Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing... Er, reading group leader.

First full day in the classroom: check! We left at 7:20 this morning to walk down to our school and get there for stretches at 7:50. It's the craziest thing... The whole school lines up with their teachers on the basketball court and the principal comes on the microphone (which we could barely even hear, but oh well) and after the Pledge of Allegiance and a little chant thing about the school, they turn on instrumental and the students and teachers alike do a series of dynamic stretches. I have never seen anything like it. The kids were less than enthused, as was my teacher, but they did it!

Morning was basically all independent seat work so I spent most of my time grading math.. I never want to do another multiplication problem in my life. It was pretty tedious but it needed to get done! My first recess was pretty awkward because I beat my teacher outside but I literally hadn't talked to any kids all morning and I didn't really know what to do or where to go. Eventually Elizabeth, another girl on my trip, came out with her fourth graders so I talked to her for a while. But after recess things got a lot better! I got to help students with their language arts and then took the three fourth graders out into the hall to do a reading group with them. The three fourth graders are such a sweet and smart group of girls. After we finished reading their story, I asked them where I should be sure to go in San Francisco... One told me that I have to go to a place where they make homemade ice cream, and another told me to go ice skating at Union Square (which we passed yesterday on our way to the SFMOMA. We heard you can see drag queens skating there from time to time).
Maybe not the most helpful suggestions, but what can you expect :)

After school today, Caty and Margo (our professor) came and met the 6 of us at the elementary school and we walked/took the bus to the Exploratorium! For those of you who are familiar with Seattle, it was pretty similar to the Pacific Science Center. But in front of the Exp. is the Palace of Fine Arts.. AKA a trip back in time to ancient Rome or something! It's this beautiful architecture with huge pillar and a dome and statues and carvings... Plus a huge pond and a fountain. It was incredible and totally unexpected! It was awesome to find that in front of our destination.

 This is looking up at the buildings in downtown on our way to the SFMOMA yesterday.

 The architecture we found today! It was so beautiful!

Here is the elementary teachers + Caty + Margo! The secondary students would not have been able to get to the museum until about half an hour before it closed because they get out of school an hour and a half later than we do, which was a real bummer.

This is right when we got to our room on the first day... Our first job was to hang up the Christmas lights and make it feel like home for the next three weeks  :)