First Day of School

Hey Everybody this is Em!

We have had a fantastic (and hectic) day!

First we all awoke up around 6AM, freezing.  Good news, we decided to relocate our beds so at least it is darker where we sleep.  For breakfast, we had grits, hashbrowns and eggs.  Although the meal was delisiocus, we did not get a chance to enjoy this opportunity because we were pressed for time.  We left St. Jude around 6:45AM for Morris Jeff School.


Lauren and Katie: Ms. Williams’ kindergarten classroom is AMAZING.  The students are great and so is the school.  The school feels like a family and the students are happy to be there which is refreshing.  The relationship with the teachers and students are something we have never seen before.  You can see the love and passion they all have for each other.  Today we learned a new reward skill being kiss your brain.  This week we are doing guided reading groups involving technology and a social studies lesson about Wisconsin which will be AWESOME!
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Mr. Muldoon: I will say that Ms. Smith is one of the best teachers I have ever observed!  She has high expectations for them and is very fun to be around.  I was very impressed with a second grader.  After she was done with her work, she helped one of the students read!  As Lauren and Katie noted, the school feels like a family.  I am definitely going to enjoy this week!

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Miss. Gray: Mrs. Gula’s kindergarten classroom was wonderful. The teacher uses music to help learn sight words, and new vocabulary. Mrs. Gula has different centers during the day to help students understand new material. I thought the school was amazing in general. The school holds morning meetings that I find very inspirational and motivates the students to learn. Having a morning meeting helps create a school community and brings high expectations for the students and the faculty. It was a very uplifting experience! I am really excited to be in her classroom and at the school!

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Miss Rachel had a great day in Ms. Smiths classroom she was an exceptional teacher who has extreme passion. I am extremely excited to begin teaching! The entire school as a whole is built from excitement and drive without this would there be anything significant in the world?

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Miss Em:  School was crazy!  I was shocked to see couches in the building.  I really love how the students sing the song “This Little Light of Mine” and incorporate a lot of different verses such as “all around the world, I’m going to let it shine,” etc  It was a true inspiration to hear.   I really liked how the teacher, Mrs. Gula used cheers to help the students understand why the students were learning what they were learning.  The school is a gemstone.  Today Miss Noelle and myself taught an impromptu lesson on neighborhoods.  Our students really enjoyed the activity and the book. Tomorrow I will be teaching a group of students how to use sight words using the book “Have you seen my Cat” by Eric Carle.


After school, we had the opportunity to hear about the history of the New Orleans School System.  We learned about the impact of segregation, the Civil War, Jim Crow and Hurricane Katrina left on the school system.

We arrived home, tired and hungry around 6PM.  Dr. M joined our group for dinner for the evening.  Everybody had at least 2 pieces of the best bread in the entire world.

Now we are working on our lesson plans.  Tired and excited from our day, we are about to move onto our relfection portion of the evening.  We are so thankful for all the love and support everybody is giving us.  This has been a challenging yet rewarding experience thus far and we cannot wait for what the follow days will bring us.