Amazing :)

The last two years have been hard work for me. Going through the masters program and succeeding in all my classes was simply building up to this experience. I was in the office today laminating name tags when my field supervisor came around the corner and smiled brightly and asked me how things are going. Hopefully she doesn't think I'm going to come to her to jump ship and declare that this is NOT, after all, what I want to do. Quite the contrary- I'm loving what I'm doing! I want to get my hands wet and start doing some lessons- but then I watch RM (my mentor teacher) with the kids and I KNOW that I have a long way to go before I could be as effective as her. So, for now, I will sit behind the kidney shaped table and pray that some of her teaching abilities magically wear off on me!
It amazes me to see how I have made it into "the inside" so to speak. I'm having conversations about children who are struggling with material, I was handed IEP information today, and I'm trusted to actually teach these little darlings something worthwhile! Of course I know it goes with the territory, but these are still unusual experiences for me. When I was reading over the IEP summaries, I have to admit one of the students surprised me that he had an IEP. Now mind you I have only spent two days with the students, but I had this mental picture that I would just know what students did and did not have IEPs. Maybe because I grew up with my brother being mentally impaired I have a stronger mental image of how an IEP serves the student. I'm glad for these children that they had effective teachers and supportive parents to get the services that will help them and make life at school as positive and worthwhile for them as possible. 
My day went well today. Given it is only the second day of school we were still working on procedures and guidelines. RM did read a nice book to the kids called, "Have you filled a bucket  today?" and then had them do a writing activity asking them if they had filled someones bucket and if not what they could do to fill someones bucket. It was a formative assessment to see what kind of writing skills they have. I have to say the students impressed us! Many students have wonderful penmanship. They were spacing out their letters correctly and leaving themselves room after punctuation. Capital letters were used correctly and they were even concerned about spelling! 
Tomorrow we are going to start with some math lessons to get the curriculum going. The kids are ready for some learning and easing off of so many procedures. So reinforcing the concept of even and odd will be on the agenda. We have a worksheet and the lesson plan set- now to just bring it to life!