One more day and we earn a three day weekend!! How many of us will be working and creating this weekend? I know I will!!
Today was one of those days that was up and down…emotionally. Good and bad. So some therapy is in order! Beware…you’re in for a doozy of a ride with this post! You’ve been warned!!!
I have talked about my little ELL friend who has struggled to adjust to school and feel safe. Come on, if I were in a room with a crazy man singing and dancing and acting a fool and had no idea what said crazy man was saying, I’d be traumatized too! Throughout our 21 days of school we have tried everything imaginable to help her and make her feel safe! We are currently on plan X. That involves her spending her day with her 3rd grade sister. They spend half they day in my classroom and the other half in the 3rd grade room (As I have been made PAINFULLY AND BRUTALLY aware by co-workers and colleagues, this plan was a mistake and I’ve messed up the school year for these two…) My little friend has made so much progress that I get hugs from her now!!! My first hug was Monday and it made me teary eyed! Today she wasn’t feeling well and she asked to come to me!!!!! People, she asked to come to me!!!! HUGE! I am so excited for the progress she’s making. She is participating, singing and will repeat what I ask her to repeat. She even played I HAVE WHO HAS with us!! Huge steps, right?! Yeah I have been ecstatic about her progress. Until I found out that I was “torturing” her by trying to get her to spend time apart from her sister and then I found out that there were 2 “plans” to “fix” the “problem I had created” by allowing them to be together but no one ever came to me to discuss her and the situation and no one was helping me in the beginning when I was dealing a traumatized, terrified student who was screaming and running away. Oh, and I sitll have no idea what the two “plans” are….but wait, the ELL director for our district was called and will be in my classroom tomorrow! Can we say that I feel like a huge and total failure right now? It’s a kick in the teeth day for sure!
But the roller coaster is going up hill because today was another great day for my little monsters. We’re doing so much better at the center routine and procedures! And when a lesson I had planned totally BOMBED they were so cool and rolled with the punches. Speaking of bombed, my lesson on building numbers went so terribly wrong because I didn’t create appropriate resources and I am completely secure in admitting that I failed. But guess what? I learned from my mistake and I know how to fix it. My students are going to have a blast during center time when they get to build numbers using my new creation! And you will all benefit from my colossal failure because I will have a freebie for you ASAP!
And finally….I know, I’m completely babbling and rambling and this probably makes no sense to anyone…but I feel better writing it down…so thanks for listening…I have a super fun activity planned for next week! We’ve been working hard on self control and when I ran across this lesson on Pinterest, it was like it was meant to happen! We’re going to use bubbles to teach self control!! I am going to challenge my class to NOT pop bubbles as we talk about self control!
Oh and did I mention that one of my boys kissed one of my girls today?!?!?
And I got this response to my request for parents to share their hopes and dreams for their children…
So for Therapy Thursday I will be enjoying my favorite cookies and doing grades for progress reports while enjoying some blackberry juice. Juice. Yeah, juice.
And now that I have brightened your day with my mindless ramblings ….you HAVE TO head over to my friend, Mr. Michelbook’s blog and enter his giveaway. He has a great blog with great ideas and freebies! And he’s a dude. Like me. And you know us teacher dudes, we need a lot of positive reinforcement and encouragement. OK, at least I do…if you couldn’t tell from my emotional and overly sensitive post…so yeah, go visit my buddy, Mr. Michelbook!
PS We just did our cake tasting for our wedding cake…OMG!!!! 36 days…