SUCCESS!

Today we successfully used our eggs for more than voting on a name or telling the lunch choice! The kids LOVE the eggs and using them. I have heard from several parents that their student has told them all about the eggs at home and how cool they are. And the best part is it was a math assessment so I can take the data and measure who understands and who does not understand and utilize that information.
I set the expectation for Monday that the eggs will be out when they get into class in the morning and that they are to go and make their lunch choice and return their eggs immediately. We'll see how that goes. I need to get them independent though so I'll keep working on it.
This was the last Friday of the month so today was a spirit day. We had assembly and the band played and we honored our students of the month. It was a tough choice again this month but we narrowed it down to a student that is always patient and respectful and never speaks out of turn. This student stays in their seat and raises their hand instead of getting up and finding me- which a serious problem in my class at this point. I was happy to give this award to this student and the smile on their face was golden when their name was called!

This coming month's moral focus virtue is Gratitude. I have a couple of lessons already planned to work on gratitude so I'm excited to get those going.

I had a long chat with RM today about how students are starting to be disrespectful and some ideas we can do to address this and end the problem. I was 100% all week and RM has been out of the room most of the time. This is how it is supposed to be with student teaching. She checks in on me at least every hour or half hour- but she wants me to be comfortable and independent and not able to just refer to her when something happens that I'm not sure about (because in reality she wouldn't be there when I have my own classroom). I certainly need to work on this skill though. 

We worked on our plant unit today. We observed some growth in many of the plants. There were a couple plants that had no obvious growth though. We only planted three days ago though so I'm not too alarmed. I did have one child very upset and cry that there was no growth though. I think overall there were five that had nothing to observe yet. Once the child realized her's wasn't the only one that had no growth she was ok. We talked about how plants (seeds) can be unpredictable and that we have to be patient. Of course, after school I pulled those five cups with zero growth and added more seeds- just to be safe! 

I am still working on getting them to specials on time. This is a huge struggle because we have to stack and pack and get everything done before we go to specials. Monday this will be my goal and we will start five minutes earlier- hopefully I'll be successful!

Still working on those eggs...

I met with another teacher at the school that uses the Activote eggs regularly and figured out how to use them with the classroom computer. Whew- I was really getting frustrated! It seems they only work a certain way so I am happy to have gotten that information. It is sad though that not more teachers use these regularly. There are so many files that are free that are online (and they are so wonderful!) I don't know how many classrooms have these in the school- but both my 3rd and 6th graders are using them so they are throughout the school.
I am working on editing a math file that I will have the students do tomorrow to see where they are in understanding place value. We are halfway through this unit but I think a lot of the students already understand- this will show me for sure and then I can adjust my lesson plans.
Behaviors were better today than yesterday- but yesterday was quite difficult so I would hope today would be better! I still have a couple friends that are shouting out and not listening. I realize I have to get harder on them and flip colors but at the same time I'm not comfortable with that. So many things to adjust to and learn at the same time!

I didn't get a chance to revisit our plants today, but that is probably not a terrible thing because they were only planted two days ago and most of them have not germinated yet. I will get them out tomorrow and we'll look and start the science journals then. I also wasn't able to get the light on them until yesterday after school so I'm sure that didn't help in the germination process. We still have to plant grass and alfalfa as well as the wheat tubes- but the wheat tubes only take a couple days so I'm not too worried about those. I don't know how I can fit all of this stuff into my day- there are so many things we want to do but so little time! That is my biggest struggle right now- time to do everything. 

Our fall book fair is this week. The gym is transformed into a book store and the students love to shop and find a treasure in all the offerings. We took the kids down to the book fair yesterday and they shopped and then more kids brought in money today as well. We encouraged them to purchase books-especially books at their level. Many did- but some still bought books that are much too difficult for them. Oh, and the erasers and posters and other "junk" that comes along with the book fair. (sorry- but it is true- and parents everywhere will agree!) 

I learned that teachers get a small stipend to spend at the book fair to help stock their library. I think this is a great idea- our books in the classroom are always needing repair and retirement so this keeps the library not only stocked, but also fresh. I'm quickly learning that there are a LOT of outside expenses to keeping the classroom stocked and in order so knowing that I can get a couple of books during the book fair without spending money is a good thing! RM shared her stipend with me so I was able to get a couple books as well. Thank you! 

