Huntington Day 4

I really like my job. I worked with a 6 year old today. She's struggling with her phonics and gets distracted easily, but she wants to learn. And she does pretty well. It's always a challenge balancing learning and fun with kids, but it's great. I enjoy working with all the different ages with their different interests and abilities and personalities. There's a middle school boy who is pretty fun to work with. He'll push your limits, but he's pretty good at doing his work. And a fifth grade boy who can get laughing so hard I have to walk away to get him to do his work or else he'll just keep laughing. I love it. Kids are amazing.

Day Three - Getting the Hang of It

Some of the tricks I'm picking up from Huntington:
Separate books and put them in binders with sleeves. Then use dry erase markers. It saves on paper big time!
When first meeting students ask what you should know about them: can they wiggle their ears, do they collect things, aside from just what a sports do they like and what movies are their favorites

I saw a student borrowing in subtraction in the longest way ever. I don't know who came up with it, but it takes way too much time and confuses him in the process. Instead of beginning at the right side of the number he automatically started borrowing from the left and then would carry. So he was having to add and subtract. It made things so much more difficult. Teachers out there, please don't confuse your students like that. We had to undo his strategy and reteach for quite a chunk of time today.

The same student and I came up with a strategy in reading because he isn't getting the correct vowel sound: try it out in the word then read the whole sentence. Novel concept to a fifth grader who is struggling. He's proud of his growth already, though. He said his mom was right about Huntington. His scores have already gone up. I was so happy to hear that.

Interview

I had my interview with Jordan today. It went really well. I'm pleased with it. Now they pass my name on to the principals. I can look up the schools with openings, too, and contact them on my own. So it's looking good, especially because I'm not picky about the grade I teach which gives me many more opportunities. I will keep you posted!

First Day at Huntington

Pretty smooth first day at Huntington. I worked with a fifth grader, an eighth grader, and a third grader. I had seen the fifth grade boy before when I went in for my interview. The third grade girl and I share our name so she thought that was cool, although she likes to play hide and seek. Every time I went to get a new workbook she was under the desk and around the corner.

Th supervisor said I did really well for my first day juggling things. She said it didn't go so smoothly for some of the others. I think that's my teaching training behind me. I can juggle monitoring a student, their engagement, their work, and grade pretty well at once.

I go back in on Friday. Maybe I'll work with some new kids, maybe the same ones. The kids are consistent in time, but the teachers aren't, yet. We're still figuring it all out since the center very recently opened. For a first day it went very smoothly.

Happenings

I was hired on Wednesday as a Tutor for the Huntington Learning Center. It's a part time job, but something that will keep me working with kids and in practice with academics. I should hear from them in the next couple days to start setting up my schedule. What I like about the center is that they offer one on one tutoring for the children who come in and teach the skills they need to succeed, not just to get their homework done. The philosophy sounds a lot like my work at the Writing Center at WWU.

This week I also have an interview with a school district and another interview scheduled for the first week of April. As of yet I do not have three letters of recommendation from teachers at Lincoln, but I do have two student letters, two parent letters, and a letter from my mentor. I also have a notebook full of lesson plans I have used. I just need to order my placement file with my student teaching evals to give to the district as well.

The Job Hunt

I have moved to Utah and obtained my teaching license with my reading endorsement in this state as well. In the past few weeks I have killed a forest filling out applications and have two interviews scheduled in the next couple weeks and hoping to schedule a few more. At this point I have no preference for grade level, but I am really hoping that wherever I am hired I have a mentor teacher to get me through the first year. Leading a full class completely on my own is going to be quite the step and I don't think I'll be able to do it smoothly and could really use an experienced teacher's support to help me through.

If any of my Woodring cohort is still reading this, how is the hunt going? Any success yet? I hope so. I hope I'll stay in contact with you for quite awhile and share our stories.

As soon as I am hired I will let you know. In the meantime I'll probably be exploring all those links I have posted on here. I have some experience with some of them and want to get some more experience with others.

Good luck with the job hunt!

Ms. Jessica McKell