Miss Read Puts Her Feet Up!

Hi everyone! One of the perks of working at my new school is the fact that we get all of Thanksgiving week off! When I was a kid we just got Thursday and Friday, and when I got older the schools started giving kids Wednesday off. But now it is a whole separate vacation! Do any of your schools do it that way? 
All week I've been thinking of so many things I wanted to write about, but now that I have some time, my mind is just blank. I feel like I need to lay down and put my feet up all week long! Because I go to three and sometimes four classrooms a day, and don't really get a break, I hardly ever get a chance to sit down at work. The days go by so fast, and usually I am full of energy at work, but when I get home I just crash. 
I've been having a good time with Toko! The little dude had absolutely zero impulse control, but he is a really sweet boy. One problem I've been having is the fact that I feel like I am "redirecting" him all day long. A lot of it is things that I don't have a serious problem with, but I want him to stop doing because other teachers or staff members will yell at him. I get tired of hearing my own voice going, "Toko, sit down. Toko, stand up. Toko, walking feet. Toko, put your glasses on. Toko, come back to your desk. Toko, stop talking. Toko, turn around. Toko, pay attention. Toko, hands to self!" I know Toko is starting to get tired of my voice too, when he looks at me and says, "When are you gonna go help Wyken or Bess?" 
I want to find a way to redirect him without constantly talking to him or scolding him. Although he doesn't have autism, I've thought of trying something that I've often seemed used with children with autism or very young children. I thought of bringing a camera, and having Toko demonstrate for me the correct way to behave in different situations, such as sitting at his desk working, walking in the hallway, or standing in line. (He does cognitively know the correct ways to do these things, but just forgets in the heat of the moment.) I'd take pictures of him demonstrating each behavior. I could actually tape the picture of him working at his desk onto his desktop, and put the other photos on a key ring. That way, instead of constantly giving him verbal reminders, I could just point to the picture that showed him what he is supposed to do. Then I could save my voice for more positive comments like, "Great job sitting down," or "I like how you're walking so nicely in the hall!"
What do you think?  

Meanwhile back in Mr. Shizuko's room, Wyken has been getting out of hand. I think he's starting to drive Mr. Shizuko crazy! He doesn't really behave poorly, but he never stops talking and singing. The other kids complain about it when they're trying to work independently. Mr. Shizuko asks Wyken to sing quietly, or sing in his head, but a minute later Wyken will be singing audibly to himself. It seems to be a sort of unconscious habit. I told Mr. Shizuko he could send Wyken over to my other classroom when he needs a break. but then the resource teacher told me I could not do that because Wyken and Toko have apparently had conflicts in the past and Wyken can't stand Toko. Any ideas for getting a kid to stop singing and talking? All I can think of is giving something else to do with his mouth, such as allowing him to chew gum or suck on a hard candy... but I don't think Mr. Shizuko would allow it. Even though he's one of the less strict teachers, the problem with kids with special needs in inclusion classes is that the teachers think, "If I give this kid something, I'd have to give it to everyone." Something like a bouncy seat cushion can be explained as a physical need, but allowing one student to have candy would probably not fly. 

I have a week to stew about these issues, so I hope you can give me some ideas! In the mean time, here are some funny kid quotes for the day!

Kid: "How long is Thanksgiving break?"
Me: "A week."
Kid: "A WEEK? I CAN'T HANDLE A WEEK!!!"

Me: "I found this pencil on the floor. Is it yours?"
Kid: "I have never seen that pencil before in my life."

Teacher: "Toko, can you think of something you're thankful for?"
Toko: "My football!"
Teacher: "We're trying to think of things we really need, like our health, our homes, or our families. Like your brother, maybe! If you could only pick one, what would you rather have... a football, or your brother?"
Toko: "Uh... my football!"

Have a great week, everyone! 

