Ms. Buhr, why is your voice so calm?

I have been getting so homesick lately.  In a weird way I think I'm missing home now more than I ever did in Costa Rica, and I'm not even in a different country.  I always thought this trip would seem so much shorter than my 6 weeks in CR, but it seems so much harder to be away this time.  I never thought I would be willing to trade a day at the #1 beach in the country for a day at home.  But, after talking to my mom for a while, I'm coming home in a month! :) She said all I had to do was say I wanted to come home and she would book the flight...well she wasn't kidding.  It worked out perfectly with what weekend I could come back for and when things were happening at home.  I feel so blessed that God has given me such a loving mom.  Even though I can only come home for a few days, it's still worth the pricetag on the ticket.  I am so incredibly blessed and cannot wait to get home!

That doesn't mean I'm having a bad time here though.  I've been stressed, things haven't gone the way I would have liked, and I'm getting sick to top it all off, but I know I'm learning a lot.  I'm learning so much about teaching and becoming a teacher.  Every day I find myself evaluating the teachers and situations around me (good/poor collaboration, strategies to remember and strategies to remember to stay away from, etc.).  My mentor teacher leaves the room, typically at least once or twice a day, while I'm teaching, so I must be doing something right if she already trusts me with the kids enough. 

As for the lessons, they've been going well.  I'm focusing on what my supervisor and mentor teacher have suggested, but I'm still trying to find that balance of finding my teaching style and trying out the teaching styles they have seen be successful in the past.  I brought up the idea of Spelling Hopscotch to my mentor teacher, who loved the idea and had me on the floor making it the very next day so we could start using it right away.  The other 1st grade teachers liked the idea as well and the principal even walked in while we were setting it up.  It's crazy how something so unplanned can turn out so amazing.  All but 3 of them got a 100% on their spelling test last week (which has never happened!).  Also, I started working on a (modified) Reader's Theater with the students this week as part of my 2 week instructional unit on reading comprehension.  I'm hoping that it will help my ESL students understand the story better, as well as helping the class as a whole really get involved with it and start thinking deeper about each page.  Tomorrow is our "show" and Friday is the written assessment so we'll see how it goes!  I've also been doing an Apple/Johnny Appleseed theme this week in Science/Social Studies and the kids have done really well with it!  Every student I asked could tell me the life cycle of an apple and they've been doing really well with all of the Johnny Appleseed activities.  Today we did a trading activity using 2 halves of an apple cutout and they loved it.  They were working together, trading as they were supposed to, and truly seemed to understand the idea of how Johnny Appleseed and other people in history traded to get what they needed.  These kids are starting to become a handful sometimes, but they have not stopped impressing me yet!  I am truly blessed to work with them.

So you know I've had a rougher time lately being so far away, but the random things these kids say makes me realize how much I love being here with them.  Here's a few of my favorites lately:

One little girl walked in with a fleece jacket and told me she had on her "winter coat" (which, by the way, it was in the 90's that day).  The fact that a fleece jacket is the warmest coat these kids need is still shocker to me.

One morning, another girl kept looking at me with a confused look on her face after whispering to her friend.  She then asked, "Are you an M-R-S?"  Haha no, no I'm not.  She then went back to the confused look on her face and got back to work.

The next day, one boy (who had ONLY been playing with his twin at recess every day) and the little boy from Colombia were playing together and laughing harder than I had ever seen them.  (The previous day I had talked to the twin about playing with someone other than his brother, and when he tried asking someone to play, she turned him down :( so this was a major victory).  I think it was great for both of them!

Another girl has been cracking me up every day.  She is constantly singing and beat-boxing that I can't help but laugh.  She is the most adorable thing ever and SO polite.  She always says "excuse me," "please," "thank you," and gives more sincere compliments than any 1st grader I have ever met.

Then we have the day of the lizard...I walked in and grabbed the sign in binder like I had every morning.  I started opening up and a lizard scurried out!  I was so shocked I didn't know what to do.  I didn't want to touch it (it was 7 in the morning, too early to find lizards fun), but I didn't want it to get in all of the secretary's stuff either.  So another teacher saw me freaking out trying to figure out what to do and she goes, "you're not from around here are you?".  Nope, I'm from Ohio thank you.  We don't have lizards in school sign-in binders there.  Eventually it fell to the floor and she walked away like it was no big deal...it was still in the office!!

Then we have the hoes on the farm.  For morning journal one day the students were writing about what they might see on the farm.  One response was, "I see hoes on the farm".  After all of those pictures of similar quotes from kids I've seen, it doesn't give it justice until you're the teacher reading it who has to keep a straight face and make sure she changes the spelling, especially when she asks you what it says.  Morning journals always seem to bring up some interesting situations.

Finally, the same girl, as we were walking in from recess looks up at me and asks, "Ms. Buhr, why is your voice always so calm?"  I can't help but smile, and I reply that it is because this class is so well-behaved.  She says, "No but it's always so calm.  You never yell at us like other teachers do.  I like it."  Heart touched--check!  It made me so happy to know that I've been able to keep a class full of 6 and 7 year olds well-behaved without ever having to raise my voice.  They know that we won't continue until "the voices are off" as one student reminded me today.  It feels good knowing they are learning from me already and are starting to learn my phrases to the point where they remind each other of them before I even have to say anything.  Classroom management has been one of my biggest struggles, and I think I am finally getting the hang of it (much thanks to Stepping Stones I am sure).  It's starting to feel like I could actually handle my own classroom.

But for now, it's back to lesson plans.  Hopefully everything will go well the rest of the week!