This book came recommended by a third grade teacher for learning about friendly letters:

It is a cute book about a child that got booted from his own room because his parents had a new baby. He now has to share a bedroom with his younger brother and he is not at all happy about this. It is funny and has a great message- not to mention it is all written in friendly letter format so when the students are learning about how to write friendly letters they will enjoy this book and then have it to refer to.

I'm not sure when friendly letters comes up in the curriculum, but I know the students have letters from penpals that we need to write so I think I will try to squeeze this in next week so we can respond to our letters.

Go Tigers!

The World Series starts today and our Detroit Tigers are in it! So to celebrate the end of the MEAP and to give a nod to our Tigers, we had a free spirit day today. The whole school was in Tigers gear (or orange and blue) to cheer our team on.

I am still trying to get the Promethean software to work. I downloaded a version onto my laptop and I can do anything with it to create polls and whatnot with the eggs, but I can't see the same options on the computer in the classroom. Of course this means that I can't show the students what the software is showing me on the whiteboard (because my laptop isn't connected to the projector). I really don't want to get behind the computer and start pulling cords during class. So we called the "help desk" for NHA today and asked how we can make this work. With some sweet talking we got them to update the software but I still was not seeing what I thought should be there. I ended up doing the lunch count poll on my laptop and showing the students how it works. They were so excited! (so was I to be honest) I'm going to get to the bottom of this though- those eggs are very valuable in a learning environment and I want to get them used! 

(Please note: these are NOT my students. This is just a random picture I found online of children using the Activote eggs)

This was my second day of "100%" and I think it went better than yesterday. Yesterday the students were very chatty and disrespectful. I know they are just feeling out their boundaries but that doesn't mean I have to like it. RM was mostly out of the room. At first I was glad that she wasn't in there because I could be more independent and comfortable because I wasn't feeling like I was being "watched" the whole time. But then the behavior issues started and I wanted her back! They certainly don't teach you in school how to manage behavior issues while still teaching the students! I could come up with a whole LIST of classes that I would have liked to take given my experiences in student teaching and my often feeling unprepared! 

Just another day...

Today seemed to start out great. I even affirmed the students about what a great job they were doing keeping focused and on task. We were able to get morning work done and transition through our ELA without much incident.
Today was my first "official" day where I'm supposed to be in charge 100%. I did most of the lessons, having some help from RM along the way. It was weird though- having her there (and not a sub) yet still doing all the instructing. I do love it though- and getting more comfortable every day doing it. Who would have thought it would have been such a struggle to get up and talk in front of little kids?!

As the day progressed, (right after lunch to be precise!) things started to get really chatty. Students were losing their focus and I had to redirect several times. 

We got through writing and math and then it was time for science. I have been telling them for several days that we were going to start our science unit on parts of plants and their life cycle. Today we started our unit with an introduction and then they planted their seeds so we can watch them grow. We didn't get all the seeds planted so we will have to squeeze some time in maybe tomorrow to get the rest planted. I'm excited to be teaching them something that I am creating instead of something that is in a book and someone else is telling me how to teach it. I definitely feel more liberated! 

I'm still working on getting the Activote eggs working. There is a conflict in software and the "help desk" didn't seem to know how to fix it. I did learn from RM today that another teacher in the building uses these eggs all the time so I'm going to ask him tomorrow and see if he will show me what he does. I'm determined to get this to work!

My classwork (for my degree) is coming along. I'm very very very overwhelmed and have no time for myself or anything other than school or school. I have a monster paper that was due yesterday (Monday) but we got an extension because there are so many requirements for it. THANK GOODNESS too because I simply have so much more to do to get it done by tomorrow's new deadline.

What a field trip!

I learned something incredibly valuable today: I don't like field trips! Don't get me wrong- it was fun and the kids loved it. But all the prep and stresses of the event are just not a great time! 

