Confessions of a First Year Teacher - Week 2

Adorable sign my friend Cassie
surprised me with.

At my school students start transitioning to different teachers for different content areas in 1st grade. I teach math exclusively to 3 classes of 20-22 first graders. My team consists of myself along with 2 other teachers. One teaches Science, Social Studies and Phonics, the other teaches Reading and Writing. It makes the day go by so fast! Each of the three classes, while all 1st graders, are filled with unique students and although I teach the same lesson to each of them, sometimes I have to modify how or what I present to each group, because what has worked for a previous class group doesn't always create the same connections with my current group. I am learning quickly how to modify in the moment. Classroom management is also something I am having to modify for each group.

Classroom management seemed to be the theme of my 2nd week. It is one of the things I struggled with during student teaching and it's no different now in my own classroom. It can sometimes be challenging to find something that works for each of my 3 groups of 1st graders. What seems to work for one group has no affect on another. Most of the behavior issues are typical of this age group (Chattiness and trouble staying in their seats).

I pulled out my teacher voice this week and I think I took some of my kids by surprise because Mrs. Ogier is "so nice and sweet". I didn't yell but I was very serious and expressed my disappointment in some of my students. We are only in the 2nd week of school and I am hopeful that as the school year progresses they will come to understand what I need and expect from them even more and a lot of the behavior issues will sort themselves out.

10 Frame Friends, my student's first
math project.

My homeroom class is full of some characters. One day this past week they were on fire learning about sets and using a 10 frame to make 10. I smiled at them excitedly and told them how proud I was of how smart they all were. I looked at them and said "You knocked my socks off!" Most of them looked at me in shock and then looked down at my feet. (I was not wearing socks as I wear BOBS most days.) One of my students smirked at me and said "Mrs. Ogier, you weren't even wearing any socks."

I laughed and said "Well, if I had been they would have flown across the room because you all are just so smart." He giggled and now almost every day one of my students will ask if they blew my socks off today. This week was awesome! Now bring on the 3 day weekend woohoo!

I was so excited to hang out my first student work in the
hallway outside my room.

In case you were wondering, I did my attendance correctly every day this week! 

I did learn something this week though, when you have 65-70 students projects that require me to cut out lots of little pieces are probably not something I will do on a regular basis. :P