I did experience a headache that evening and a sore arm but that was the extent of it. I am so happy about being vaccinated. I feel as if a weight has been lifted. My lessons went very well this week. We are learning about Earth's materials in science and did an experiment with soil. My kids loved that. Since we are learning about Earth materials, we did a nature walk to talk about what we see. They were so excited to see all the changes in the outdoor classroom. I did have one of my students take off running because he saw a bee. He ran all the way across the playground to where the 5th graders were playing...

 I am going to give this week a 5. It was a great week. Our board decided on Tuesday to send all students K-12 back to school four days a week beginning the day after our Spring Break. We are still going to have Fridays to help those students who are struggling which I am thankful for. Tomorrow I get my second dose of the vaccine. That will be a welcome relief.  I was excited about the lessons that we did this week. In science, we started on Earth materials. My students loved learning about the different properties of rocks. Unfortunately, I was unable to do the property station with my Cohort B students due to the remote learning day Thursday because of the threat of severe weather. I look forward to doing this next week with them at the end of the day. We finished out poetry unit in reading. My students really enjoyed finding how the 5 senses were used in the poems. I am so proud of how my kiddos are catching on to tens and ones in math. It can be confusing for them to under...

 I am going to rate this week a 4 1/2 out of 5. This was a short week for my district as the end of the 3rd quarter came on Thursday. I only had students in person for 3 days this week. Thursday was a remote learning day for all students and today was a teacher workday and no school for students. It is hard to believe that 3/4 of the year is over and we are entering our last 9 weeks.  The only assessment that I had this week for my students was in math. We reviewed what they had learned during the 3rd quarter and then they completed an assessment on those concepts. Over all my students did a good job with the assessment. We will need to work more on telling time to the hour and half hour. This is a hard concept for students to understand. The majority of my students struggled with the half hour more so than on the hour. I am already planning to have my students review telling time in their morning work. I took both groups of students outside to our outdoor classroom this week ...