This week we have morning arrival as well as recess at lunchtime. This means that we (RM and I) have to be outside at 7:40 to 7:50 greeting students, helping them out of their cars, and basically making sure that the students behave while they are waiting to come into the building. Then at 7:50 we walk into the building with all the students. This is a good time to chat with some of the students and get to know them a bit personally outside of the classroom. I enjoy this morning time because most of the students are still waking up and it is just a nice time. Then we have recess duty at lunch which means we have to hurry and eat our lunch so that we can take the kids outside and supervise during recess. I'm not such of fan of the latter. Hurrying out of the classroom (if you even HAVE a parent) is difficult because there is so much to do- not to mention I want to help students with packages or whatnot. By the time we get out of the room we are running down and throwing our lunch down our throat to get back and outside. 

Well, obviously since we didn't have lunch at school today, we didn't have to do afternoon recess. But I did have to do morning arrival. And RM was not there yet. Normally this would have been fine, but given there was a freeway shooting on a major freeway and several parents were concerned about our travel route, that increased the stress level a wee bit. 

The morning just seemed to have many hurdles along the way. There was certainly nothing major- just little things that can add up.

The weather couldn't have been better. It was perfect! Not too hot not too cold. No rain. The sun was behind the clouds but still perfect. The kids in my class were well behaved and did a fine job. I did like the part where I wasn't responsible for all of them all of the time- and I liked how I was thought of as "the teacher". But it is much easier to make sure all the students are safe and doing what they should be in the containment of the classroom! 

Tomorrow is our field trip!
We are going here:
http://4hgarden.cowplex.com/
I'm pretty excited. The kids were talking about it a lot on Friday and I was telling them some of the things that we will be doing as well as giving them clues about my unit that I will be teaching them. They figured out that they will be planting their own seeds and watching them grow. I haven't told them everything that we will be doing but I did give them some hints and have them excited. It will be a great experience on Monday- I'm excited to see how it unfolds.
I will be taking my camera tomorrow to take photos of our experience. As a teacher with my own class, I will be making sure to take lots of photos of the students to help them commemorate their year with me. I have seen a lot of videos and slide shows other teachers have created for my kids and I want to do that as well.
I was talking to another 2nd grade teacher and she shared with me a website she uses with her students to create videos- it is called Animoto. I LOVE this! I have already created a handful of videos on there (for free!) and will certainly do this for my classes.
I understand some students are "do not photograph" students so I will be careful to not include them in my productions- but I'm excited to be able to use this type of technology!

Oh What a Day!

SO HAPPY that it is Friday! Today left me daydreaming about my Florida trip in December-- cold yucky weather and not-so-great experiences in the classroom.
RM was out today. We had a sub that is a regular in our school- and she was awesome. My son is great friends with her son so we know each other. The boys have been buddies since first grade and they are in sixth now.
I had a day of assessments and fun things planned and everything was in order when I realized that RM was not going to be there. I knew I had a great sub coming in to help me so I wasn't worried at all. I put out a new box of 20 pencils (for some reason we go through erasers like mad but the pencils are still long...) and had everything ready to go when the students started arriving.

We had assembly and they announced who the winners were for Student Council. It was a fun assembly and didn't last too long. When we got back to class, one of my friends hollered out that something had hit him in the head. I didn't know what it was and thought maybe he was imagining something. 

The day progressed without much incidence. We got through our assessments and I read them a cute story about Marley the dog- not written by John Grogan, but based on his dog he wrote about. The kids loved it and we assessed for plot using that story. 

At lunchtime I thought to look at the plans that RM had left with the sub because I wasn't sure what order to do the afternoon (I always do morning so I knew that part- just not the afternoon) When I looked at them I realized they were for November 20, 2011. Oops. I looked through things that were copied and ready to go and was able to get a basic idea of what was supposed to be done. 

