Day one in the classroom

January 9, 2012

Well, today I turned twenty-four and spent my first full teacher contact hours in my first of four placement classrooms.  This class is completely different then anything I have ever been in before; because, the students aren't "academic functioning," so it took longer for me to get into the grove then I thought it would be.  To start the day, we get the kids off of their buses and then head to the classroom for breakfast.    As the kids finish breakfast, they begin working on the different activities in their task box or have their morning time on the computer program called Teachtown.  I did a lot of observing during this time and helping one of the students "B" stay on task and rewarded him with the money he earned for finishing the different tasks.  (This money is used later in the day to "buy" their snacks.)  After a hour we get ready and go to recess and then lunch.  At lunch, I learned two of the students only drink out of certain colored straws; welcome to the world of autism.   I took a quick lunch during their lunch; really I just went to my car and ate and returned a TON of Facebook birthday wishes! Thank you to everyone who helped make my birthday a great day!! I finished lunch just in time for some group work which is about 30 minutes in length and the class starts with the "hello song," then they do calendar time "my special today is_____ (today it was music or computers)," the money song, a Dr Seuss book movie, and to finish off group time we sing the "good bye song."  I stayed with the group of four students that had music therapy today and it was a lot of fun.  Its wonderful to see the non communication kids actually communicate during this time! After music and computers we came back as a class of eight and did some structure play and more Teachtown, during this time I bonded with another little guy "L."  He enjoyed having me point to the words as he tried to say them (he is one of the non communicating students) and then he would do the little dance that went along with the words.  It was too cute!  And before I knew it, it was 3:20 and we were ready to head out to the playground to wait for the buses.

Overall, it was a great first day and I look forward to the next few weeks working with these kids.  My mentor teacher is a wealth of information and is allowing me to decide what I do in the class, which I like.    I know during the next few weeks there are going to be a ton of first experiences and I am excited for the adventure to unfold.  Right, after teacher contract hours I was off to my ASU class.  That class is going to be a lot of fun! The professor is pretty laid back and understands exactly what we are going throw as she did her masters in a quick paced program, which is nice to have someone who truly understands!  It was also nice to walk into our class and find a "Happy Birthday award" on my desk from our main mentor teacher, which lead into a conversation with tonights teacher and in two weeks when we meet again we are going to celebrate my birthday haha.  I love it! Plus, we got out early also which was a great gift to us all!

Tomorrow, is day two in the classroom and it is a minimum day.  Since, it is a minimum day we will be attending the teacher inservice at our prospective schools.  I learned today that Mr H and one of the other teachers will be putting on the work shop for our school tomorrow and it will be about team building.  I am looking forward to meeting more teachers during this time.  All the teachers I met Friday, asked me how my day was going/went today, which is really nice.  After, the inservice tomorrow it will be back to another ASU class and then Wednesday will be all ASU classes.  So far, so good, and even more excited about the field I am going into!!!!