JOHN - Over the past few weeks, I have increased my responsibility at school. I have taken on yet another class period. That leaves only two class periods left to inherit from Mrs. Schiebel, 2nd hour and 1st hour A.P. It's now the half-way point of the semester and mid-term papers are due this week. Everything is becoming busy, bizzy, etc.
So, here's what's been happening over at Rawlinson for the past couple of weeks. The students had a big test last week on fractions (addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division of). I was a little worried how the students were going to perform. For the most part, most of them passed and anyone who didn't is given the opportunity to make corrections and bring part of the grade up. I was amazed by some of the little mistakes the students made. I would say 90% of the students understood the concepts. What hurt some of the students were simple things like addition or even multiplication.
On Friday, I brought back Tribal Trivia to help prepare the students for their upcoming benchmark. Down here in Texas, all grade and middle school students are required to take the TAKS test. This math test very important to the school districts and is highly emphasized throughout NISD. So important that Northside requires each middle school to have the students complete a benchmark test every six weeks. This benchmark is not required by the state but Northside uses it to better prepare the students for the TAKS test, which is taken in the spring. Anyway, I built Tribal Trivia 2 based on a little bit of everything that was covered since the beginning of the school year. The students, when finding out that they were playing TT again, were pretty excited. This time, Mrs. Schiebel was there to participate and she seemed to get a kick out of it. In fact, we will probably do it one more time before I leave, just with a few changes and suggestions that she gave me.
Our classroom is forever changing. I created an "Absent" board to help keep the make-up organized for all the students. It helps considering the number of students who have been absent this school year. In fact, there was one class period where nine students were out one day. The swine flu is spreading throughout San Antonio. Not as severe as the media seems to make it and no one is dying but it is hitting a lot of students. In fact, it probably isn't even the flu, maybe just a case of the students getting sick because that's what they do at the start of the school year.
Mrs. Schiebel and I are also incorporating some Halloween decorations inside the classroom. There's now cobwebs and spiders, ghosts and even some skeletons. It's Survivor, with a haunted-touch added. On top of all of that, Maurice (the monkey) has his own Cardinals jersey and hat. Mrs. Schiebel is letting him wear it while the Cards are in the playoffs. GO CARDINALS!! I have also attached pictures of the classroom for you to see all new additions.
After getting approval from Mrs. Schiebel and Margie, I have decided to become the assistant tennis coach at RMS. Granted, it's only the intramural tennis since the team tennis doesn't start until the spring, but it's still a school activity and I am excited to be helping out. It's starts next week and I am not sure how many students will actually be playing but I am quite excited to help out and do something outside of the classroom with the kids.
As for my student teaching, I feel that I am improving every day. Mrs. Schiebel continues to give me invaluable advice and constructive criticism. I have been working on using more transitions, focusing and stating objectives and just leaving enough time to end the class period. Plus, we are really getting deep in to the Survivor stuff. In fact, we just had our first tribal winners. This week, the students were randomly selected and new tribes were created.
I cannot believe that we are at the halfway point. In less than two months, we will be leaving San Antonio. We will be heading back to Illinois, graduating and finally moving back into the real world. No more school (well, at least for now). It's hard to imagine that everything is quickly coming to an end. But that's ok, I am ready to move forward. Plus, student teaching is making everything seem to move pretty quickly. And before you know, I may just be blogging about my very own classroom.
So, here's what's been happening over at Rawlinson for the past couple of weeks. The students had a big test last week on fractions (addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division of). I was a little worried how the students were going to perform. For the most part, most of them passed and anyone who didn't is given the opportunity to make corrections and bring part of the grade up. I was amazed by some of the little mistakes the students made. I would say 90% of the students understood the concepts. What hurt some of the students were simple things like addition or even multiplication.
On Friday, I brought back Tribal Trivia to help prepare the students for their upcoming benchmark. Down here in Texas, all grade and middle school students are required to take the TAKS test. This math test very important to the school districts and is highly emphasized throughout NISD. So important that Northside requires each middle school to have the students complete a benchmark test every six weeks. This benchmark is not required by the state but Northside uses it to better prepare the students for the TAKS test, which is taken in the spring. Anyway, I built Tribal Trivia 2 based on a little bit of everything that was covered since the beginning of the school year. The students, when finding out that they were playing TT again, were pretty excited. This time, Mrs. Schiebel was there to participate and she seemed to get a kick out of it. In fact, we will probably do it one more time before I leave, just with a few changes and suggestions that she gave me.
Our classroom is forever changing. I created an "Absent" board to help keep the make-up organized for all the students. It helps considering the number of students who have been absent this school year. In fact, there was one class period where nine students were out one day. The swine flu is spreading throughout San Antonio. Not as severe as the media seems to make it and no one is dying but it is hitting a lot of students. In fact, it probably isn't even the flu, maybe just a case of the students getting sick because that's what they do at the start of the school year.
Mrs. Schiebel and I are also incorporating some Halloween decorations inside the classroom. There's now cobwebs and spiders, ghosts and even some skeletons. It's Survivor, with a haunted-touch added. On top of all of that, Maurice (the monkey) has his own Cardinals jersey and hat. Mrs. Schiebel is letting him wear it while the Cards are in the playoffs. GO CARDINALS!! I have also attached pictures of the classroom for you to see all new additions.
After getting approval from Mrs. Schiebel and Margie, I have decided to become the assistant tennis coach at RMS. Granted, it's only the intramural tennis since the team tennis doesn't start until the spring, but it's still a school activity and I am excited to be helping out. It's starts next week and I am not sure how many students will actually be playing but I am quite excited to help out and do something outside of the classroom with the kids.
As for my student teaching, I feel that I am improving every day. Mrs. Schiebel continues to give me invaluable advice and constructive criticism. I have been working on using more transitions, focusing and stating objectives and just leaving enough time to end the class period. Plus, we are really getting deep in to the Survivor stuff. In fact, we just had our first tribal winners. This week, the students were randomly selected and new tribes were created.
I cannot believe that we are at the halfway point. In less than two months, we will be leaving San Antonio. We will be heading back to Illinois, graduating and finally moving back into the real world. No more school (well, at least for now). It's hard to imagine that everything is quickly coming to an end. But that's ok, I am ready to move forward. Plus, student teaching is making everything seem to move pretty quickly. And before you know, I may just be blogging about my very own classroom.
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