Well this week was homecoming spirit week at Thurston, so I was a good leader and dressed up every day (Halloween costume on Monday, Tu Tu Tuesday, Western Wednesday, Tie Dye Thursday and Colt Spirit Friday). It was really fun, the students thought it was a kick that I dressed up too, and I gave candy to students who dressed up each day. It made it fun to start off class each day with a parade of students up to the front of the class to get their candy in their spirit outfits.
My favorite part of spirit week was when my supervisor showed up unexpectedly on Tuesday when I was sporting my tu tu. He laughed and thought it was really neat that I was gettin into the spirit. The observation went really well. My class was not as attentive as I would have liked, but it gave me an opportunity to try some new techniques. One of which was a tally system where I documented every time I had to wait until they stopped talking to continue with my lesson. For each time I had to wait, they lost a minute of “Free Time Friday” which they have come to hold so dear (free time on the computers). After a few tallys, the students began to regulate each other. I like this new plan and will be continuing to use it throughout the rest of the trimester (and yes, they are allowed to earn their time back by being on task).
My supervisor was impressed with this technique and gave me a few other pointers to help things run more smoothly…like having the kids who don’t talk put together a new seating chart. I’m going to try that this week and see what happens.
I had to laugh on Wednesday because on student asked me if my supervisor stopped in unexpectedly. I told her that he did and asked her why she asked. She said that if they knew he was coming, they would have acted better. Too funny…like they knew they were misbehaving and couldn’t just be good on a daily basis. Ah well, at least they seem to like me enough to act good when my supervisor is there.
Anyways, I took them to Albertsons on Friday. They made a grocery list for a week and then we walked over (less than 1/4 mile) and did a price check on all the food on their lists. This was a fun way to get them to really understand the importance of budgeting and planning becuase grocery shopping can be expensive. I am going to offer extra credit to students if they go to another store (like Walmart or Winco) and re-price their list to see how much they can save shopping elsewhere. I also bought them all donuts and have officially become their “favorite teacher”. The Beatles were wrong, I can buy me love…lol.
Take care all and have a fantastic week! 
Kenzie
1 response so far ↓
Ha!
Hey MC-Smith,
Um, haven’t you heard that you aren’t supposed to give students foods loaded with high-fructose corn syrup! Just joking. Wow, it sounds like you are really having a good time in class and it sounds like your students are having fun to. I doubt that it’s all due to the doughnuts. Anyway, I just wanted to write about something that you touched on. When I was in my minor placement, I told my students the day before that I was going to be observed by my supervisor. It had the weirdest effect on my students. The few kids that flexed my classroom management muscles were so well behaved. They were sitting with their hands folded, asking questions, and calling me Mr. R. Now, the fact that it was totally fake and they only did it because there was some random old guy in the classroom didn’t bother me at all. It was so endearing the kids cared about my observation. Super funny too. We all had a good laugh about it the next day.
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