Wyken and Taz

I am now working almost full time with Taz, and only seeing Wyken for an hour a day. Wyken is absolutely fine without me, and when I do go in there I am often either observing or working with other kids, especially Davey who follows me around at all times when I'm in there. If anything, I try to check in with Wyken at least once a day and keep an eye on him on the days I have recess duty, as more of an emotional support person. A lot of times he will come and talk to me when he feels like he's been slighted in some way, like if some of the other kids won't play with him, if he's been yelled at by one of the cranky lunch supervisors, if he's lost his blue marker and is certain someone has stolen it from him, etc. I'll just sort of listen to him and help him put things into perspective, until his attention wanders and he dashes off to play. I really miss working with Wyken all the time... even though I was only really with him for two weeks, it was a fun two weeks!
Taz is another story. I mean, I definitely like Taz, and it is fun working with him, but he is very different from Wyken. Taz is a tough nut to crack. 
Taz's biggest obstacle in life is his impulsiveness. He is also very fast and intense. For example... You know how first graders are sort of prone to "cutting" in line? Taz does this himself quite a lot. But if anyone else cuts in line either in front of him, in back of him, or somewhere else completely, Taz will scream and just give the person a healthy shove! One time this very small first grader named Shay got behind Taz in line, and Taz felt that he had cut. So Taz turned around and pushed the kid so hard, he toppled and fell to the floor! I watched the whole thing happen. And you know, I very rarely raise my voice or even use an extremely firm voice. So when this happened, I marched over and looked Taz in the eye, and said, "You pushed him? I think you need to say sorry, and then go to the end of the line!" I barely raised my voice at all, but it sure shocked Taz, and he quickly said sorry and went to the end of the line. (And then I felt kinda bad. But jeez, you can't just shove people like that... especially people who are about twenty pounds soaking wet!) He now has a behavior sheet where he can earn stars for working on a weekly goal. This week, his goal is keeping hands and feet to self. And he's actually able to do this, most of the time, as long as I keep reminding him, "What are you working on?" I also try to show him what he should be doing, and point out kids who are doing the correct thing, such as sitting on the carpet during circle time instead of leaning over and poking people. 
Another of Taz's obstacles is the fact that, academically, he is a lot lower than the other first graders. He is pretty good at faking it though. For some reason the teacher is always having the kids copy sentences off of the board, and calling this Writing Workshop. They have to copy entire paragraphs. Taz is fairly good at copying, but he often leaves out letters or entire words, and he never has any idea of what he just wrote. Today I worked with him on writing a page about Presidents, and he just kept asking, "What does this say? Can you read this again?"
Other times, he completely surprises me with his ability to know what is going on. Today the kids were reading a Weekly Reader comparing the two Presidential candidates. I had spent most of the afternoon working with yet another student, filling in for the student's usual aide who was at a meeting. When I came back into Taz's class he was sitting quietly, looking at his Weekly Reader, and listening to what the other students were reading aloud. To look at him, you would have never guessed that he had no idea what most of the words on the page said! When the teacher asked questions, Taz was able to answer them correctly every time. However, when the kids were supposed to circle those same answers on the page, Taz couldn't do it and needed me to point out the very same answer he had just mentioned. 
An important obstacle for Taz, in my mind, is the quiet battle going on between his parents and teachers. His parents, who adopted him a few years ago, are dead set against him being in special education. They allow him to have speech therapy, but that is all. For the classroom teacher, Taz's behavior is the main concern. In fact she has started keeping track of the number of times she has to redirect him. Even if she asks him to sit down and he does it right away, because she told him to sit down it is counted. Even with this new behavioral sheet, it was almost as if she was hoping Taz wouldn't be able to get the stars. As if she were setting him up to fail, just to be able to offer proof that he needs to be in a special education class. Today I felt like Taz had an awesome morning... he got almost all of his starts, and the ones he didn't get were for very small infractions... but the teacher felt that Taz had had a terrible morning as usual. She just can't stand if he talks out or does anything. Once I was walking with Taz from his locker to his classroom, and he was bopping himself in the head with his folder, which I didn't even notice... I guess I was just dismissing it as regular 7-year-old boy behavior. He was otherwise being fine, walking and not making noise. But the teacher came out, saw him, ordered him to go back to his locker and walk again without bopping himself with the folder, and scolded me for not being more firm with him. Five kids in the class can be doing the same exact thing, but if Taz is doing it he is the one who will get yelled at. 
I feel like poor Taz is not getting served at school. He spends so much time just copying things he doesn't understand, and so little time really learning things at his own academic level. All the attention is on his impulsive and distracting behavior, and instead of trying to find ways to teach him how to behave properly, or putting things in place to help him behave properly, the teachers just yell at him, give him consequences, and write down what he did in hopes of convincing someone to get him out of the room. 
I really hope I can make a difference for Taz, but I am not sure how I will be able to... there are just so many people in the situation already who want to be completely in charge and feel that their way is the correct way. 
What do you think? Any input? 
Oh well. I am going to take a nap. Despite the "fall back" time change, I feel like I haven't slept in days! 

