So I Had This Crazy Idea...

For my work sample I am working on teaching my students to find items in a grocery circular and then total the items. It is the IEP goal for two of my students. Boring. Who does that in real life? Sorry if you do that. No offense.
One of the issues for these students is teaching generalizing skills. Sure, they can add the items in the classroom looking at a fake grocery advertisement. But could they go into a store and find those items and total them? Well I decided to find out.
Unfortunately my teaching style is very impulsive. I needed my students to go to the store to buy items for a cooking project. So I thought I would kill two birds with one stone by giving my students a list of grocery items and we could do our lesson for my work sample at the store.
I had a general idea of what I would need to do with these students. They had been to this store before and I had an idea of how I would manage four students and an I.A. at the store. What I had not planned on was that my University Supervisor decided to do a surprise visit to observe my lesson. Awesome. Well, not so much.
In all fairness I don't think I could have planned it better the first time. There were so many variables I just could not account for. But overall I thought it went well. My students did well. They understood the concept. We had so much fun I decided to do it again the next day.
The second time it went much better. I printed out specific worksheets with visual aids for some of my students. This worked much better. Live and learn, right? I knew they enjoyed it the first time because they voted to go to Bi-Mart for math on a day where it was pouring down rain and windy knowing we would have to walk in it to go to the store. But it was fun for all of us.

Balancing Act

I really thought I was going to cry this week. In fact, I told my male mentor teacher. I am sure that was awkward for him. But it is true. My whole world has become special education. I go to my placement and then come home and have to do prep work for the next day.
I miss having a life. And now when I get around people the only thing I know to talk about is special education. I feel so out of touch with the rest of the world. And I am pretty sure I am picking up some autistic tendencies. Great.....
I had been having a hard time finding my place in the classroom. I felt more like an educational assistant than anything else. Next week I am "officially" taking over. But even that looks like a glorified E.A. position. I know I can't have the whole class since I am only a student teacher. I guess the only other thing I would do as a real teacher is all the IEP paperwork.
I forced myself to hang out with friends on Thursday night. I am scared that I will get burned out before I even get a real job. I am just trying to find more balance in my life. My priority next week is to get more time for myself in my schedule. We will see how that goes...