My Second Graders

 I had the opportunity these past 3 weeks working with little second graders. 

I was assigned to a title 1 school in Provo. Most of the students are ESL students. I was super excited to brush up on my spanish a bit! It turns out I didn't have to use it at all except when a student was speaking in spanish and he thought I couldn't understand... and I said back, " tenemos que hablar en ingles." He looked at  me like.. " oh crap." He wasn't saying anything rude, he was just trying to be sneaky. Didn't work. Good try though, bud. 

Actually, the rules in the classroom I was working with, was they weren't allowed to speak a lick of spanish that entire week. Every other week, we switch classes and they get to go to a spanish class for that entire week and speak only spanish. About 85% of the students in the classrooms come from spanish speaking families. The other percent are learning spanish. I think that's so great! I wish I could have learned spanish when I was little... would have made my mission in Argentina a bit easier ;)

I absolutely fell in love with my classes ( two to be exact). My cooperating teacher was AWESOME. I am SO excited to get to work with her again in the fall. Next time around will be my LAST semester!!! I will be student teaching full time for 10 weeks and then I'm FINISHED. I really couldn't have been put with a better teacher to work with. She's so great. 

I had the opportunity to teach a few math lessons ( heaven help us all, but I did it.) and a few literacy lessons. There were a total of 4 days where we had a substitute and I had the opportunity of taking total control/teaching the ENTIRE day for those days. ( I went to bed at 8:30 those nights... it's amazing what physically and mentally draining teaching does to you.) I seriously LOVED being completely alone in that classroom with those students, though. Being a teacher is in my blood... I was born to do this! 

The most rewarding thing about being a teacher is seeing those kids faces everyday and knowing they just love you to pieces. Second graders are very intuitive little things and they can tell if you really care about them or not. I think they felt the love I had for them, because we all got along great! There were a few behavior problems here and there, but that's nothin a little TLC can't fix! A second grader will be a second grader. Most of the time when a child is acting up, it's because they just want some attention or they want to feel loved/accepted by you. I tried my best to let each student know how special and important they were. Seriously. This is one of the reasons I've always wanted to teach: to change a child's life for the better. A teacher has all the power in the world to make or break a student. I believe in being strict & firm... but this is for the students own good. They feel safe and develop respect for you as their teacher. It's important to balance being strict and having fun too. 

We definitely had a lot of fun! 

Here we are about to leave for a field trip to the FARM! 

I loved field trips when I was this age! 

Here we are learning about dairy cows. ( well, i'm taking the picture.) 

Look how cute they are, so excited to pet the horse. 

Love these kids. 

See what I mean? 

Precious.

This is my favorite: 

Maybe Jonathan can go find Chris when he's a missionary and preach him the gospel. 

haha, jk.

( sweet Chris meant to write: singer, not sinner.) haha 

My sweet Lara. She was a hoot! 

She had the cutest, raspy voice. 

She seriously could have been a voice on a cartoon or something. 

I will miss these kiddos. 

Teaching is A LOT of work, but I'm Excited for the fall! 

ps - but I'm even MORE excited for this SUMMER! Can't wait for a nice break! 

Side Note: Nick takes the MCAT in a month! He's working SOOO hard! 

Keep him in your prayers!