NOW You Tell Me!

Okay. So you know things have been rough with Billy, the little guy I am working as an aide with in the ESY program. He has good moments and bad moments. A bad moment may be him screaming and running out of the classroom, and me having to catch him and wrangle him back into the room. A good day may mean that he sits down for fifteen minutes during Calendar and is able to tell the teacher what month it is. But pretty much every moment is crazy and stressful for all of us! Not to mention that some of the other kids also have behavioral issues... although their issues are more from stubbornness than anything else. Like climbing onto the table and yelling, "Nana nana boo boo!" like one little, cute-as-a-button girl does regularly. 


Last Wednesday we had PE for the first time. Billy hated it, ran out of the gym, and refused to go in. I ended up taking him back to the classroom, but not allowing him to do any of his preferred activities, because I didn't want him to think he'd get to use the computer just by refusing to do work!


This time we had PE. I was doubtful it would go well, since Billy was already having a rough time. This time there were two gym teachers, one of whom seemed to know Billy from his regular school. As I was struggling to get Billy to do one section of the obstacle course that was set up, and thinking it would be successful if he stayed for ten minutes, the aide walked up and totally took over. She just grabbed Billy and started telling him, "Work, Brandon!" She was a lot bigger than me so she was able to wrangle him more easily. She kept showing him some sort of visual schedule, and he was actually doing the things she demanded that he do. 


My feelings were kind of hurt. I kind of felt like the gym teacher must have though I was incompetent because I couldn't get Billy to go around the obstacle course. She didn't even look at me or talk to me at all, but just marched over and snatched Billy from me. She even took his stuffed kitty (which I let him carry with him as a sort of transitional object/stimmy thingie) and said, "No toys in gym!" I just stood there, feeling awkward and holding the bedraggled kitty, while she and Billy went around the gym.


Finally gym was over. The gym teacher came over and showed me the visual schedule she was using. It was basically a strip of laminated paper, with velcro down the middle, and the number 5,4,3,2, and 1 stuck to it. The gym teacher said, "Why don't you just keep this?" She explained that, when you ask Billy to do a task, he has to do it, in order to take one of the numbers off the list. She told me that this was what the teachers used with Billy during the school year. "He is cuckoo for numbers! He'll do anything for them!" she said. 


Dude. There are six days left of ESY. Six. For nearly a month I have been struggling to get Billy to do the simplest things. I made visual schedules, work-work-work-break charts, and visual prompts, let him work for computer time and cell phone time, took him for walks when he was acting too squirrely,   etc. All of it worked a tiny bit, but not much. If someone could have just told me about the system the teachers had already been using with Billy for the past three years, the system that he was used to and responded to, think about how  much easier this whole thing would have been! Billy would have felt more comfortable from the start if he'd seen the system he already understood. But all I was told about him was his age, diagnosis, and IEP goals. 


Oh well. Six more days. 


In other news, I have discovered that Billy loves glue, and will usually do any work involving it. So I make worksheets and projects based on his IEP goals, that require him to glue things onto other things. I even turn the teacher's regular worksheets into cut-and-paste activities to adapt them for Billy! He does tend to eat quite a bit of the glue in the process. (Don't worry, it's nontoxic!) 


Yesterday the teacher let the kids play with shaving cream during free time. She just squirted a little bit of shaving cream on each of their desks. It's fun, novel, doesn't stain, and is super-easy to clean up! It even leaves the desks cleaner than they were in the beginning! Billy was watching some of the other kids play with the shaving cream. I asked him, "Do you want to try that?" and Billy enthusiastically replied, "YES!"


I took him to his desk, and the teacher sprayed some shaving cream on the desk. Billy stuck his hands into it. He giggled and said, "Shaving cream!" Then he took a big handful and stuck it in his mouth!

The teacher assured me that the shaving cream was nontoxic too, but it still grossed me out. I know some people will tell me, "Maybe he thought it was whipped cream!" But he still kept trying to eat it, even after that full mouthful, so I think he must have realized it wasn't whipped cream and just liked it anyways. 


Ugh. 

Six more days. 

