Almost finished with the first week!

School has gone just splendid the past two days and I have REALLY enjoyed going, interacting, and of course teaching! Yesterday I taught the Maths again. Like Tuesday, it was for an hour and a half straight! 3rd graders simply CANNOT handle 2-digit and 3-digit subtraction with regrouping for an hour and a half straight!! My lesson was going particularly well, but a time comes when they simply need a break. When I saw that the students had reached that point, I made them all stand up and we sang the "Sticky Moose" song, a "something" I learned at camp! They simply loved it and told me over and over how they still had it stuck in their head. Needless to say, it worked by making them look a little bit more alive, but also seemed to make them chatty. You take some and you give some I guess. Miss Wright has been pleased with how well I've paced my lessons these past two days and has even stated that she was impressed with and planned to snitch a few of my ideas. She simply told me to keep doing what I was doing and to try to put a few subtraction problems into each lesson. I have also gotten experience at creating a test over the information I have/will be teaching tomorrow. Tomorrow, after my lesson the students will take the "Mini-Test" I've created to test their comprehension and retention of the skills I've taught them this week. I'm GREATLY interested to see the results!

Last night Tina and I again took the train into Brisbane to Shannan's house for supper (I ate my very first mango!) and then we all went to an entertainment center for the weekly free movie. This week it was the Lovely Bones... I didn't quite know what to think about it. I found it slightly disturbing and quite depressing, but fascinating nonetheless!

Today was the easiest day thus far - I didn't have to teach at all! PE and Drama class had taken all of the Maths time available. I did however have the opportunity to sit with and work individually with 3 of the most severe (academically) students in the class. While the rest of the class was working on breaking their spelling words into phonemes and putting them into sentences, we were writing their spelling words (significantly easier words) rainbow style! This simply means to write one each letter in a different color repeatedly. After that we play a good game of hangman. I gave them each a turn to pick a word and we would try and guess it. One of the students had hardly written down the lines for the letters when another student asked if the first letter was an "S". When he said that it was, both of the boys said they knew what it was... the boy's NAME! He got quite upset and I told him that he deserved another chance. He then began searching the room for another word, found one, stared at it, and marked down the spaces. The other boys obviously saw this and guessed that one right away. By then he got quite upset, so again I told him that he could have yet another turn. This time I helped him by writing the word he wanted down on a piece of paper so he had something he could reference that the boys couldn't see. It's interesting to see the different and simple things that make moods change. I truly enjoyed working with these students and several of the activities they do/ manipulatives they use are ones I would consider for my classroom of almost any age!

After school Tina and I went on a nice long bike ride into an area of Burpengary that she has never seen before. It was good excerise that I wouldn't have gotten otherwise, but I have no doubt my butt will hurt in the morn! :) Then after planning a few of next weeks lessons, I ate my first passionfruit. It was a bit sour, but I could definitely see how it would be AMAZING on vanilla ice cream... and I'm not even that big of an ice cream fan!

A major difference I have noticed between Morayfield E.S.S. and the MN schools was the amount of absence and truancy (tardiness) is MUCH higher here than back in the states. It has not been uncommon to have 4 or 5 students walk in late (anywhere between 10 minutes to an hour an a half) each morning. Another 3 or 4 are usually absent. Usually the tardiness notes read, "Slept In" or "Was shopping in the AM". I have heard several parents come up to Miss Wright explaining that their son/daughter will be missing tomorrow because he/she will be going to Dreamworld (an amusement park in Brisbane) or absent for the next two weeks because his/her family is having a holiday (vacation) along the coast. Unbelievable!! When I asked Miss Wright about it, she said that it is solely the parents' fault and that they obviously do not have as strict of policies for absence and truancy as we do in the US.

written by

cowane1 on August 26, 2010 from Morayfield, Australia

from the travel blog: Australian Adventures!

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wow! glad to hear things are going great for you, keep writing i enjoy reading them.

written by James Cowan on August 26, 2010

So good to read of your adventures in the classroom. Truly Emily, you do have a heart for the special ed student! What a gift and blessing. :) Fun to hear of your Math(s) lesson. :) Will be fun to chat about math more when you're here. I'll try not to say too much, but when it comes to math!!! yup..it's hard to keep silent! :) Take care and keep up the good work.

written by Rosine on August 30, 2010

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