Teacher Observation – Life of the Rookie Teacher

Oh man guys what a week back! I am EXHAUSTED!!!

I don’t know when you went back to school (teacher friends of course, sorry to those who had to work over break) but we went back last Thursday giving us a 2 day week followed by a full week. Man, a full week of school is HARD!!

Last week, on Thursday, I wanted to ease back into the school day (which was for the kiddos but also for me because I was not in the mood to be back.) I started the day like it was the first day of school all over again. We sat and discussed our rules and expectations as a class. On the first day of school, I have the kids put together a “contract” about their top 6 rules they want for the class along with their top 6 consequences they want for the class. Coming back, I had them discuss those rules and consequences and had them discuss what rules and consequences they wanted to keep and what they would want to change for the second half of the year.

They decided they wanted to keep 5/6 of both. I was so proud of how seriously they took this! They are such a great group of kids who constantly want to do the right thing. Their list of rules and consequences show how mature they are!

This week was a marathon with a TON of extra stress that was added. Obviously, I knew this week was going to be hard, and I was ready for that. The difference is I was surprised with an observation this week….

Being a non tenured teacher, I have to be observed 3 times throughout the year. I’ve already had my first one back in October and wasn’t thinking about another one AT ALL coming back after break. I got a nice little surprise on Tuesday morning when my principal said he wanted to get my second done this week. I hardly knew what I was doing that day so I had to pull it together fast so I could get a good observation under my belt.

I was able to come up with a good lesson and thought it went well when I was observed today. It wasn’t a perfect lesson AT ALL but, considering the week and how unprepared I was, I thought it worked out.

Man seriously, January is rough. I coach high school gymnastics (which is a winter sport) so I feel like I am constantly working and never have time for anything else except for sleep. I love my teaching job and I love my coaching job but I am so excited it’s a Friday night so I can finally sleep and do nothing for the next 2 days!!

PS: I never shared my New Year’s Eve catastrophe about how I met this guy at a bar and really connected with him for a couple hours trying to get that midnight kiss. I have the worst luck in the world (especially with guys) so about 20 minutes until midnight, he disappeared so no kiss for me…..ugh. BUT I thought I looked great so I wanted to share my awesome outfit!

For more day to day action and live activities, go follow my Instagram page @lifeoftherookieteacher!!

I’m a day late but I’m here to share so many different things that happened this week. This is a week that was fast but long at the same time. The week itself went by fast but the days themselves seemed like they lasted forever.

Monday and Tuesday were normal days and went by relatively fast. Wednesday was insane! On Wednesdays, teachers have to be in PLC meetings for an hour, which ends up going 15 minutes past when school starts. For those 15 minutes, students go to the gym and have a mini assembly with our school counselors. It’s a great thing in theory but students leave this assembly hyped and it usually takes another 15 minutes to get them settled in for the day. That right there takes up 30 minutes of our Wednesdays. This past Wednesday I was stressed because I was supposed to be having my 1st observation of the year with my new principal. Luckily, my class was awesome and calmed down right away (I also may have put the fear of behaving in them ahead of time but that’s beside the point.) I had this great lesson for my observation but my principal warned me he might be a little late. I waited as long as I could for him but eventually had to start teaching without him there. He ended up walking in as soon as my lesson was over and my students were doing the activity that went with the lesson.

Later that day we had our make up race that we had to postpone from last Friday due to weather. We had our races scheduled for the afternoon. The morning was beautiful but, of course, it started to rain when we went out for our race. After the running, we have a grade level tug-a-war tournament. Each class goes against every other class until we have the tug-a-war champions. This and the race take about an hour and a half. Because of this, I obviously didn’t have our afternoon planned. Because of the weather, we were only outside for the race and had to cancel the tug-a-war. That meant that when we went back inside, we had an hour to kill that wasn’t planned. We had a snack and did some cleaning. I then read to them for the remainder of our day.

**Side note: If you are a teacher, or have kiddos around the age of 10, I have the PERFECT read aloud suggestion for you!! The book series is called The Land of Stories written by Chris Colfer. It’s about these 11 year old twins who fall into their grandma’s fairy tale book (called the land of stories) and have to find their way home. They go through this crazy journey while also meeting their favorite fairy tale characters. The best part is this is a 6 book series. The past few years I’ve read the first 3 books to my classes and they have LOVED it. They get so hooked they want to read the second half of the series to themselves. Seriously, go look it up! It’s also super funny and has a lot of adult humor hidden inside so it makes it entertaining to the adult reader as well.**

Thursday was a semi-normal day. The only change was that in the afternoon we had our annual walkathon during our kids’ specialist time. Our walkathon is our fundraiser for school activities, playground equipment, app subscriptions, etc. Students are asked to ask 5 different people to donate $5.00 to help their school (we call this “Strive for 5.”) They then spend one hour on our walkathon day walking around the track at our local high school (which is the backyard of our elementary school) as their way to make the most of the money the donated. In my opinion, it’s a fun fundraiser and gives the kids a chance to do something to help their school. They aren’t required to donate any money (which I like because I hate asking anyone for money) but they all get to participate in the walk. It’s a great class bonding activity and a great way to get everyone in the school active for a day. Teachers are asked to walk for half of the hour their students are out there. I love that part. It’s so fun to just talk to your students without worrying about teaching or meeting any standards. At the very end of the grade’s time, our phy ed teachers lead them through a couple different dances to do all together. We did the Cupid Shuffle and the Hokie Pokie. It was so fun!

Friday was an early release for the students so we could have an afternoon of staff development (focusing on our individual growth plans for the year….so much fun) so it was another crazy day. I wanted to do something fun since we didn’t have as much time for things as normal. I decided that we were going to do some major multiplication facts review.

Last year in 3rd grade, they learned all about multiplication. The only problem was that after the summer, some don’t remember their facts. We needed to review these so I thought a half day would be the perfect day to do this.

I set up 4 different multiplication stations for us to do instead of our usual new math lesson. Before we did any stations we played a multiplication “I have, who has” game (I bought the game for $2.25 from TchrBrowne’s store.) I timed them so we could have a starting point on how fast they could get through the game with their basic facts. I then split them into 4 different groups to switch between 4 15 minute stations. The stations included; multiplication bingo with me, an October multiplication packet (First Tries and Sunny Skies store), a choice between 2 different multiplication games (Multiplication Squares from Flying through Fourth‘s store and Multiplication Connect 4, also from Flying through Fourth ‘s store), and 2 different multiplication IXL assignments done on their iPad.

Once we finished the stations we played “I have, “who has” again and they dropped their time by a whole minute. They did awesome! My plan is to continue this game throughout the year so they become experts at their facts.

This week was fast but slow. The crazy days Wednesday-Friday threw it all off. It’s weird because days when the schedule is different, it should seem faster, but in reality the day is so much slower.

I am exhausted and ready to sleep in tomorrow as late as possible. I honestly can’t wait, however to be back on Monday. I love this class. They are so amazing and sweet. I have had 2 hard classes (each hard in their own way) the past 2 years, so this year, compared to that, these kids are a piece of cake. Happy weekend friends!

For more day to day action, pictures, and videos, go follow my teacher instagram page @lifeoftherookieteacher!