More Fun Adventures With Billy

Hi everyone! I am so glad this week is over! I literally came home and collapsed on the couch, and slept for two hours before I even ate lunch!
The week went a little better for Billy.  Billy is always crying that he wants to go home and see a favorite stuffed animal, a stuffed cat he calls "Baby Kitty." All day he says, "Go home, see Baby Kitty?" Last Friday, while I was at Wal-Mart, I came upon a small stuffed cat. It was meant for infants, and was very soft, with a rattle inside. I didn't find it in the baby aisle, though. It was in the office supply section, presenting itself to me like some sort of miracle! I bought it, and brought it to school for Billy on Monday. He loved it right away. He got a big smile on his face and said, "Kitty!" and has been carrying it with him, ever since, like a transitional object. Holding Kitty, he has been able to spend more time sitting in group activities and working on school work. 


In fact, Monday and Tuesday were awesome! On those days, Billy attended and participated in all of the group activities, worked with me on reading and math, and played happily on the playground. (The week before, you might remember, he spent playground time screaming, trying to run for the parking lot, and throwing his cellphone on the ground.) (Not his cellphone... the one that I gave him to play with during breaks!) He loved playing on the slide and sending Kitty down the slide!


Wednesday and Thursday were not as great. On Wednesday, we had PE, and it turned out that Billy hated it. He cried the whole time and tried to run out of the room. I eventually just took him out and walked around the school with him for the rest of PE time. (Walking is physical activity, right? And probably better for him than sitting on the gymnasium floor and hollering?) On Thursday, he didn't want to do any school work or sit in any groups, and I had to stop him from running out of the classroom about ten times. 


And then today... Friday the 13th... Billy was in even rarer form! He could not sit in group. When I held him on my lap, he squirmed, laughed loudly, yelled random words, slapped me, and kept knocking the schedule off of the white board. (It is balanced precariously on the sill of the whiteboard, and falls down about eighty times per day, sometimes onto the head of a student!) I got him to do some math with me, by having him paste numbers onto a sheet of paper in the correct order... but he mostly did it because he was also eating the paste whenever he thought I wasn't watching! 


The school's playground actually consists of three separate play areas, each about ten yards away from each other. Our class usually is only allowed to play on the nearest playground, but I sometimes take Billy to the furthest playground because there is a swing, which calms him. During playground time today, Billy took off running towards the furthest playground. I followed, but did not chase him, because if you chase Billy he thinks it is a game and will just run even faster to get away. However, when Billy passed up the furthest playground, I did start to run! He was headed out towards an open field that is just beyond the school yard. I am a fast runner and easily caught up with him. But the hard part was getting him back up to the regular playground! Remember, Billy is big for his age, and I am kind of a weakling. 


I did my best to restrain Billy while also walking with him back towards the school. Of course he did what every little kid does when an adult is trying to make them walked... he turned his legs into Jello and fell to the ground! I was hoping to get the attention of the teacher or one of the aides, so they'd come help me walk Billy back. But nobody saw us. 


When Billy grabbed my arm and pinch-scratched it with all his might, I got an extra surge of adrenaline! 


The weird thing about me is I barely ever raise my voice at students, especially with kids like Billy who would probably just get more upset. And I didn't raise my voice this time... but I did say, probably more firmly than I've ever spoken to him, "No! That is not nice!" Then I took him by the hand and just towed him back to the school. Billy let me pull him... he was probably a little startled and subdued when I snapped at him. We got back to the regular playground, where nobody had noticed us missing. Billy was much calmer and went back to playing on the slide. 


Later, during snack time, Billy picked up the garbage can and threw it, and laughed hysterically as all the garbage fell out.  I told him we don't do that, and I picked up the garbage and threw it away in a different can, so the small can was empty. Billy picked it up again and threw it across the room! This time I took away his cellphone, and told him he had to sit in his chair for the rest of snack time, which would be about five more minutes. I sat on the table to "guard" him, but I did not look at him or talk to him. Since we don't have any sort of Time Out or Cooling Off Spot or whatever, this was all I could really think of to get the message to him. I think he got it, because he sat there, but kept asking me, "Telephone now? Computer now? Telephone? Goodbye song?" while I ignored him .


That was pretty much our day... and I'm chalking it up to the fact that this was a long week! It was our first full week, because last week we had Wednesday off for the Fourth Of July, and the week before that was a half week. Billy wasn't used to being in summer school for more than two days at a stretch, and maybe his patience and good behavior wore out way back on Tuesday. I'm hoping Monday will be better!


