yuck yuck i am sick. luckily, i was pretty healthy until now. i’m suprised i didn’t get sick before now.

school has been a rollercoaster lately. here’s what’s been going on:

* not been going too well with my “team.” spoke to mrs. williams about this.
* mrs. johnson wrote us a new writing program to use. looks pretty good. we’ll be doing writer’s notebooks kind of like the “amelia” book series. very cute stuff. makes sense.
* literacy group - got observed by mrs. huff. it was terrible. we discussed it after. she observed me again and she said i made a 100% improvement. yay for that.
* got a new student (japanese). had an emotional moment regarding her and her brother. (first time i actually cried at school).
* had one student switch schools last friday. got a new student monday (the day i left early and went to the doctor. this girl thought she was a walker, so she walked home from school. a parent found her lost on the side of the road, crying. luckily, the mother wasn’t upset. she hadn’t made it clear to the girl what to do after school.)
* celebrated canada thanksgiving with my family and colin.
* got sick on monday. left school early on monday and went to doctor. (i have strep throat.)]
* apparently there will be some changes in our schedule to cut down on the amount of transitioning. hopefully this will be a good thing.
* missed school yesterday. planned on going today. got up this morning, went to bathroom, got hot and dizzy, went to the bedroom and passed out. seriously. colin said i looked like bobby john from survivor. wonderful.
* i feel like i have a ton of things to do and not enough time to do it all…

at least there’s no school thursday or friday. i haven’t been to school since monday. i hope my fish aren’t dead. they haven’t been fed since monday evening…

i hate being sick.

It’s true. Well, not completely true. I guess I do somehow manage to get a few other things done during my extremely short workday. It’s short because I don’t have time to do anything. That’s what it feels like anyway. It’s crazy.

Sooo…September 11th was the last time I wrote anything. What has happened since then? Probably way too much for me to even remember. Oh, well for one thing, I’m getting a new student….soon? (Apparently, her TB test needed to be updated or something.) My new student’s name is Naka (I’m guessing on how to spell it). Mrs. Johnson came in one day, handed me a poster and said “Hang this up. You’re getting a new student.” That was basically it. So, the poster is very cute and colorful and just happens to be a poster of multiplication tables in English and…Japanese. Yes, I’m getting another Japanese student. That brings my total up to three now. This girl apparently had a year of English in Japan (which is where she is coming from). Her brother can say “please” and “thank you” and that’s apparently it. Hopefully “Naka” can speak fairly well. If not, guess I’ll be getting Kota and Kazumichi to translate for me. ^____^;;;;

I really don’t know what to do now about my kids. Some of them are extremely immature for their age. I have about 5 second graders who are reading on a Kindergarten or below reading level. They can’t spell or write or read. One kid spells the word “are” as “rte” and “very” as “vite.” It does’t make much sense. I am starting the referral process for three of them. If I can get them into special ed. they’ll be able to get more help. If they qualify. They probably won’t. I don’t know. I’ll have to wait and see.

I have these 5 low second graders and I am teaching second grade content. But… I have these 7 third graders who come to my room most of the day. These 7 third graders are the lowest in their grade sort of, but compared to my low second graders, they look pretty darn good! There just is not enough time in the day for me to teach all these kids! It’s so hard. I have kids who can’t spell a single word and kids who can. Keeping then all engaged, interested, etc. is tough. I’m not doing a bad job (I hope), but I feel like it’s not fair to the kids that I can’t… I dunno, spend more time with them. I have a few third graders that are getting their fifth year of primary this year. (Translation: they are in third grade for the second time.)

I’m still not very buddy-buddy with my “team” teachers. I don’t want to be buddy-buddy with them, but some help and support would be nice. I don’t want to make them sound terrible, because they aren’t. They just aren’t very… well, helpful. They have their own problems I know. I have mine.

Tuesday our school is getting observed by some Reading First people. They’re coming to observe “random” classrooms. I have a feeling when they see the rainbow around my door they’ll randomly choose my room. I’m worried my kids are going to be a disaster. They’re not very good at following directions during center time. They’re not good at listening. I’m worried they’ll say my room is horrible. I mean, all of my books still aren’t labeled yet. They’re supposed to check them and see if they are. I don’t know how picky these people are going to be. Oh well.

All I can do is all I can do. Oh, and smile. ^_____^ At least I can still smile. It’s hard to smile when you are yelling at this one kid every five minutes.

My school fish are alive, so is Flashy, and Pouncy. ^_____^

Colin moved the couch back some. Now there is more room in here.

No one went to the emergency room this weekend. ^__________^

Buh-bye. Lots of work to do!