Right after lunch I noticed that there were not many pencils with full erasers on them like there had been in the morning. And I had been picking up pieces of eraser several times in the morning off the floor. I started paying attention and noticed one student using his scissors to cut his crayon. I asked him what he was doing and of course he had no great response. I had him put his scissors and crayon away and went about my afternoon. I was walking around the room and out of the corner of my eye saw a student making a motion that I would know as throwing something. I turned quickly and saw another student move abruptly like he had just been hit. I walked over to the area of the student and was not so surprised to find a piece of the same color crayon as the one the student had just been playing with with his scissors!!! If you know me,  you know I have a wicked "angry face". And that face showed herself then and there. I started looking around the room and found a huge amount of erasers broken up on the ground. I talked to the entire class about respect and how this was completely disrespectful (destroying property, throwing things at other students, and all the other infractions that happened in between!) When I released them to do their writing assignment, I had at least half of the students come tell me who were my culprits. 

Funny- the whole class knew what was going on and who was doing it yet nobody thought to come and tell me to end it! When I have my own class I will try my best to establish a level of trust with them so that they understand they will not get in trouble for telling me when things like this happen.

Needless to say, I pulled the two offenders out into the hallway. One of them admitted to their behavior, the other one vehemently denied it. So we went to the dean and let her address the problem.  

This was not supposed to happen. I am supposed to have control of the situation here. I have not come to the brink of insanity dozens of times over the last two years between working, school, and life just so I can have kids destroying things and being disrespectful. Of course I know that I can't watch everything. I do my best. But to even think that this was happening is very frustrating. 

I'm not going to take this personally- I know the students involved are always doing things like this, but it is still frustrating. I wanted a clean report for RM about how the day went. This certainly tarnished that option.

Promethean Love

Unfortunately our school does not have Smart boards in every class. I don't know the specifics of it all, but I know some teachers in the school have interactive whiteboards (perhaps just middle school?) and they are incredible! Given the fact that we have Promethean products, they likely could be the same company's interactive whiteboards. I observed in several schools that had interactive whiteboards so I was pretty excited to be able to use that technology in my classroom. When I first came into the classroom in August, RM showed me the Promethean interactive "eggs" (proper name is Activote tools) but said that she had not used them yet.

I believe most or all of the teachers have these in their classrooms. While they aren't a complete interactive board technology that is so wonderful, these are certainly nothing to sneeze at! Basically what you do is you type in your assessments or questions that you want to ask the students in the software that comes with the Activote systems. Each student gets their own "egg" and when you show the question on the whiteboard (projected from the computer via the ceiling mounted projector) the students read the question and then push the appropriate button to tell you their response. Each individual egg transmits a report to the computer via the Activhub (seen above) and a report is generated to the teacher with who got which answers correct or incorrect. What an incredible tool! When I first learned about them I was intimidated to say the least. But as my time has passed I have wanted to use them more and more- so I finally went on a hunt to find a teacher who uses them often and figure out how to set these up and utilize this great tool! It didn't take long to find someone willing to help (Thanks MM if you are reading!) She set up my eggs for me, showed me how to use them, and encouraged me to take the bull by the horns. She found a bunch of step-by-step instructions for me to refer to and I have been playing around ever since. I plan to start using them in the classroom on Tuesday doing simple things at first (lunch count) just so the kids get used to them and are comfortable. By the end of my student teaching experience we will be using them to assess for sure! The kids in my class get very excited about technology and I'm sure this will be no different.

As a side note- when I was looking for a picture to post what they look like, I typed in "Promethean" in Google images and this was one of the images that came up... rather disturbing...

In the classroom today I was able to finish my morning routine on time again. I have done this several times this week- which is a huge achievement. There is a lot of material to cover in the morning and I'm always concerned that I will not finish. I'm getting the hang of it more and more though. I'm so glad I chose to take the plunge and have my "mid-life career (crisis) change"!!!

Next week I'm supposed to go 100%. This means that I should have everything planned out and teaching without any assistance. To say that this makes me somewhat anxious would be an understatement. Not that I don't think I can do it- I know I can. But I don't know what is going on in math as far as the workshop setup that has just happened. The groups aren't established yet and I am pretty freaked out about trying to teach something that I don't know how it is supposed to work! I have taught a few math lessons this year, but they were simply math lessons with the whole class following along- not math workshop. I know RM has been working on it the last couple of weeks, but I don't feel like it is established enough for me to even consider doing. I have the kid's respect and I want to keep it- I know they will see my lack of confidence in the procedure (which I don't know) for math workshop.

