Fall Quarter

Hello all! I am starting my final year of college at Eastern Washington University. This quarter is going to be a very, very stressful one. I am taking five classes. The first class I am taking is Student Centered Reading programs, which is focusing on tailoring individual students reading programs to their specific needs. Next I have, Reading for Language Diverse Students which is teaching me about how to work with ELL Students, or English Language Learners. Also, Content Area Reading, Management and Assessment, which is showing us the importance of bringing reading into other content areas such as science, social studies, art, music, P.E., etc. this class is full of non-reading majors so it is a little slow moving and repetitive of a lot of my other classes, it also contains mostly secondary education majors which feel like they don't need to be there because they wont have to teach reading. Man are they wrong! Then I have Instructional Media and Technology, this class teaching me about all new ways to bring technology into the classroom, I think I will learn a lot in this class but I know it will be very stressful because most of the things we are planning on talking about I have never heard of before. And last but not least I have Music Methods for the Elementary Classroom Teacher, this class will be a blast! On the first day of class we got to dance around, play games and sing. It was a lot like being back in Elementary school music class.

On top of that all I am now placed in a Kindergarten Classroom at Opportunity Elementary School in the Central Valley School District. And this I am very excited about! My cooperating teacher is a friend of mines Mom. I am really looking forward to getting to know my students and being able to finally put all of the knowlege I've been gaining into action.

As most of you have probably already heard, I moved in to Brewster Hall, which is one of the dorms on campus. So far I am having a blast and I really like all of my roommates, who I already knew. And I also got a job working in the Hall office, which is so nice! My work is less than two minutes away from my room, so no long commute, and has flexible hours and best of all I get to work on homework while I am there!

This quarter is shaping up to being a very busy one, but I am looking forward to it keeping me on my toes! I'll make sure to let you all know more as I go along!

KelliJean