7:25 AM--Arrive at school. Make a few copies. Get materials ready for classes this morning--several apples, pencils, crayons, scissors, glue, various kinds of paper, and post-it notes with the students' journal topic for the day. Then I help Nancy (my cooperating teacher) cut out pictures of the kids which she's laminated.
I talk with Mrs. Johnson, a first-grade teacher across the hall, to find out how Abdi A. is doing. He's a very recent arrival, and I'll be teaching him this morning. After our conversation, I decide to change my lesson plan a bit. I also greet Aftaba, Dalib, and Lan--the translators--when they arrive.
8:10 AM--The newest Somali family arrives for their kids' first day of school. I watch as Abdi A. takes Abdi N. by the hand and shows him where to put his backpack. I can tell that these two will be good friends. I also see Abdi N.'s teacher, Mrs. Thompson, greet him and welcome him to her classroom.
8:30 AM--The first grade students arrive for ELL (English Language Learners) class. Nancy takes most of them onto the rug and begins a unit on apples with them. Meanwhiles I sit at a table with Abdi A. and Abdi N. I show them an apple and teach them its name in English. Abdi N. teaches me that in Somali, "apple" is "tuvah". Then I teach several classroom objects--pencil, crayon, and glue. We review them a lot. Occasionally they forget the names or confuse them, but most of the time, they get them right. Abdi A. has a tendency to say "ball" instead of "apple", which amuses me. Native English speakers start out doing things like that--generalizing the word "ball" to everything round. At the end, I give them pictures of apples to color. They enjoy that, coloring enthusiastically while chatting with each other in Somali. I'm really happy with how the class went. We had fun, and I think they learned some vocabulary.
9:30 AM (or so)--The third grade students trickle in after taking a test. We chat with them for a while and then they share writing that they have done with the group.
9:45 AM--The second grade students begin to arrive. Unfortunately, they arrive in groups of 2 or 3, several minutes after each other. They're supposed to share their writing with each other, too, but I don't know whether to start or wait for the others. I finally decide to start. At first it goes okay. As the group gets bigger, they get antsy and misbehave a bit--mostly talking out of turn rather than listening to each other. Fortunately, though they're not behaving well, I keep my cool rather than getting annoyed. They continue to misbehave when Nancy takes over as lead teacher, so she reviews the rules with them. Eventually, they finally settle down and do a sorting activity with cards with pictures of spiders and insects on them.
10:15 AM--The fourth and fifth graders arrive. We all introduce ourselves, because Abdi N.'s older brother, Abdi K., is in this class. Then Nancy reads them a book about finding a good rock and tells them to bring a rock to class tomorrow. During the course of the class, students teach how to say "rock" in Bosnian, Somali, and Lingala--though I miss writing down the Lingala word.
10:45 AM--Three students leave; the others stay for some phonics and spelling work. I assign the journal topic and help two girls do several worksheets which are puzzle or game-like. When Fatuma finishes them all, I let her draw. She draws hearts and a beautiful rose. She tells me that her neck hurts because she bumped it on the playground this morning. I'm sorry to hear that, but happy that Fatuma is starting to trust me and open up to me a bit.
11:00 AM--Anne, the afternoon ELL teacher, arrives.
11:15 AM--I assess fifth grade student Saed's letter name and sound recognition, because we've noticed that he's having some trouble reading. The assessment was my idea, and I found a good one online last night. He knows most letter names and sounds, but he seems to have some trouble with vowels. I also notice during a dictation that he tends to write from right to left. This causes me to wonder if he's literate in Arabic.
11:35 AM--The phone rings. Lan answers it; it's the nurse's office calling for Aftaba. Aftaba's doing recess duty, so she's not around.
11:40 AM--Nancy returns, says that Aftaba's daughter has a broken nose. Nancy leaves to cover Aftaba's recess duty.
Noon--Lunch! I eat lunch in the teachers' room. For a few days, I've sat at a table with a guy who works in the math lab and several women in the speech and language department. I enjoy lunch and just hanging out.
12:30 & 12:50 PM--Two St. Michael's freshmen arrive to tutor ELL students. Nancy and Anne show them to their classrooms.
For the rest of the afternoon, I plan what to do next with Abdi A. and Abdi N.; Nancy and I plan for the next few days of the other classes; I share the results of my assessment of Saed and she confirms that he probably has some literacy in Arabic; and I work on the computer to prepare some materials for tomorrow morning. I also help Anne walk the kindergarten class back to their classroom. She leads them and I follow at the end of the line. Merase decides that he only has one leg, so he must hop on one foot down the hall. So he doesn't fall and hurt himself, I hold onto his hand. Otherwise, I'm quite amused to be walking down the hall beside a hopping African kindergarten student.
The highlight of my day? Abdi N. and Abdi A. had a class in the afternoon with Anne. Afterward, Abdi N. played with an alphabet puzzle. I noticed that the picture for "A" was an apple. So I said, "Abdi N., what's that?" He thought for a moment. Then he said, "Apple." I felt ridiculously proud. I taught him that, and he really learned it. :-)
