Day Eleven at DES

Today was a wonderful day at Danbury Elementary School!  I went in to school at 11 am and stayed until 2, the perfect time to take in a plethora of experiences and observations.  I arrived and set up the overhead projector for my French class after lunch and then joined my companions at Lunch Bunch, a class meeting and lunch hang out time with the guidance counselor Miss Nelson.  Lunch Bunch is the time and place for all of those personal stories, comments, weekend happenings, and anything irrelevant to school work of class time. I love sitting in on Lunch Bunch, because it gives me a little window into the 4th graders' lives that I don't get as a teacher.  They share very interesting stories with me and personal happenings, but for some reason, being at Lunch Bunch provides the ultimate safe space in which they can let their troubles and triumphs unfold.

Directly after lunch I held a small French session and began to teach my students the poem/proverb Ciel Rouge Le Soir or Red Sky At Night, which the absorbed immediately.  Then I reviewed numbers and played a game with numbers using my system of studying, iFlash (:  We then re-reviewed the poem for fluency, flow and diction, and they performed it great!  I cant wait to hear them present it at lunch on Thursday!

The last bit of the day was spent helping people with their Nature Trail Projects, answering questions and assisting with getting their "what research looks like" photos taken and uploaded onto their laptops.  I had my name on the board for questions and conferencing about their project and their research photo.  I had a lot of fun helping them to begin to wrap up their research and put together their backboards and presentations.

I am going in first thing tomorrow morning to watch a few students present their How To projects, specifically to meet the famous Hot Rod, the family pet to a wonderful young woman.  Overall I think that today was fantastic and that everything went really well. I am very sad that this is my last week at DES but I know that I will find my way back here one day. DES ROCKS!