We are now halfway through October can you believe it?! I am continuing to make more adjustments in my classroom. My TA and I moved things around and now there are 5 tables instead of 4. Kind of necessary because I have 20 kids... having 5 kids squished around a small rectangular table while they are trying to do a foundational skill like handwriting seemed a little cruel am I right?! So now they have more space and all is well. Things are especially well because I came up with a new system to organize their papers! When I first got here, I noticed that a lot of teachers had this piece of furniture with little containers for kids to put their papers/folders in. Of course my room did not have one! So I resorted to using a small table to pile up the kids' work throughout the week. Yeah that got old real fast. Well I got a present Sunday morning and finally got my own cubby/bin holder thing! Not sure what the real name for it is... so cubby/bin holder thing it is!
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| From dealing with this hot mess for 1 month... |
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| To this wonderful, beautiful creation. Each one is now labeled with their names... and they put their own papers in the bin with their name on it. Makes life so much easier. Yay for organization! |
We just got through week 2 of our after school activities... dismissal went better than last week. Instead of all the kids after school going down to the reception/lobby area, they now come down to the classroom where their child's club is being held. My roommate and I are doing a board game club. We have some basic games like Connect 4 and Uno. One of the first graders has been bringing in games from his house, and it is really funny to watch because I don't think they are his games and they have the most complex rules I have ever seen. One game had all these mazes and you put the pieces on the board. There is one extra maze piece that you can use to shift the maze. You are moving your player across the maze, and of course you can get stuck if someone moves the maze. You draw a card and are trying to collect different objects. I forget what it was called but they gave up playing it after about 5 or 10 minutes. The game he brought today was called Sushi Go. They each get 7 cards. Then they pick one card and turn it over. Then they switch cards. Again they pick one card and turn it over. You keep going back and forth until you run out of cards. Each card is worth a certain amount of points and I think you add them all up? The one kid was clearly only doing it because his friend was because he did not understand the game and was like "...is there a way to win or lose?" And his friend was like "Well yeah you do this!" and went into an elaborate description of what to do with your cards.. and his friend looked more confused than ever. So then they stopped and played a game of Uno. The confused friend was like "I LOVE Uno!!" and was probably elated to play a game he actually understood.
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The most adorable sized version of Connect 4 ever. Seriously the yellow and red pieces are about the size of dimes. It is
clearly a travel sized game. But it works since we mostly have KG1 kids in our club. Tiny games for tiny humans! |
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| A kiddie version of Jenga! I think it's called Bug Builder or something like that. |
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| This is like a Qatar version of Hungry Hungry Hippos. They shoot the chips and try to get them in the yellow slots. We don't really know what the game is called. It has pictures of Tom and Jerry on it so we just refer to it as the Tom and Jerry game! |
In my classroom things have been going as good as they can go. I know I am doing the best that I can. I continue to remind them of the rules in the classroom. I swear they almost seem TOO comfortable and at home in my room at times. They have needed more reminders than usual about how to act in the classroom. No we do not run around the classroom we walk. Take your feet off the table. Stop rolling around the rug. No you cannot sit on the bean bag chair right now. So I just take another deep breath and move on. Just keep swimming is my motto in KG2! I have definitely been learning a lot this week about effects that changes have in your classroom. Things as simple as seating arrangements are important. I have even started giving them assigned seats when we sit on the rug because when I let them choose their spots of course they sit next to their friends and chat the entire time. It was better this week when I split them up. Especially a set of twins in my room who speak mainly Arabic. I think it was also best to have them split up because that way they can each branch off a bit and make their own friends instead of just talking to each other.
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| Preach it Dory! |
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| True story. |
One of the parents in my class brought in a Turkish food dish that was so good. The families here are so friendly and eager to make partnerships with you in the classroom. I am very grateful for all of their help and contributions. Parent teacher conferences will be here before I know it! The end of this month. And then report cards in less than 2 months! Time flies in the life of a school teacher. Things have gotten better for me though. In the beginning of the year I felt like I was doing everything I could just to keep my head above water. When it came to decisions about what to do for a math lesson or to try a certain activity, it was almost like a part of me wanted and expected there to be another teacher in the room to turn to and ask them "Do you think this is ok if we do this for math? What do you think about this for the morning circle on the rug?" "Should I do handwriting after this?" but then finally I had the realization that yeah no this is my classroom- I am the one that has the final say. Things are changing now. It feels more like my room and I feel more confident about my decisions. I am the one that is always in there so of course I know what will work best for my kids!
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| I believe it is called mercimekli kofte. It has red lentils, with onion and garlic and probably other things I am forgetting. You squeeze the lemon juice on the patties and it is so good! And she said it is healthy too. Well that is good because those Oreo's and other junk food I ate later on in the day... not so much! |
Over the weekend I went to an Indian food buffet at a placed called Choices at one of the hotels. It was pretty good. As a picky eater I am proud of myself for venturing so much out of my comfort zone! I had paneer, butter chicken marsala, red mutton curry, and some other meats like chicken and steak. I am not sure what is in store for this weekend. My big plan so far is to go to one of the movie theaters and see the movie The Martian. I really liked the book (I highly recommend it if you have not read it!) and want to see how the movie will compare.
School wise I am working on getting my class set up on this website called Class Dojo. Basically it seems like a Facebook page for your classroom. You can post pictures with captions like "Today we talked about volume and worked with sand and water!" I thought it could be a fun way for me to post pictures on there to show what we are doing in the classroom. It has privacy settings and the ones who would be able to see the photos are who you invite to the page, which would only be the parents. The kids were having fun during throughout the week while I was snapping photos of them. A lot of them definitely seem to love the camera! Stay turned for more stories about my life in the desert and in a kindergarten classroom!
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