First Day of 5th Grade!

So, no, I am not having to repeat the Fifth Grade (although, my teachers might have held me back had I been any worse in Spelling and Math) ....But I did start my student teaching in 5th grade!

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August 23rd came really fast after spending the previous week setting up the classroom with my teacher trainer/master teacher (Stacy). Getting posters up on the walls, organizing desks into groups and sorting through textbooks and planning for the first days of school! Then I was off to Farmington to hang out with Kelly and the girls for a weekend before the first day of school all over again!

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Since Matt was in India at the time, he insisted that I take the traditional "First Day of School" pictures myself. Well, I ended up having my dad take them at the end of the day instead of the beginning but it's all the same in the end anyway, right?

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Super excited to have an 'official' teacher badge with my picture on it and everything!

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And so school begins. The first week and a half have gone really well! By the second day, I had picked up the math that we do every morning! (Well how about that!) I plan and pick problems for 'Board Math' and prep the white board that is set aside just for this task and then teach it the following morning. It is a new idea/program that Stacy was trained in during the summer and she passed on the information to me and so now I have my first little, scheduled teaching time every day and we are not even that far into the school year! I LOVE it! And it doesn't hurt that I think that Board Math is amazing and I wish that my elementary school teachers had used it with me!

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What is Board Math you ask? If you really want to know then keep reading! (can you tell that I am excited about this and want to share it with everyone?!) Basically it is a review and preview of all the 5th grade math concepts that our students will be learning throughout the year. We touch on all of the different subject areas from algebra to geometry and word problems all in a 15 minute period every morning. It makes math seem less scary when the teacher (me:) walks through the problems one at a time, step-by-step. As the week goes on, the students begin to answer some of the questions on their own and by Friday, they love math and feel that they are experts at it! A great confidence builder for all students.

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So there you have it. From the first day to the first week and a half. I will probably rant more about the awesome tactics and programs that we use later on and I am sorry, but it is nice to tell them to anyone who will listen:)