I helped out with second grade
reading groups this morning. Really I just watched one group of kids
color turkeys and a couple other groups cut out words and glue them
on a page. At one point one of the kids was confused about silent
“e” words so they asked the parent helper in the room and it was
like seeing a live interpretation of Who's On First. The mother kept
trying to explain it but the kid just wasn't getting it. All I could
do was stand back and laugh because it was really funny.
The second grade teacher had another
doctor appointment today so a para and I were in charge of the kids
when the teacher dropped them off at the lab. The teacher wrote
“Cool Math” up on the board and the idea was that if the class
got too loud than the para and I would erase letters off the board.
If they made it to the last ten minutes of lab and there were still
letters on the board than they would get to go to Cool Math. We got
down to “Cool M” but overall they were pretty well behaved.
Normally they leave the lab at 11:15AM so I told them to log off and
line up at that time. And then the para mentioned that they were
actually supposed to stay until 11:25AM and go straight out to
recess. So even though all but one or two of the kids had already
logged off I told them “just kidding” and had them log back in
and go back to playing games. Some of the kids groaned about having
just logged off but when I told them the quicker they got back on the
more time they would have to play games, they changed their tune.
Then, tent minutes later I had them log off for real and we went back
to the classroom so they could get their coats and cold lunches if
they had them and head out to lunch recess.
I passed the other second grade
teacher and she asked me if I was supposed to be watching the kids
because her class was also outside and there weren't any recess
supervisors or whatever they're called. I said I had no clue what
was going on but I went down to the office to check. All they knew
was that the guy who usually comes wasn't coming in today. So I went
down to the lunchroom to find the acting principal, also known as one
of the kindergarten teachers, and asked him. He said the regular
dude had a replacement and by the time I made it down to the
lunchroom she was already outside. So all was good.
One of the third grade classes came
to the lab this morning just so the teacher could see what their
typing ability was. They have to write on the state assessment this
year and the teacher just found out about this. There was a really
wide range of skills. I don't know that any of them used home row
but some were fairly “fast”, average between five and nine words
a minute. And then there were kids who averaged around two words a
minute. I don't really think the typing thing is fair for the
younger kids on the assessment. It is going to be an indicator of
their typing ability much more than their ability to form a well
thought out point.
I had already clocked out and was
about to eat lunch when one of the paras came down to ask for my help
with a projector. I went up and messed around with it for about
twenty minutes and didn't get anywhere with it. I finally went down
and looked up a manual online while I ate my lunch. I went back up
later in the afternoon to grab the projector so I could play with it
down in the lab and not interrupt the group of kids she had in her
room. The manual ended up not really being much help so I ended up
just doing a factory reset on it and everything started working just
fine. That took me maybe two minutes once I got the projector turned
on. Should have done that to start with.
This afternoon I had one of the
kindergarten classes because the teacher was the acting principal and
whenever he has a sub he generally tries to get into the computer lab
if it isn't already his day. That's just thirty minutes less that he
doesn't have to worry about planning something so I would probably do
the same thing.
Tonight I started reading over the
chapter for my next reflective journal entry and formulating some
ideas. I should be able to make a decent start on it tomorrow.
Going back to what I mentioned yesterday about personal library
organization in a virtual environment, I just thought about the
Oculus Rift. There is definitely some potential there. Actually
being able to walk around and browse in a virtual space would be a
lot nicer than scrolling through a list. When I have an urge to read
a history book but have no idea which one, I like to go to the
bookstore and just wander around in the history section until
something grabs my attention. It would be cook to be able to
recreate that because it is lacking when browsing an online catalog.
Pictures of book covers just aren't the same.
Before coming over to use the
internet, I briefly finished putting together a couple bar stools
that my mom started. The foot part was kind of tricky.
Tomorrow is the last day of the work
week. Until I go work at the theater on Friday and Saturday. Can't
wait for that. In the mean time, I'll be working on my reflective
journal. I'm almost there.
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