Be Prepared!

Student teaching is all about preparation and this last week or two I have been preparing in many different ways. On Sunday I met my parents at the Outlet Mall for some teacher clothes shopping. Note to all the youth out there, you DO NOT need 50 T-shirts! Eventually one day you will get a real job and have to wear dress shirts and dress pants everyday. This being said I am donating all but about 14 shirts to the Haiti relief effort at Carthage sponsored by Tau Sigma Chi (February 3rd 7pm in the TWC). Preparing for a full day of teaching is something I have only done a few times, usually I will go to the school for one or two hours then head home. This means preparing a lunch in the morning which I am not ashamed to say my wonderful mother did for me throughout my educational career. And when I brought lunch to high school it was Lunch #1 and Lunch #2 (one for after morning swim practice and one during the lunch period). Now that I am not training for swimming anymore I will only need to make one. I also need to prepare for not having as much free time as I have had this past month so lots of Wii and Xbox were played this week. I will end this post with 2 videos from 2 of my favorite kids movies both about being prepared. Vote for you favorite ones in the comments.

First Day: Feb 1st :-)

Always be prepared - Hoodwinked

Be prepared - Lion King

Meeting the Class

Today I went in for a couple of hours and met the students I will be working with for the 3rd quarter. I went to sign in at McKinley Elementary school and was immediately recognized by a teacher as "The best moderator at Battle of the Books" don't want to toot my own horn but me and Jay rocked B.O.B as moderators. As I put on my visitor pass featuring the McKinley mascot Jaguar Cub I headed down the hall to room 105, my classroom. I walked in the door a little nervous and a lot of excited, my nervousness went away when I heard a little girl say "I knew he would have a mustache!" after that I was all smiles. The class had written a daily journal announcing my arrival and had a great picture of me and Ms. Wrobel (I'll work on getting it to post on the blog). Ms. Wrobel is very nice and went to UW-Parkside and graduated in 2005. She is from Kenosha and had this same group last year when she taught Kindergarten. She student-taught at McKinley and this is her first time having a student teacher. We are both really excited to start our time together. Ms. Wrobel was giving the student name tags when I walked in so I could learn all their names. There are 16 students total (9 girls and 7 boys) in my class and my favorite name so far is Maximus cause it reminds me of the movie Gladiator and my Xbox Gamertag Baximusprime19. After the name tags were given out the students were allowed to ask questions here is a list of my favorites:

• From a little boy "How do you grow a mustache?" (first question no joke)
• "How much money do you have?"
• "Do you have a Wii?"
• "What grade are you in?"
• "How old are you?" Wanna feel old? tell first graders your 23, haha.
• "Will you stay for lunch?"
• "Can you sit by me?"
• "What was your favorite cartoon growing up?" Answered Tom and Jerry and told them I watch Phineas and Ferb today and they all cheered

After question time I stayed for Math lessons. We worked on greater than, less than and equal to. This involved using play-doh which if you haven't played with it in a while I highly recommend it just as much fun as when you were a kid. After the lesson the students got 2 minutes of free time with the play-doh where they all made me a play-doh pizza and I showed them how to make a snake, haha. We then played a game with base 10 blocks that involved rolling dice and after that it was time for Math Intervention. Math Intervention mixes the three 1st grade classes together based on skill level, Ms Wrobel has the intermediate kids and we worked with money during their lesson. I better get my singing voice in shape because first graders sing A LOT of songs, hopefully if I start them off they can continue without me ruining the sound. After Math it was my time to leave for the day, I got about 10 hugs and HAD to walk and hold hands with my new friend Catera when they went to lunch. I had a great time and cannot wait to spend 3rd quarter with these kiddos! Jimmy Johns and a Dr Pepper for lunch on the way home. Might have to keep the mustache for a while these kids loved it (sorry mom).

First day of Student Teaching: Feb 1st

Mr. Bax