I need to learn 90 names!

My first full week as a real- all grown up- teacher has come and gone! And I have to say- it was exhausting! It was quite the first week! On Monday and Tuesday the students spent their day either going on a trip (a scavenger hunt for freshmen, an obstacle course for sophomores and a college visit for juniors) or taking diagnostic testing. So on Monday I spent my day proctoring exams and setting up my new computer! It's a Dell Tablet, I really like it. It has a swivel and touch screen. I'm not sure how or when I will make use of those features, but they're pretty nifty nonetheless. On Tuesday I went on a scavenger hunt adventure with my advisory! We were given a digital camera and a list of pictures we had to try to take. We ran around Soho for about two hours in attempts to take as many pictures as we could: a picture of the whole team with a horse, a picture of a team mate with a milk mustache, a picture with the whole team under water, a picture of a team member taking candy from a baby ( I thought that one was a bit over the line), a picture of the whole team with the statue of liberty (this one is featured below) and lots others. I was with my group of advisees running around like crazy- I have to say it was quite the experience- soho with 10 14 year olds.

Wednesday was technically the first day of classes but since my school focuses on an individual course program for each and every student- and we follow block scheduling ( which means that each class does not meet every day, so each day's schedule is different), the scheduling process is very very complicated. Even though the school has yet to grow to a full four year school ( we only have freshmen, sophomores and juniors this year), scheduling 320 students is a very difficult process. The school uses some sort of scheduling software program that is supposed to make the entire process worry free- but of course, it didn't work for all of the students. Therefore most of the students- at least most of the freshmen- didn't have complete schedules on Wednesday. Some of them didn't have enough credits- some had two math classes, some had lunch first period, or no lunch at all! Needless to say- there was still a lot of work to be done on the student schedules.

In my math classes on Wednesday we read through the class syllabus and played a little game. I told the students about quantagories and we solved some of the puzzles for a while. An example of a quantagory is 24 H in a D. Do you know what the H and the D stand for? Give up? It's 24 Hours in a Day. Here are some more puzzles if you want to play around with them!

1. 6 O in a BI
2. 3 W on a T
3. 5 T on a F
4. 13 S on the USF
5. 52 C in a D
6. 3 BMSHTR
7. 88 K on a P
8. 9 L of a C
9. 100 C in a D
   

It's a fun little game- not completely math related, but not totally void of any logical reasoning.

On Thursday and Friday depending on if I'd seen that class or not, we played around with The Four Numbers Game- the topic of my senior exercise at Kenyon and played some more math games online. I wanted to show the students how to access the online course system we use and how they will use it for math, but unfortunately the freshmen don't yet have access to the system. This is particularly annoying to me- if they can't get online then I have to print out a copy of the homework for each and every one of them (90 kids!).

So the combination of the incomplete and wrong schedules with the lack of system access left me very frustrated. I'm sure it will all be worked out by the end of this week- but it is still frustrating now. But tomorrow should be better- I'm planning on teaching my first real lesson! Fingers crossed it goes well- the topic is data and data tables. Woohooo!

Here the picture of me with my advisory with the statue of liberty. Aren't they cute!?

One day down, about 40 years to go.

Today was my first day as a real teacher with students. Although no instruction happened, it still counted as my first-first day. And I think it went pretty well! My day started at 6:15 when my alarm sounded, even though I'd woken up many times throughout the night thinking that I had overslept my alarm and would be late! I got to school (venit espresso beverage in hand) at a little before 8 am and did a few things before the school day began. The freshmen arrived at 9am to a class meeting and then I took my advisory down to my classroom. What was once assumed to be an all girl advisory turned out to be 5 girls and 5 boys. They were a bit awkward and quiet, but I guess that's expected for their first day of highschool. We did the boring administrative tasks of passing out metrocards and going on a tour of the building's facilities. Then it was off to a math test for them! I proctored an exam for a bit and that was the end of my official responsibilities for the day.