In answer to some of your comments...
I don't really have any contact with Billy's planning team because they are all on summer vacation and unreachable. This summer school program is a little weird because they just take the special ed kids from multiple districts and put them in a random school, with random staff members, and all we get is a copy of their IEP and maybe a note from their regular teacher. Billy is only 8 and he doesn't seem to want to injure me... I think he just gets frustrated and wants to SQUEEZE something, and I am the closest person handy. He does not touch other staff members or students in any way ... in fact he barely notices they're there. 


I still don't have a weighted vest or many other materials for Billy. I brought him the celphone and stuffed duck on my own, but I don't think I can afford a weighted vest! 


The aides have gotten a little better... or maybe I've just gotten better at ignoring them. They still send me dirty looks when Billy is taking more breaks than other kids, when he is being noisy, when he's doing separate work from the others, etc. But I don't really care. I treat them with respect and I am always friendly, and that is about all I can do! 


That's all for now, everyone! Thanks for listening! 

Yay For A Better Day!

I don't know if anyone is actually reading these blog entries, but if you did read my last two posts about Billy, I must have sounded like a horrible person torturing a poor child with autism! (If you didn't read those posts, Billy is the little boy I'm working as a 1:1 aide with for an ESY program, and he had a very tough time adjusting during the first week... he basically just hollered all day long! The other aides were irritated because they thought I should be somehow forcing Billy to sit quietly through all of the activities, even if he wasn't able to participate at all.)
Some of Billy's behaviors remind me a lot of the first little boy I was a 1:1 for, Tommy. He also had autism, although he was much more verbal than Billy, and also extremely smart. (Billy has an intellectual impairment as well as autism.) Like Billy, Tommy had trouble sitting through long group activities, and would start acting out. One of the things the teachers had already done for Tommy, before I started working there, was to make him a little chart with four boxes on them. Each of the first three boxes was equal to five minutes of work or group time. Whenever Tommy sat and did what he was supposed to do for five minutes, he got a star in one of the boxes. After fifteen minutes, he'd get to take a break. (The fourth box had a Pecs symbol for break in it.) Tommy was usually able to sit for fifteen minutes, when he could see that he was getting closer to a break. After a while I started waiting longer and longer to give Tommy each star. Pretty soon he was able to sit through almost an entire group activity before taking a break!
I thought maybe this same system might work for Billy. So, over the weekend, I made this.(There is a phone instead of a break symbol, because Billy loves phones, and he has an iPhone plus an old cell phone of mine to play with during his breaks.)

I put it into action today, starting when Billy first got to school. I showed him the card and, pointing to each box, explained, "Work, work, work, phone." Then I sort of ushered him over to the calendar area. Billy almost never sits on the floor like the other kids. Even when you give him a chair, he squats on it like a frog instead of sitting on it! He squatted on the chair for fifteen minutes, though, and participated in Calendar time as best as he could. He was able to tell the teacher that it was Monday and that the month was July, and he helped name some of the pictures on the schedule. Then he happily went to the other side of the room for his phone time! 


The only difficult part was parting with the phone at the end of the break. I would tell him he had one minute left, and after a while tell him he had ten seconds, and count down from ten. I would give him a chance to put the phone away. But usually I ended up wrestling the phone out of his hand and putting it up where he couldn't reach! However, once it was away, he did come and do the work he needed to do. 


In math, he did a whole packet of counting worksheets. (He can't really count, but he said the numbers as I touched the items, and he pointed to the number I asked him to.) During social skills, he was starting to get irritable, and had gone and put on his backpack in hopes of getting to go home! But he sat on my lap and answered some simple questions like his name and age. In reading, he sat on my lap with the group and helped name some pictures and some alphabet letters. And in OT, he colored a picture of the world green and blue and glued it onto another sheet of paper. (The OT, by the way, did not seem like the kind of person who should work with children! She spoke in a monotone, acted as if she were about to fall asleep at any minute, and never once cracked a smile.)


Billy was so happy when the day was over! I told him he did great work and that he should tell his Mommy what a good job he did. 


I feel good. Last week, at the end of each day, I left feeling discouraged and sad, and sort of trapped because I didn't really want to go back but I knew I had to. But today, I left feeling happy, the way I used to feel after a day of student teaching. Like I had really accomplished something. And now I can't wait for tomorrow! 


By the way, I also had to make this picture for Billy. LOL!

