August 15-19

Upon receiving my assignment, I was able to contact one of the teachers. The two of us met at the school and got acquainted with each other. She took me on a tour of the building and informed me that she would be teaching a high school class as well as her middle school classes. She told me that I would not be able to contact the other teacher until right before school, for he goes to Colorado for the summer. She informed me that she thought it would be best if I was just assigned to her and not the both of them, this way I would not be going back and forth between two teachers styles, rules, rooms, etc, being that she would be teaching high school students as well. She gave me a notebook of the Kansas History Standards, and she had kindly highlighted the ones that she is to address, which will be helpful. After this initial meeting I was greatly enthused about my student teaching experience, she was open and willing to help. She teaches United States History/Kansas History for eight graders, and geography for seventh and ninth graders. She also provided me with a student handbook so that I could become familiar with the rules, and policies. We also exchanged email address so we could keep in contact, which we did.
When I arrived for the first day of in-services, I was introduced to the other members of the staff. They were all friendly and open. The first day I was introduced to the politics that happens in schools, for I got to sit through a couple meetings, and hear how they and their school board are not on good terms. I helped arrange the two rooms that she will be using and learned a lot about her and the school.
The first day the student arrived went quite well, Mrs. Traul went over rules and procedures, and introduced me to the classes as a teacher who is to be respected and obeyed like all the other teachers in the building. She was not shy in putting me to work. I am already making a large number of copies, and other errands, which help me, get to know other people in the building. I have also already been getting involved with the class. I have made up a seating chart so that I can get to know there names and I am getting to know a large number of them. She also gave me an assignment for that Friday. I was to come up with an introductory activity for all her classes. I had a hard time finding something that would take up the whole fifty minutes. But I found a neat activity called “snowball”, the students right 4-5 points about themselves on a piece of paper then have a one minute snow ball fight. The students then introduce the person on the paper that they end up with. The students really enjoyed this activity and they keep asking when they get to do it again. The hardest thing about this activity is keeping the students quiet during the snowball fight. I was planning that it would be a challenge getting the students to stop the snowball fight, but surprisingly when I ask them to stop, they did. I take this being duo to the fact that they seemed to get tired of it after a minute. The only big problem I has was a student in one of the seventh grade classes, who wanted to continuously talk. Mrs. Traul from had to take him outside and have a little talk with him. Overall, it was a great first week, and I am excited to see where it goes.