Rita Inman

I have now been to my volunteering with a 3rd class four times, so I will try to catch everyone up. The first day I was assigned two boys *Sam and *Dave. I am working with the two students by helping them go over their math work. The first day both boys were a little quite, and didn’t seem to really want my help. I noticed right away that Sam gets frustrated very easily and Dave gets side tracked easily. My first thought was that Sam has never understood the concepts of adding and subtracting. With Dave my first impression was that he is lazy, and doesn’t want to do the work.
Day two I started to work with the same two boys, and both boys seemed happy to see me. Dave while doing his work constantly laughs. He might be embarrassed in front of his peers, or my husband says he might just think I’m pretty. (LOL) Sam was very concentrated on his work today, and got mad when Dave kept distracting him with his laughter. I’m still getting to know both boys, so I’m not sure what exactly to think.
Day three Sam was very excited when he understood how to do fact families. 1+2=3, 2+1=3, 3-1=2, It was nice to see how excited he became about finishing the rest of the problems on the worksheet. Dave is still a little distracted. When the teacher is going over the lesson with the other students he wants to listen to her. I think that he want to be a part of the whole class.
Day four was rough. Both boys seemed to be very distracted, but I found out two things today that might be the reason. Sam said he didn’t get to play a P.E. today, because this morning he didn’t follow directions. Dave said the same thing. So both boys missed out on the one time a day that they can run and play, instead of school work. I also found out that both boys are ESE students, but the ESE teacher quit right before school started and has not been replaced yet. So the time that Dave and Sam would go to get extra help is unavailable until there is a new teacher. I feel that both students need some more time for their work without the distraction of the teacher talking in the background, so I hope that the school finds a new ESE teacher soon.