I have seen math workshop live in a classroom and it was incredible. But the groups were established already. And the students were familiar with it. We are struggling with getting groups set up because we still don't have NWEA's full report. RM said she is going to make some groups this weekend so that it can be established on Tuesday, but again, I am supposed to be 100% by then and it isn't going to happen. We have a basic understanding of what each student's ability is though, so I'm ok with just putting them in groups and perhaps adjusting those groups at a later date so that we can get this routine in concrete. I know math workshop is the best way for teaching student's math- and I want to get this going so we can move along!

We had a staff meeting after school today. Three of the teachers at our school have been going to a professional development about writing and how it has changed over the last several years. Their excitement about this new approach is certainly contagious! They went through many things they are learning and shared some student work samples. One of the teachers doing this training is a second grade teacher so she had already shared with us what she is learning and we were applying it. What we started the year out doing for writing was having the kids simply create their own books. We staple 4 sheets of paper together and they use that to write a story, illustrate it, and give it any other details they want. We have been adding requirements (putting the author, adding a cover with front and back aspects, writing a title page, etc.) I have to say- "work on writing" time is one of my favorite times in the morning because when I announce that that is what we are going to do I always get a "yes!" from most of the kids (and no groans!) They love doing this and that is certainly an achievement- we want them to love reading and writing- it is so important to their learning success. I have gone through some of the books and looked at them in my evenings and it is really something- we have only been in school for 7 weeks and I can already see some improvements in their books they are creating! (we have them put the date on the book when they first start it so that we know when it was created since they keep them all together in a writing folder).
Anyway, the staff meeting was dedicated to learning more about this program. We will see some improvements in both writing and attitudes with this new approach which will only benefit our students.

Fire Drill (again)

Tuesday was a good day- other than the unexpected fire drill that happened in the afternoon. Then again a fire will be unexpected if there ever were one so I am not complaining.
Katelyn came up and had lunch with me. She wants to try to do this every Tuesday. We don't get to see each other much during the week- she is either working or at school when I get home and I'm at school when she is home. The weekends are hit and miss because she works 2-10 and I'm always busy doing school work. Needless to say we don't get to talk. I miss her and was happy to hear that she feels the same way. So she started coming up on Tuesdays to have lunch with me and we chat and spend some time together. Today she came in early so I put her to work! :) A classroom ALWAYS has something that needs to be done in it. So today, Katelyn learned how to use the copy machine. And the laminator. She ought to be careful or I will have her doing all KINDS of things for me! 

We had lunch in the parent room at the school. I'm still walking that weird line between being a parent at the school and being a teacher at the school. Of course I'm not an employee at the school just yet (fingers crossed!) so I can easily fall into the parent roll. Being in the parent room can be challenging though because if there are parents in there and they are talking about teachers or school situations I have to just turn my ears off and pretend I'm not hearing them.
After lunch (yes, Katelyn survived the laminator!) I was trying to get some things ready for the next day when the fire alarm went off. I think because first grade was not in the building when they did it last week they had to do it again. Yikes. I felt terrible for our kiddos who have stress from these drills. Luckily the weather wasn't as cold as last week when we had it. The kids got out in perfect time and all went well so hopefully that is the last fire drill for a while. 

Mushroom in the Rain

For our ELA curriculum we use Open Court Reading. I might have mentioned before how difficult this monster book is to understand. When I got the book the first week of school I started looking through it and it may as well have been in another language because there were so many facets to it and it was jumping all over the place. It took me about a month to figure it out (and I'm still not confident that I understand how to use it to it's full potential!). This week marks the beginning of our second unit- and that means the second book in the teacher's edition. Each unit takes up a whole copy of the teacher's manual! Our new unit is on "Kindness" and all the stories are related to being kind. The story this week is called Mushroom in the Rain and is about a little ant that gets stuck out in the rain and hides under a mushroom.