Math Lessons At Ash Elementary

Hi, everyone! Today was my first day of doing observations at Ash Elementary School .* I'm sure you're all dying to know how it went!
The class that I'm doing the observations for is a class on how to teach math, so I was mostly there to observe the math lessons. Its a second grade classroom. The somewhat annoying thing about my school is that, although I am majoring in special education and intend to teach special ed, I have barely ever been placed in a special education or with any type of special ed teacher. The closest I have come was being allowed to shadow a resource teacher for two hours one morning. So its a little difficult because, although I am going to be learning and practicing on how to teach a large group of typically developing second graders with a few children with special needs mixed in (and those few usually leave the classroom for reading and math) I will not get much experience in teaching children with special needs. But... oh well!
Great things I observed? The classroom is super organized, with children busy and happy at all moments. There is a lot of moving around the room and talking, instead of the quiet boredom I endured in most of my elementary school classes! The children also get a lot of choices throughout the day. For instance, during "work centers," the kids were able to raise their hands and say which work center they wanted to go to. The teacher kept track on a chart, so eventually throughout the week the kids would have had the chance to do each work center, but it would still be their choice. Different work stations included reading an oversized book with a partner and taking turns using a pointer to point at the words, coloring scarecrows for the bulletin board, playing educational games, using the computer, listening to a book on tape, etc.
Interesting things I observed? The classroom uses Everyday Mathematics, which is supposed to be based on real-life math situations. There is a lot of emphasis on learning math strategies to solve problems. But some of the strategies for solving problems seem more complicated than the problem itself!
For instance, lets say you have the problem 9 + 6. You're supposed to say to yourself, "9 is one less than 10. I know that 10 + 6 = 16, so and one less than 16 is 15, so 9 + 6 = 15."
Okay, maybe that one isn't so bad... but here's another one.
Lets say you have the problem, 4 + 6. You should say to yourself, "I've already memorized that 4+4 is 8, and 6 is 2 more than 4. 10 is 2 more than 8, so 4 + 6 must be 10!"
To me, it just seems like counting would be easier! I always had a horrible time learning math, but I think I would have had more trouble trying to remember all of the strategies, and working the problems out that way, than I would have just counting in my head!
Another thing I noticed, which I have also noticed while observing in other schools before, is that sometimes teachers don't quite know what to do with the behavioral issues of the children with special needs in the class. In the classes I've observed, this one included, there are always two or three children that have special needs, with behavioral issues that come along with them. This may be anything from a child with autism who keeps making random noises or  jumping out of his seat to get a closer look at the fascinating basket of colored paper clips on the teacher's desk (Those things are just begging to be lined up or sorted out!) to a child with ADHD who just keeps fidgetting or blurting things out during circle time, to a child with a developmental delay who just doesn't seem sure of what he's supposed to be doing and so just sits there. There seems to be a lot of training for teachers on how to teach children with various learning needs, plus a lot of the kids with special needs get help from special teachers or staff members during reading and math. But teachers don't seem to have many ideas on how to handle the different behaviors! In another class i observed, the teacher would just get so frustrated and angry with the children who had trouble going with the flow of the classroom. In the class I observed today, the teacher was a little less easily frustrated, but still wasn't sure how to manage certain kids. For instance, one little girl who clearly had special needs kept doing things such as talking out of turn and moving around when she wasn't supposed to. The kids get rewarded for good behavior with tokens, which they can turn in each month for prizes. So this little girl kept getting in trouble and having to give up a token. She lost three tokens in the three hours I was there! The thing that bothered me about this was that 1.) The little girl didn't seem to have much control over moving around and blurting out... she'd just forget, and bounce away. 2.) When she did lose a ticket, it didn't bother her at all... she cheerfully gave up the little piece of paper, so she wasn't really learning anything in the moment. 3.) By the time the students cash in their tickets, and the little girl finds she barely has any, she will long have forgotten those wiggly moments during story time!
Saddest thing I observed? There was one part of the day when the students had to quickly find a partner for an activity. That same little girl walked around asking everyone to be her partner, even grabbing people, but the other children ignored her. Finally the teacher had to assign her someone. :(
Funniest thing I observed? I always love overhearing the conversations of little kids when they think no adults are paying attention. So here are a couple I heard today. During snack time: "What if my mom poisoned my snack today? I might be about to eat a poisonous grape!" During work time; "I think I forgot to wear underwear today. Yep, I'm pretty sure I forgot." LOL!
Thats all I have for today! Feel free to comment if you have any thoughts on Everyday Math, behavior management, or anything else!

Yours truly,
Miss Angel Read.

*Names of all schools, teachers and students have been changed.