Crayon Peeler

      Whew, last week was a doozie! With Mrs. Hoffman out all week I got a feel of what it would be like to really run a classroom. I did have a fantastic substitute in the room, and she really encouraged me to pick and choose which lessons and activities I wanted to do and that I would rather she take over. I would say I did around 80% of each days activities. I was exhausted come Friday but of course, a busy weekend refused to let me rest. I was so thankful to see Mrs. Hoffman's smiling face Monday morning when I walked in the door. She was feeling great after her surgery and you could tell the kids (and myself) really missed her! I had a birthday over the weekend and when I walked in Monday morning I saw that Mrs. Hoffman had made me a teacher banner for my desk! It is SO cute! I was so excited :)

So yes, that is my desk. It is a 5th grade desk which means it's a little bit bigger than the desks our students have :) It's cute and a perfect place to store my things and work during our planning period.

 I've taken over Animated Literacy this week. If you aren't familiar with this programs it is one that introduces letters in accordance to language development. each letter has a complimenting character equipped with a full background story, song, rhyme, and gesture. The combination of these techniques help students to remember the visual letter as well as it's sounds. I've had to study up on the stories and characters but the programs seems effective! The students learn them in kindergarten and I often see them doing the motions when reading different sounds in words and they are always filling me in on the stories since I'm new to the whole thing.

I'll end on another 1st grade quote story. We were doing an activity yesterday that involved color words. Students had to color the shape with the appropriate word written in the shape. A student must've used their crayons often because the end was flattened all the way down to the wrapper. They came and asked me if I would peel the wrapper for them. I was standing there pealing away the top part of the wrapper on their crayon while talking with Mrs. Hoffman about what our next activity would be and I hear the student say "Wow....Miss faust, You're a really good peeler" So there you have it, folks. If I fail miserably at this teacher thing and never succeed at anything in my life at least I can say I am an excellent crayon peeler....as labeled by a 1st grader :) Just add that to the list of "jobs" teachers take on when they go into this career!