Why am I so busy?!?!?!

     This is my first blog post since last Monday, when I started this blog I was intending on having time to blog about 2 or 3 times each week...boy was I wrong.  As I am picking up more subjects in the classroom and gaining responsibilities, I am finding that blogging is no longer fitting into my schedule.  This past week and weekend, I have really learned what the life of a teacher is truly like.  Clearly, the word "weekend" means "extra planning time" in teacher lingo.  I spent a majority of the weekend preparing my lesson plans for the upcoming week and making sure that I knew all of the information that I am going to bring to my students.  I knew that planning out lessons and weekly units would take a lot of time, but I never really expected it to take this much time.  Lesson planning was a huge part of my education classes in college.  I spent quite a bit of time learning this craft and figuring out how exactly a good lesson is created.  I am finding that now I am actually teaching these lessons to a group of students that I am spending more time and giving more serious thought to how my lessons are planned and prepared.  Also, I take into consideration what my students ability levels are and how I think they could handle certain activities.  Lets be honest, 2nd graders get excited over just about anything and it can be very hard to get them back on the learning track.  That is something that I have to take into consideration with every lesson that I plan and teach.  For example. today we were working on a math worksheet independently and I set a timer on the smart board to help remind the students how much time they had left to work.  I thought it would be fun to have a timer that is a ticking tmie bomb and when time is up it blows up.  Little did I know that my students would focus on the timer and the fuse of the bomb THE ENTIRE TIME! I honestly do not know if they looked at their worksheets for more than two minutes while that timer was on the screen.  Eventually I had to get rid of the timer because my students could not handle it.  This is now something that I have to remember and plan for when I am preparing for lessons.  Clearly, with my students, little things can take their attention for hours!!!  I am learning a lot right now about how my life is going to be.  I am beginning to understand the amount of time it takes to plan a great lesson...and although I cannot say I am a fan of how long everything is taking, I do understand why it needs to happen and I am willing to do whatever it takes to become the best teacher I can possibly be!

Okay...now for the funny stuff!

Here is the best student story from last week:
Student: "Mr. Spicer, when is your wife going to come into class?"
Me: "I have already told you that I am not married, I am too young!"
Student: "Oh, so you go home alone?"
Me: "Yes, I go home alone."
Student: "Does it make you sad to be all alone all the time?"
Me: "...Well it didn't until you just brought it up!!!"
They seriously do not understand how I am a teacher and not married...to them it does not make sense.

      Another story that I find pretty funny is one that happened to my cooperating teacher while she was teaching a lesson to our class while being observed by our principal and a guest principal.  She was teaching about fractions and she had spent hours before organing these tiny fraction manipulatives that the students were going to use in the lesson.  She them all ready to go and sitting on a stool in the front of the room in their container.  Minutes before the students were to use these tools she bumped into the stool and knocked the container over...which then fell open.  Upon hitting the floor, about 1500 pieces flew all over the ground. I had to hurry over and spend the next couple of minutes trying to get what I could together so that the students could use them.  She did a great job of keeping the lesson moving despite the incident, but it is very funny to look back on.  Both principals thought that this was pretty amusing as well!