Lunch Duty

Every Monday my CT has lunch duty, but somehow up until today I have not had to be here on a Monday for lunch. We started school on a Tuesday, then we had class at NC State during lunch time, then we had no school, then we had a teacher workday and today we finally had lunch duty. Talk about stressful. I am not going to lie, I hate it! I am sure every teacher will say the same thing, but oh my goodness... it was insane. My personality came out a little bit when one of my more challenging students tried to shut the door in my face and lock me out. I had enough and I was not ready to deal with him, so I just stared him straight in the eye and said "Seriously." and he let the door go! haha, at least I kind of know how to make him listen to me now...

Anyway, I had a few extra minutes after lunch duty and a new experience so I figured I would update! Hasta luego!

Hola! Me llamo Senorita Orsega!

Two days ago I started phasing into my student teaching and taking classes from my CT. Right now Wiley is in Interum Schedule and we have 6 new classes for the next two weeks, one class from each grade level. Our daily schedule is a bit different as well. We have 4 classes straight in the morning, then lunch, then 2 more classes and then planning for 8th period. Can I please just tell you how much I love 8th period planning? I thought this schedule would be horrible, but I actually love pumping out most of the classes before lunch. In our normal schedule we have planning 2nd period which seems to make the day go on forever. These classes are also not going to be the same students that I will be teaching during my weeks as the teacher for Spanish. I have taken the 1st grade class, the 3rd grade class, and the Kindergarteners for interum (most of whom do not take Spanish and have never taken Spanish before). I think this is a good experience for me to start out with students who I will not normally have because they throw the unexpected at me every day. I am also excited to teach full time with my regular students because they will be just as amazing as these kids, but will already have some Spanish under their belts.

I think my biggest challenges right now are Kindergarten (although yesterday we learned about Peru and colored the flag and they were little angels. Maybe it was the coloring that they wanted all along...) and classroom management, mainly with my third graders. Today I did a great job of quieting them down, but they are so talkative it is exhausting. I love them though, they are really funny. Here is a conversation between two "class clowns" in my third grade class:

"Hola"

"Como estas?"

"Rojo"

"Hasta la vista baby!!!"

Needless to say, some of the kids need some work (haha:)), but I am very impressed with how quickly these kids pick up a language. Let me just repeat that most of the kids do not take Spanish as their language here at Wiley. They take German, Chinese, Japanese, or French. With all of that said, how impressed are you with these kids knowing that it is their third day ever in Spanish and they can do a conversation with a partner that sounds something like this:

   "Hola"

"Buenos dias! Como estas?"

"Estoy excelente, y tu?"

"Estoy cansada. Como te llamas?"

"Me llamo ______"

"Mucho gusto!"

"Mucho gusto tambien!"

"Hasta la vista"

"Adios"

We are learning all about where we live and we are making booklets with sentences like "Yo vivo en el sistema solar en el planeta tierra." SO awesome, love these kids.

Before I started taking over classes and mostly before I came to Wiley at all, I thought that teaching might not be for me. Now that I am here and spend my whole day every day with these wonderful kids I am so happy that I chose teaching as my profession. I love waking up every morning  and coming here! Hearing a struggling student in Spanish tell me Hola, hace frio in the morning at carpool literally makes me want to jump for joy. These kids are really great and I am excited to continue teaching them!



First Few Weeks

Hello world! I am Libby and I am in my professional semester at NC State as a student teacher. I am doing my student teaching at Wiley Elementary in Raleigh, NC and I absolutely love it! I teach 6 periods a day, 5 of those periods are classes that I have every day as an elective. I feel extremely lucky to have been blessed with such an amazing school and CT to see before I become a teacher myself. For the first few weeks I have just been getting to know the kids, helping out on the activities, and learning about teaching and classroom management from my CT. I have attended PLT meetings, faculty meetings, carpool duty, lunch duty, recess duty and more since I have been at Wiley. I think my favorite duty is carpool duty even though it is freezing cold outside. We get to greet all the little kiddies when they get to school and one of the best things ever is when the kid remembers me and runs up to me saying "Hola Senorita Orsega!" So adorable! My teacher assessed the students on parts of the house, body, and family members the other day and the best part was that when grading the tests, one of the students in the class who has been behind was one of the only students who got a 4! (a 4 is like a high A) There are a lot of great things about this school and about teaching Spanish so seriously at the elementary school level, I am excited for what is to come! :)