Fourth Grade

Fourth Grade isn't so bad! the chairs are bigger so that's good!

My Mentor teacher is a really smart woman. Seriously she is brilliant. You can't be all lovey with the fourth graders... She told me right off the bat, don't call them "my friends" because they will not like it! She is also really sarcastic with them.. they understand it. I was really impressed with the maturity and independence of these kids. I wore taller shoes today too :)

So what do we do all day in fourth grade?

Well, school starts 8, when the bell at 7:50am rings, they walk to class all by themselves! In kindergarten we had to go get them! and if you recall, I was super impressed with the kindergartners ability to walk behind me without me counting them! now I can just sit in the class and they arrive to me!

They come on in and do a quick vocabulary activity every morning. Then they work on "skills" either math, writing, or reading.
By 8:50 it is time for them to go to Specials (music, P.E., library, Computers, Art) so the fourth grade teachers all meet in my mentor teacher's classroom and plan for the upcoming days. They all plan together and do the same thing, wouldnt have it any other way she says.

Did I mention that the class I am in already has a student teacher? There was a mix up when the district was placing student teachers, and my mentor teacher has a grad student from Texas Tech in her classroom currently. I was a little hesitant about this at first, but now I really like it. It gives me someone to talk to during the day! she eased my mind about a lot things that I will get to in a minute.

So after specials we spend 30 minutes doing a "tribe" circle... we are sharing, caring, and celebrating... we sit in the circle and say one thing that is going on with us at the time. It's fun.
Then we move into Math... for an hour and 15 minutes... it's not "I have 3 apples, I took one away, how many apples to I have now?" It's multiplication and division!
After Math is 45 minutes of Science. We talked about the weather.. but instead of sunny and warm.. it is 20 degrees celsius and there are cumulus clouds outside...

We then move out to Recess... They make them walk around the playground for 10 minutes... weird.. they kept saying its required by state that they get that much exercise everyday.. but kindergarten didn't do that... it was odd. Then it's lunch at 12:30. The kids can sit wherever they want with whomever they want.. the teachers eat in the cafeteria WITH them... this to me was also strange, because in kindergarten we ate in the classroom when the kids were gone. But it was fine... brought me back to elementary school. At least Im not walking around opening ketchup packets and milk cartons!

After lunch is 2 hours of language arts... it seems like a long time, but it goes by so quick! Because at 2:45 it's time to go!


I was really worried about the curriculum in 4th grade... for example.. Indians... I know at one point in my life I learned about the different indian tribes, and what was unique about each tribe... but I don't remember.. The texas tech student teacher told me that she is basically one day ahead of the class and learning with them to refresh her memory... so that made me feel better.