While I was with my advisory, the 10th graders arrived at school at 10 am for their class meeting before heading to their own math assessments. The principals constructed a small presentation that included pictures and names of new faculty. I was not at the meeting, but was told by 6 different teachers that the sophomores cheered loudly when they were told that they were no longer freshmen and cheered even louder when my picture was shown in the slide show. It is definitely nice to feel welcomed and missed by the students I had last year as a student teacher. Hopefully the new freshmen will like me as well!

The entire experience was a bit surreal, as I think many of these first weeks will be. I can't believe I'm really here- being a teacher- and in New York City no less. I thought back to some of my earlier 'first days' when my mom would take a picture of my sister and me in the morning on each first day of school. Some pictures are really cute- while the ones when we are in high school are of us being annoyed and just wanting to go!

Due to the Jewish holidays our school year started with a very strange schedule. After just one day we now have a four day weekend! A bit odd, but okay with me. I'm going home! Back to Ohio for the first time in 9 months. I have a very busy 3 days ahead of me- many many friends including my best friend- shannon- who i don't plan on spending a minute without! I can't wait to spend time with my family! I miss my (not so) little brother! I'm also getting my hair professionally done for the first time since January of 2009. And the best part of all- I'm going to The Ohio State University football game! And spending a night at Kenyon! I honestly don't know what more I could ask to do in a trip home! I'm sure it will be exhausting and amazing.

I"M A TEACHER!!!

The first day of school is in less than one week. The summer just flew by! I think I'm as ready as I can be. I almost have the entire first quarter planned out, including homework assignments, which was quite the task.

So I'm going to be teaching 4 classes- 3 sections of Algebra 1 and 1 section of an Algebra/Pre-Algebra. My school also has a strong advisory program that all of the teachers take part in. I will have an advisory of between 12 and 14 students- mine will all be ninth graders. I was able to choose the theme of my advisory, and I picked 'iCraft'. So we are going to do lots of crafting projects. My advisory will mostly likely be all girls, but I'm okay with that. Hopefully I will be able to teach all of the students how to knit-if they don't know already- and we can all knit as many scarves as possible that we can donate to a shelter of some sort around the holidays.

I was able to get into my classroom this past week and set up! It was by far the most fun I've ever had at work! Here are some of the 'before' pictures of my classroom on the left. It's a huge room. It is almost twice as big as the room I was in last semester, but with only two more desks. It's quite the upgrade! The room already has a Smartboard in it - for those of you who are unfamiliar with Smart Boards here is a little video to watch:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0U05WeXPGlk
I create all of my lesson plans using Notebook software and then use my Smart Board in class. When I first started student teaching, I thought that the smart board was silly and unnecessary, but after a semester of using it everyday, I honestly have no idea how I could teach without one! It's an amazing tool that has the potential to improve education. Anyway, my room also has a full wall of white boards and it had a small and really gross old chalk board. The chalk board was written on and scratched up, so I covered it up with poster paper and turned it into a bulletin board. One of the walls in the room has built in closets and shelves.

I covered the old chalk board and the cork boards with poster paper to create fun bulletin boards. I put up posters and hung up all of the math jokes that I collected over the summer. I also printed out and laminated pictures of the top twenty mathematicians of all time to hang up in my room. I hung up mountain climbing guys and a cool wall pocket system. I also bought a big calendar and laminated it too. Here are some of the 'after' pictures! What do you think?





































I set up the desks in a flying V like pattern angled towards the smartboard (it's black int he pictures because it is covered up with a fabric cover. There are 20 desks in the room in little rows of either 3 or 4.

So, I have a few days left until I become a real-live teacher. I've been preparing for this for years. Since I was a little girl torturing my sister and our neighborhood friends to 'play school' which for me was a very fun game, but to them was hours of school work which they considered painful. After years of working hard in school to get the grades to go to college and grad school, after many hours spent tutoring and summers sacrificed to math camp and after certification tests, student teaching and a master's degree- it's finally here. In just a few days I'm going to be a math teacher. Life Goal: Achieved!

On another note, our attempts to find a new apartment are proving annoying. Zach went to look at a place yesterday that he liked, but it's such a complicated process. Hopefully, we will find a place soon and have the whole ordeal done with before school gets in full swing. We made a delicious home-made mac and cheese the other night. It was so creamy with a nice crunchy backed top. It was great!