hah

story of my life:

http://www.kansascity.com/637/story/1614654.html

end of semester = no fun

i'm at the point where there's so much to do/ so uch stress, that i've just stopped getting stressed.. haven't decided if that's good or bad. For my health good.. haha for my students and grad grades, not the best. BUT i'm getting everything done, somehow.

I literally worked from the time i woke up to just now on stuff and i'm not even done, but i don't have the motivation/energy/strenght to do ne thing else right now.

The only thing keeping me going is the fact that this is the LAST week of grad school classes this semester! It's not even school that's stressing me now, it's GRAD School.. that's dumb.

i just got back from my 2nd professional development in Chicago which was awesome! We got a lot of good tips, learned how we shoudl re-vamp our program and what we need to become a strong dual langauge school, and got to see a couple dual language schools in the chicago area that are running very well! and it snowed... which is apparently nothing there but it made me excited :)

i've gone from highs to lows lows to highs, and right now i'm feeling pretty good about things, school is still stressful, and hard, but i just have to stop taking things peronsally.. i'm a little worried b/c of stupid paper work and "certification"" requirments that are just political and stupid and are probably going to get me fired in the end for forgetting to fill out some ambigious form that says the same thing that 500 other forms said, BUT my principal said that she wants to keep me and she doesn't care if i'm certified or not... so that makes me feel good, as long as she keeps her position.

i've had a few great things happen at school and some really sad things.

1st i found out one of my students is being VERY severely abused at home, and many people know about it and have done nothing.. my principal is going to take measures thank goodness, but it's super sad no one has before.

2nd a good thing, i had one of my english speaking students tell me yesterday that he is speaking/reading/understnading spanish! and granted not as much as he might think but he is doing loads better, as is a good majority of my class, AND the fact he's excited about it is a HUGE step!!!!!

3rd good thing-we raised our MAP predictor test scores by 15% (Map is the test we have to take to meet AYP because of no child left behind laws...) Granted we're still not close to meeting what we need yet, but a 15% jump in a semester is good! We're going to try to keep brining it up!

IT was great to go home for Thanksgiving but it felt like a whirlwind, and almost like it wasn't real because it was soo difffernt from what im doing here, so relaxing so doing nothing, and just nice o see family and some friends.

I look forward to having christmas though which is coming up soon, though i have a lot i aspire to achieve during break so we'll see how that goes!

this is long enough.. but it had been a while :) Until next time

soo cold

can i just say... that it's my lunch break and i'm freezing..

A. it's snowed today.. SNOWED and we had school.. that blows my mind. big snow, def not, but in NC, this would have been no school, AT LEAST a 2 hr delay.. i had to shovel snow off my car! :) haha

b. the heat in our building has been broken the last two days. today i was asked by a student if i have a cold b/c my nose is so red.. no it's just freezing, literally.

think that would happen in a suburban schooL? i think not.

Thanksgiving

Can i just add how surprised i am to have learned this past week that
a. my kids have no idea what thanksgiving is
b. they barely know what a pilgrim and indian are
c. never heard of the mayflower (aka. my joke about it... would have flopped)
d. they have no idea why thanks should be given... even though it is a day called THANKSgiving.... hmmmm

starting over

today i took a step back.. cause i'd been getting really annoyed w/ my kids lately and feeling like they were just doing stuff to drive me crazy. HOWEVER today i didn't take it personally.... and today was a mUCH bettter day... can blame it on the fact that i was missing 4 kids... but i think it was my attitude change :)

Parent Teacher Conferences

So last night/day was parent teacher conferences.

What a long, tiring, overwhelming day.

I had 38 conferences between 9 am and 7:30pm yesterday, which was awesome. We got all paretns to come excpet for 10. out of 50, not bad.

Unfortunately there were a few parents i really wanted to see, that didn't come, but then again some parents i dind't expect to see, who came

I didn't get yelled at by any parents which was nice..

The hardest part was seeing HOW MUCH some of the parents care, and having them be dissapointed at their kids low grades. Unforutaely me and my ohter third grade teacher are VERY strict , nad expect a lot from our kids, and i think the parents see htat now.

The other hard part was telling 4 parents that their children were making d's in every subject and tat we think they need to be referred for special ed Every parent excpet for 2 were VERY surprised.

we also had a HUGE breakthrough with my BIGGEST behavior probem child's mother.
She is a mother that HATES our school/principal/teachers in general, and ALWAYS takes her daughters side, she said she was SOOO glad that she had teachers who finally could read her daughtere weren't going to give up on her, and were going to push her. She even cried!!! What an amazing breakthrough!!!

overall a very scucessful day!

i can't believe first quarter is done.. and that i still have 3 more.. haha

spanish readinG :)

today every single kid EVERY single kid in my class read a book, IN SPANISH... some might have been VERY basic.. but they did it.

and a girl who knows spanish but always speaks english spoke english to me today :)

also i learned that my girl who told me to shutup yesterday needs to be ignored.. today i told her to get to her seat, she said NO, and ran to the closet and cried like a baby and was whining. and i ignored her.. she sat in her seat w/in 5 minutes