Friday the Half Day

Friday was a great day and not just because we got paid, but also due to the fact that it was a half day with parent teacher conferences. I looked forward to meeting parents and was hoping to get some visitors, though I only received one and that was because the student wanted to show her mom the computer lab.

The day was easy, only three classes and two were shortened to 15 minutes so they could get to lunch before dismissal. The best part about Friday was when one of the first grade teachers told me that a student started to cry when their parent came to pick them up. When they asked the student why they were so upset he simply said "It's not fair, I am going to miss technology!" So the parent left the student and came back to pick them up after my class. I thought that was cool, I try to make the lessons engaging for my students but I am not always successful. The headphones have served as a great way to pull my students into our lessons. They enjoy hearing my voice more through those tiny speakers than in real life, maybe I sound better through wireless transmission? What they really enjoy is when I play music from my iPod whenever they can work respectfully at their stations.

I would like to develop a group project for my students to work on but I am not sure which idea to try, I hate when a lesson flops after so much preparation. I have already made two lessons that I spent many hours developing the materials and when it came time to execute the plan with my students...well...it didn't go nearly as planned. I tend to get ahead of myself and have to remember that we are still developing our core skills. My students are getting much better at using the mouse and the keyboard, even my little Kindergartners are starting to get the hang of how to hold the mouse. This year is going by so quickly I fear that I will not cover all of the material that I want before school ends.