Can you please tie my shoe Miss Garwood?

Last week was a whirlwind of learning all of my kids names, picking up on the daily routine, finding out standards and consistently fighting with the online gradebook.  I've pretty much picked up on everything so far.  My cooperating teacher will be gone on Monday so I get to take care of all of the morning routine including the huge reading lesson.  On Friday though I got to try out a science lesson with my kidlets.  They are so used to having math and reading shoved down their throats that they hardly ever have time for anything else.  The lesson went really well and the kids seemed to have a blast. My cooperating teacher liked it so much that she wants for me to do either a science or social studies lesson every Friday afternoon.

I wanted to share one of the highlights of my week though.  One of the little boys in my class, we will call him Bobbie, has a hard time paying attention in class.  His shoes come untied about every five minutes so Mrs. S. will always yell at him to retie them so he doesn't trip.  Bobbie hates it when she yells at him but can't do much about it.  On Wednesday,  he noticed that one of the laces came untied once again.  Before Mrs. S. could yell at him, Bobbie came over to me and said politely, "Can you please tie my shoe Miss Garwood?".  I said yes of course and taught him how to double knot them so he won't get yelled at again.  Little things like that totally make it worth it.

There is another child in my class, Laura, that also has a really hard time paying attention.  She also has an attitude problem which doesn't help.  Whenever the teacher takes the time to work with her one on one, Laura always just shoves the help aside and flies through the work.  We both know that if she slowed down then she could get all of the answers correct.  On Thursday, Mrs. S. reviewed regrouping with the whole class.  It was my job to walk around and to make sure all of the kidlets were on task.  Mrs. S. put four more sample problems on the board and told them all to work independently as we walked around the room.  As I strolled past Laura's desk, I saw her rapidly using her fingers to work through the problem.  Not only did she complete the problems faster than any other students, she also got them all right!  Laura saw me looking at her and gave me a small glare.  I went up to her and said, "Laura, awesome job on regrouping. You really know this stuff. High five!"  I hadn't seen her smile or be that happy all week.  Taking the time to point out what may be a small accomplishment to a teacher may actually be a huge accomplishment for such a student like Laura :)

It's little incidents like this that make teaching worth the sleepless nights.  Not to mention the random hugs throughout the day :)  Hopefully next week will be just as good.