This week the older children in my school (3rd and 4th graders) are taking the state-wide mandated standardized test. What does this mean for my first graders?
Three and a half hours of quiet work time without an activity break or being able to get out of the classroom at all.
They look kind of like this…
What does that mean for me, their teacher?
Seven hours without a bathroom break. And twenty-one very grumpy yet very energetic seven year olds.
I look kind of like this…
Yesterday, when it was almost the end of the day we were working in centers. Testing was finally over so we could do work that makes a little bit of noise but my students had still only left the classroom to go to lunch. Well…just as we start our center time one of my most mischievous boys notices that something is moving in the fluorescent light above his head. It was a lizard! Yep..a lizard is stuck in the ceiling in my classroom. And it runs around from light fixture to light fixture, disrupting my students. Of course at seven-years-old this seems like a serious crisis. The boys were trying to sneak to throw erasers at it and the girls were worrying it would fall out and land on them. One little girl was even near tears. They really got a kick out of our lizard. And I really wanted to pull my hair out.
By the way, we’ve named him Larry.
HA!! I just died..that lizard story is too funny! I am sure I will have lots of funny stories myself next year–I will be student teaching in a 1st grade class!