Happy Wednesday! It's Wacky Wednesday for Dr. Seuss week! Yesterday I was sick, so I did not go to school. The second I walked into the classroom today, everyone yelled, "Ms. Hertogs!!!!" and I was welcomed with half the class giving me hugs. It instantly put a smile on my face and set my mood for the rest of the day! This week Ms. Palmer is really pushing the whole on my own thing, and is leaving the classroom for most of the day to give me control. I'm really enjoying it! It can be overwhelming and stressful at times, but that's how I'll learn!
Today was the start of a new unit in math, and I introduced measurements. The students used one inch foam blocks to measure things around the classroom to label how long they are. Many students completed this activity in the first 10 minutes, and I had to scramble to get the enrich worksheets printed. After math, we had snack and I read the Dr. Seuss book, "Wacky Wednesday." The students loved it and loved finding the different wacky things on the pages.
After specials, the students had a Dr. Seuss assembly, and we had a dance party! Of course I participated, and danced with many of my students! When we returned to the class, we did an activity comparing two Cinderella stories. I loved this activity because I love the many different versions of Cinderella!
Exciting news! We got our first Painted Lady Butterfly today! Between the morning when I checked them and after the assembly one came out of the cocoon! The students were in the room first, and all I could hear is, "We have a butterfly! We have a butterfly!!" They were so excited!! (and so was I!!) Hopefully we will have more by tomorrow! Since we had Social Studies today and not Science, we did not observe it up close, but we will tomorrow!
Social Studies was pretty good, it is still my least favorite thing to teach! I'm trying to make it more interesting, but there is only so much you can do when you have to just deliver content. Today was a little better because we read the section as a class instead of having them read independently. This helped with attention and participation in discussion. We talked about American Heroes! Many students were able to identify the people we talked about, and were able to give more information than was in the book, which was cool!
Observation: I am starting to notice how often 7-8 year olds tattle on each other. I get multiple "tattle tales" each day about dumb things that really don't matter. These things include line cutting, random things students are doing, and many others I can't think of right now. Most of the time my response is, "It's ok I will handle it," even though it usually resolves itself.
Fun conversation of the day
student: "Ms. Hertogs guess when my dad's birthday is in April."
me: "ummmm I don't know, tell me!"
student: "April 1st!"
me: "Oh like April Fool's Day??"
student: "Oh yea I guess it is... but my family accidentally celebrated April Fool's Day in September."
me: "Ohhhhh ok" (when I was really thinking, "uhhhhh.... what??"