Monday, December 7, 2009

New state, new challenges

I just moved to California and am a first grade Dual Immersion teacher here. My new school is amazing. Great leadership and great teachers. I have quite an interesting and definitely challenging group of kids this year. I will start with Mitchell.
Now this student is a biter, but does not bite other students- he just bites anyTHING that he can get his hands on. Throughout the first two weeks of school he gnawed at my table edge that sits near me in the front of the classroom. It looked like an animal with much sharper teeth than a child had gotten to my table. Mitchell sits right in the front of the rug area (which happens to be right next to my poor table) because in addition to his need for um.. oral stimulation... he also cannot sit still. He is a smart student, but has so much trouble focusing on the lessons because he needs a LOT of sensory stimulation.
During a lesson, Mitchell gnaws on my table (we have given him a chew toy so he leaves the table alone), licks the floor, table, and other students, chews on the carpet, rubs his forehead repeatedly against the carpet, eats (yes chews and swallows!) his shoelaces, pieces of paper, and his shirt (buttons included), hits the floor with his palms and feet, whips his head around in circles repeatedly and says it makes him dizzy, but it feels good.
One day, my sink was clogged and the sink became full of dirty water filled with dirt from kids' hands, paint residue, and spit from kids drinking from the water fountain which is also over the sink. At the end of the day, Mark gets up to walk around (he now sits behind the rug on a chair and has a signal that he uses when he cannot sit anymore. He gets up and does a walking lap around the classroom, drinks water if he needs it and sits again). He decides to get a drink and instead of using the water fountain, he sticks his face in the dirty sink water and starts to slurp loudly! I was in the middle of teaching a lesson and had to jump up and yell for him to stop. He looked up at me startled, and then said, "I'm thirsty. It tastes good." He then stuck his head back into the sink water and began to drink again. I had to get up and explain to him (again) how dirty the water was and why it was bad to drink from there.

His mom comes in and sits with him twice during the week during the morning to help him focus. I need some new ideas on how to help this kid! The signal thing works sometimes. Other times, he abuses it and ends up trying to make the students laugh with what he does (i.e. doing pushups while doing his lap around the classroom). He has low self esteem and feels like he needs to be the clown for others to like him. I made him one of my Behavior Monitors so that he has to be the leader in good behavior. He has the power to at the end of the day choose someone in the class who had great behavior. He needs to make sure he sets a good example, otherwise, he loses this job for the day. It has also helped him, but the thing is, he can't control what he does. He's allowed to chew on his chew toy and build, break down, and build again dry-erase erasers while on the rug and while he's supposed to be listening. Yet, he abuses that too and bothers other students still. How else can I help him focus? Any ideas?

Saturday, January 10, 2009

Brush your teeth!

Ahhh bless their hearts, but some of my kids have the worst smelling breath ever! Don't your parents teach you to brush your teeth?
"Ms. T- um, well, um" Gosh spit it out girl- you're killing me with your breath! Haha just yesterday I was sitting at a table helping one student with their writing, and another student comes and stands right next to me so we're eye level. She starts talking and I have to stop breathing! It's THAT bad. It smells like she woke up in the morning, went straight to school, stuffed her face with some cafeteria breakfast food, spent the morning in my classroom without even wiping her mouth and then came back from lunch with even WORSE smelling garlic/ onion breath.
All I have to say is that I'm dedicating a lesson next week to personal hygiene and how important brushing your teeth is. Unbelievable that the parents don't notice their child's breath smells so putrid.

Monday, January 5, 2009

Ahhhh a fresh new year

Ahhh. My closet was clean and organized. My homework sheet and newsletter were copied and ready to go. Carpet was clean. Floor swept. Morning Message written. Calendar changed. The students had a new seating arrangement. New reading partners. New reading baggies. I walked into my classroom this morning feeling renewed and ready. I had a wonderful vacation visiting my family in California. I was sad to leave them, but I felt good walking into my classroom this morning. I had an abundance of patience and happiness all day long. I love being organized and being ahead of the game. One of my New Years Resolutions is to be organized. To keep up my organization as the year goes on. It feels so good! I just get lazy and let the organization slip one day and then another and another.... not this year!
I have this poetry book for the classroom that comes with many poems for each month and then has lesson plans attached to them. The one for this week is called, The Beginning of a New Year Means. It talks about the fresh start that a new year brings. All the fresh starts that can occur. I hope that this poem really helps the students to improve themselves as students for the new year. It's a concept that they haven't been exposed to yet. A new year means you get to start over. You can try harder this year to be a better reader, a better writer. You can work harder to follow the rules, etc. We'll see how it goes and if any behaviors (academic and/or social) change for the better.