Che, tanto tiempo ¿no? So it's been about a thousand years since I've updated this thing and so much has happened! I finished my first grade placement and what a roller coaster that was! Solo week was pretty fantastic (although that first day was kind of rough, not gonna lie!) and then that last week was so bitter sweet. I learned more than I ever thought possible from that class and my awesome mentor teacher and I miss it so much.
Fast forward to fourth grade, what an adjustment! At first it was just really weird being in my new class because it didn't feel like mine at all. I felt like I was just a visitor and would eventually be going back to my first graders. But now, although I still kind of miss my first grade placement, I'm adjusted to fourth grade and loving it! My mentor teacher is awesome and super affirming! The classroom environment is really relaxed and I think everything kind of flows more easily. The kids are hilarious too! I don't know if it's just that I have more experience now or what, but teaching fourth grade seems to come a little more easily to me. I miss the excitement and movement of first grade though! For several weeks we practiced for their musical program about Arkansas and America and let me tell you, those songs are
re pegajosas!! I think for about a month straight I either had the Arkansas traveler song or any of the 5 military songs we learned stuck in my head! My friends really loved it, I'm sure!
Jaja. So much fun though!
Whereas with my first graders I think the hardest part was handling behavior issues and making content comprehensible, with fourth grade I think it's harder to keep everyone engaged and challenge everyone. They're on so many different levels by this point! For our reading class, fourth grade is broken up by level and we have the 24 lowest in literacy. It was a real wake up call realizing that most of these kids read on about the same level as my first graders did. And it's pretty intense because in first grade, they're supposed to be there, and they've got plenty of time to learn to read. But with these kids, they have to learn now! Because there's fifth grade, but then after that no middle school teacher is going to take the time to teach these kids how to read! This is kind of their last chance, which is motivating and heartbreaking at the same time. I love it though! I can't really decide which I love more- 1st or 4th. I guess that's a good thing though because it means I'll probably love it all, and in the end it probably won't be up to me! Unless of course I just have job offers pouring in from all over the place, but that's looking pretty unlikely these days.
It's pretty funny because my fourth graders are just starting to figure out that I speak Spanish. My first graders knew it because they had heard me speaking to their parents and such, and their real teacher was bilingual so maybe it just made sense to them that I would be too. But my fourth graders are really really surprised and I think a little weirded out by it. They look at me with these dubious or shocked expressions, and rather than actually speaking to me in Spanish, they test my fluency by asking me to translate random words. How do you say pencil sharpener? How do you say... horse? How do you say... student? How do you say makeup? So funny!
Which reminds me, just in case life wasn't busy enough, I took up two more jobs tutoring Spanish. One is for this group of about 5 kids, (2 of whom are the nieces of one of the 4th grade teachers!) and the other is for the daughter of one of my mom's friends (I tutor her via skype). But just in a time when money is running low, God always provides! And really, I would do this stuff for free just because I enjoy it so much. How great is life?!
Also, winter is officially (well, not by some standards) here and I am not so thrilled! Next week we have highs in the 30s which is going to make recess duty oh-so fun! I need to move to a warmer climate pronto! Argentina is in summer right now, oh what I wouldn't give to be on the next flight there! But colder weather is kind of appropriate for Christmas lights and gingerbread lattes and snuggling up with a certain someone, so that kind of makes it ok. Things have been a little crazy lately, but I think I'm about to have a second to breathe now. But just a second because then I'm off to Nueva York and then it's Christmas break and I have to figure out how to apply to the 60-odd districts que me llaman la atención in the hopes of getting a job anywhere with bilingual potential or maybe just anywhere for next year and I absolutely HAVE to finish the last hunger games book or Erin will kill me and also my mom's getting a puppy for Christmas so there'll be about a hundred thousand wonderful things to do in dealing with that, I hope and then it's back to school! I'm pretty sure I'm becoming a pro in run-on sentencing but man, this life is just flying by!
