It has been a while…

Hey there everyone. Sorry for the incredibly long time since my last post. Things have been very busy, but I am back now.

Things have been a whirlwind around here lately. I cannot believe that it is less than two weeks until Thanksgiving break ( I will be in Chicago for just about the whole week) and less than five weeks until the end of the first semester.  Part of me is very excited but it is also so scary because I still feel like there is so much my kids HAVE to learn before they are ready for third grade and there is just so little time left.

I am seeing really good progress with them though. I just finished some reading assessments and all my kids have really grown a lot and are becoming much better readers, which is great. I have had a couple of parents ask me if it normal that their kid only wants to read these days and doesn’t play video games nearly as much… I guess I am doing my job to a certain extent.

I have also had some issues with some kids lately and have had to call parents, but last week was really a whole ton better so I think we have putting those problems behind us. There was an issue with having to escort students out of my room for saying “I hate this school!” and biting another child. But last week this student was back to his angel ways so that was really good to see.

It is a very odd experience when parents ask you for advice on how to deal with situations with their kids. A lot of my parents have asked me why their children behave better in school than they do at home and what advice I can give them. I have to hide the fact that I am 22 and don’t know the first thing about parenting.

Speaking of parents, my dad was here this past weekend and got a chance to come by the school which was really great. I had told the kids on Friday that we would have a special guess and for some reason they all thought that it was going to be Obama… kids and their imaginations…

Needless to say, the kids were pretty excited to meet Mr. Mr. Rubin and discover that unlike previously believed I do have a family. They did ask my dad a couple of times if I was married. Apparently they do not trust me…

Having him in my class and showing him what I do was really great. It is hard to explain to someone what I do on a daily basis if you do not see if first hand, and so it was really great to be able to show my dad.  I think he enjoyed it as well. He got a chance to read to the kids and talk to a few of them. One of them tried to get him to say “Peter Piper…” with him, but I am not really sure where that came from. Sometimes we say it when we are waiting for things.

Shifting gears slightly, many of you have heard of that show where contestants try to prove that they are smarter than 5th graders. Well I think I may have failed the “Are you smarter than a 3rd grader” show. Recently I walked into the 3rd grade class where they were working on multiplication. They have these sheets of 100 problems of mixed multiplication. Mrs. Williams (their teacher) can do the sheet in 1:16 and so I wanted to give it a shot. Needless to say I was not as good. I did it in like 2:58.

Then, yesterday one of the third graders comes to tell me that he has beaten me. A 9-year-old did the same sheet in 2:30… I was very embarrassed and need to practice so that I can beat him and show him who is boss!

This same 3rd grade class has challenged our class to an addition facts challenge. 100 difficult addition facts. Each class sits down to do it and the entire class that finishes first gets ice cream served to them by the other class. It should be pretty fun. On our first run through my class was very close to their class. Except for one student who finished 5 minutes slower than the rest of the class, we beat the 3rd grade by about a minute. But in the 3rd grade’s second effort, they took about two minutes off their time so we have some steep competition.  It will be a tough competition. The challenge goes down the last day before Thanksgiving break. Wish us luck!

I think over the last month, the only really exciting event that I have missed posting anything about was Halloween which was ridiculous, but also great! The kids all came to school in their uniforms but could change in the afternoon for our harvest festival. We had some really ridiculous costumes, including one kid who dressed up as the school’s mascot (a GIANT “W”) that his mom made for him.

We all got to go trick or treating in the secondary building and got candy from classes and candy from some of the Uplift staff which was a lot of fun.

The kids loved it and it was a good time. But I would prefer not having to deal with intense costumes for about another year. Costumes are just complicated.

Speaking of complicated wardrobe situations, I am starting to realize that I have serious shortcomings when it comes to girls hair. It has become a daily occurrence that one of my girls has to be sent to another class to get their hair fixed. Buns fall out, clips come out, or numerous other hair related events. And none of them are things I can fix. Normally I just send them to one of the first grade teachers down the hall, but every time I laugh because out of all the challenges that I could be having, I am struggling with hair… I do have a girl with hair down to her butt so that may have something to do with it.

Side note: Earrings are actually much scarier than hair though because those involve sharp objects. Generally the earring goes in a bag so they can bring it home and have their mother fix it…

Okay that is all for now. I will be back soon though with more fun stories and things about my life.

Thank you all for your help and support!

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