PTC

Whew, this day has been a doozy.

Last night I typed up a pre-conference survey for my students to take, just to see what they think about school and how they're doing. I had to print everything off before piano lessons started this morning and the office was occupied.

School itself was a doozy too. Two girls strategized to use their seating swap coupons to their advantage and they used a 6th grade boy as a pawn. The only thing is, this boy is the only one who's ever been swapped with, so he felt like no one in class liked him; they all wanted to get rid of him. This isn't the case at all... he has just had good seats!  But in the moment that doesn't matter. He felt sensitive about it, which made the others get on his case even more, which made him even more emotional... bad cycle that wouldn't stop. He left the room to take a break and hung out in the coatroom for a while. I was worried about him and left the rest of the class to their own devices (spanish tap game) so I could have a chat with him and see how he was doing.

While we were out there, Mr. E stopped by to ask something and he assumed this student had done something bad and I was out there to chew him out... so he stepped in to reinforce what I was saying. Except (to me) it felt like we went backwards instead of forwards. Of course, it had to happen right about lunch time, so we had to wrap it up.

Our school has a 'feel better' program (that's not actually what it's called, but it's all I can think to call it at the moment) where students can write a person's name down and stick it in the box and someone will write an encouraging message to that person to make their day a little better. So I poked my head in the preschool room and asked Miss F if she could quick write one up for this student.  She did and enlisted the help of some 5th and 6th graders to sneak it into his desk. I found out from his mom later tonight that it helped turn his day around! Whew!

By the end of the day, he was back to his usual self and life was better in our classroom. At afternoon recess we played human tug of war and everyone had a blast. The two boys got to be team captains and we ended recess with a boys vs. girls match. Good times.

Parent teacher conferences went well. I stayed on schedule. Most parents got to leave early since their conferences didn't go the whole 15 minutes. A few went over a tiny bit, but the next in line was never out their waiting, so I'd say things went smoothly!

I also had enough time to plan next week's lessons (it's only a two day week) and print things off for our new student! All I need to do for her is to get a hymnal from the office and get a desk for her, things easily accomplished tomorrow.