The First Day

Hi all!

I started my first day today at Trottier, so let me give y'all a run-down of what I'll be doing:

• Observing two teachers (Mr. Clark--band and orchestra--and Mr. Griffin--math)
• Being of assistant to those teachers
• Helping individual students with their homework
• Working with seventh and eighth graders in all their classes

My schedule there goes from 8-12 everyday; I'll be blogging every afternoon. 

So I guess the point of this blog is to tell people what I'm up to every day. 

My schedule today looked like a student who's taking classes from only two teachers. One period, I'm in Mr. Griffin's classroom either doing seventh or eighth grade math, and another period, I'm in Mr. Clark's band room taking part in his electives or his ensemble groups. Did you know he has bandies from all his grades now?<--That comment was aimed toward Channing, Steph, Kelsey, Kristen (Pomps and Crowley), Kyla, and Heather. Am I allowed to give a shout out to you guys?

Going back to Trottier--this time on the other side of the spectrum--feel so weird! It's like a return to the age of Ugg boots and Juicy Sweatsuits. Remember those? 

I'm getting really weird deja-vu every time I walk into the cafeteria or any of the classrooms I used to take classes in. I feel like I haven't grown much (taller) since middle school because I'm just as tall as the eighth graders, but they still think I'm SO old...

So I sat in on two classes of eighth grade math today.  Mr. Griffin has another teaching assistant who actually will be leaving in a few weeks, but she had the chance to go over the test/quiz/tuiz(?) that the kids took the other day, and then Mr. Griffin took over and went over a mini-quiz. I got really involved in the last ten minutes of class because the students had time to start their homework (which was the rectangle packet), and I went around and people actually asked me questions! Yay! 

Something really unique today was that the elementary school came up to watch Trottier's musical "Peter Pan." That meant that band wasn't happening so during one period, I actually went to their replaced "study hall" and helped a kid with his math homework. I got him to the point of doing those problems by himself. He seemed to really understand what he was doing after only a few problems. 

Middle school is such a blast from the past, and I realized I need a lot of energy to teach this age level. Anything dull and I lose their attention. But these kids are smart, and they haven't been very mean to me :) Tomorrow will be my second day there. I'll be getting more comfortable with this new change! 

Questions/comments are all Welcome! 

Erin