September 29, 2014

Last night I didn't sleep very well and I blame it on not being sufficiently tired when I went to bed. I woke up several times throughout the night. The first time I woke up I was convinced it was close to six o'clock and that my alarm was about to go off. It wasn't much later than two o'clock.

This morning brought the official end to the first round of MAP testing after I printed off the last set of reports for the sixth grade teacher. I still need to update my spreadsheets with the percentiles for the sixth grade but after that I'll be all caught up. Thank goodness.

This morning I went down and helped with second grade reading centers for the first time this year. It looks like I'll be doing it on Monday and Friday. I also believe I'll be helping with literacy centers in kindergarten on Tuesday and Thursday. Second grade centers went well. I don't know if they will always go well but it was a good first impression. The best part was when one kid kept talking to the girl next to him when they were supposed to be reading quietly. His friend kept saying “shhh” but when that didn't work he finally asked “Do we need to switch seats?” His friend thought about it for a second and then they switched seats. It was quiet after that. And it was really funny.

One of the first grade classes came to the lab today and they are still taking forever to get logged in. At least the back row where I always am. It is rough. The teacher gets the first two rows logged in but I think she is doing it for them most of the time, which I am not doing. I'm telling the back row what to type but I'm not doing it for them. Or maybe the teacher isn't doing it for them and it is just a coincidence that the kids that don't quite get computers all ended up in the back row. Who knows. They'll probably get the hang of it by Christmas and then forget it all over break.

In other productive news, I continued work on the bingo game. I finished digitally cutting out all the pieces but there aren't enough to fill out the board on the last two games. The resource teacher was gone today so tomorrow I'm going to ask her if she wants to pick out some more words or if she wants me to double up on some of them.

I also started recreating a worksheet for one of the second grade teachers. She's been using the worksheet for several years now and it was originally on colored paper. Every year that she copies it the page gets darker and darker so the kids are having trouble reading it and the teacher is having trouble reading what the kids are writing. So she asked for me to make a new one, which I did. I technically finished but now I am adding some numbered lines to it as a bit of guidance for the kids.

I also edited a flier for one of the resource teachers. Or I guess now she is more of a Boys & Girls Club person. Either way, she had a flier and wanted me to make some changes to it. It was kind of a pain because it was made in Word and every time I tried to adjust something, everything else on the page shifted. I came very close to just recreating the whole thing in Publisher but I eventually managed. The teacher brought me a big box of Cheez-Its earlier in the day as a 'thank you' for setting up her computer last week. That was pretty nice of her.

Instead of going to the old house after work I went to the new house so I could work on school stuff and not be distracted by the internet. Instead I was distracted by the dogs being annoying. And maybe an episode of Chips. Tanner and Beau almost got into it over dinner and afterward spent at least five minutes circling each other in slow-mo. Eventually Beau got tired and sat down and Tanner just stood there and stared at him.

After dinner I went over to the old house and have since accomplished nothing. I'm a bit disappointed in myself. Currently the left side of my throat hurts. I am hoping that it is just a passing thing and that I won't wake up in the morning feeling awful and being unable to swallow. That would suck.

I feel like there is more I wanted to write about but at the moment it is escaping me so I am going to call it good. This was a decent entry. Decent enough.