The theme of the story is that more and more insects/animals see the ant under the mushroom and want to join to get out from the rain. Miraculously there is always room for each addition. Then the rain stops and when they come out from under the mushroom, the ant notices that the once tiny mushroom is now huge- and that mushrooms grow very fast in the rain. Of course the ant and other animals were being kind to each other by letting more under to get out of the rain. I had students read the story to a partner today (this was their first time reading it). I was working with two students that needed some extra help with vowel sounds. I got up to check everyone's progress to make sure I was able to bring them back to their seats (they should have been finished reading the story) so that we could move on in our very tight morning schedule when I was asked by one of my friends if he could keep reading because he loved this story. Now this is a child that I don't typically expect something like this from- so of course I allowed him to continue reading the story a second time. He said that he didn't think that a mushroom could grow that fast and that he was going to read the story again to make sure he wasn't missing something. I just thought this was sweet. 

Monday evening had another paper due about my Teachers Work Sample (the huge project I have to complete during student teaching) I am doing a unit in science about the life cycle of a plant. I'm going to have the kids plant seedlings on Tuesday of next week and then we will watch them grow over the next three weeks. The students have no idea that we are doing this- I will be giving them clues all week about it to get them excited.

A camping we will go!

Friday! Today was full of assessments and fun activities. I do a lot of different and fun activities with the students during the week with their vocabulary words so that they understand them and do well on their assessments on Friday. This week was no different. We did a quick partner review and then took the assessment. The students did great. Since I had the "offices"

out already, we went right into the next assessment which was Point of View. The students were pretty confident with this and did a nice job. The "offices" in our classroom are actually manila folders laminated together (two of them) so they are smaller than this picture but they work great. We use these folders so that students aren't tempted to look at their peer's papers when they are taking an assessment. After they are finished with their assessment, the students fold their office and lay it flat so that we know they are finished. 
At 10:00 for bathroom break I was absolutely on time. I was SO excited! I had never been exactly on time that late in the day- and was really hopeful that I would get everything done in the morning that was needed so I wouldn't run over. We went to our bathroom break and when we got back we started talking about an assessment the students took last week that had one question that a lot of them got incorrect. I wanted to make sure there was full understanding of the concept (how to show possession of a plural possessive noun). The sentence that the students struggled with was "The students backpacks were left in the gym." (or something very similar). To show proper ownership of this possessive noun, they should have put an apostrophe after the second S in students. However, most of the class put an apostrophe between the second T and S- indicating one student instead of many. We were going over this and why it would be incorrect when that lovely fire drill alarm went off. 

Oh my gosh- I about jumped out of my skin! The students did a fabulous job getting out of the classroom and safely into the parking lot. The principal told us that we knocked a full minute off of our last time- but I think this might not be completely correct because the first grade was on a field trip so they didn't have to exit the building- thus fewer students to wait on when going through the doors. We'll see next time though how well we do. This was our third fire drill and they are just nerve wracking to say the least! We have a couple students who get pretty upset about them and I try to make sure I am near them and reassuring them when we are outside and lined up. When we got back to class it was 10 minutes before lunch and there was no way we were going to return to apostrophe's after that. So... I did something I have NEVER done....(of course I have done quite a few things with these little darlings that I had never previously done- so I'm getting good at this "firsts" thing!)

I danced and sang with them. 

Yep. 

They love that song that I posted about in the first week of school- http://www.crayonspaperscissors.blogspot.com/2012/09/today-was-little-melancholy-for-me.html

They had been asking me to sing it with them. They have gotten to know me pretty well and they know that Mrs. Leece is definitely quite reserved and doesn't really do crazy things like that. Don't get me wrong- I love for them to do it and encourage them... but singing and dancing in front of them is just too far out of my comfort zone.

Until today.

We sang it. A Toody Ta Ta. I sang it. I danced it. I made a total fool of myself. And I LOVED it! Laughing along with them was great. And since the kids know that Mrs. Leece is NOT the dancer/singer in the group, I had 27 little friends coaching me along and helping me. Singing and laughing right along with me. By the time we were done all of the fire drill nerves were forgotten and we were ready for lunch. 

We had our first birthday celebration in the class today- that was fun! 

Our friend turned 8- and was so excited for the weekend and the party at home. It was very sweet to be a part of this- I have sent in plenty of treats for my kids even though their birthdays are during the summer. I have even been in the classroom when my kids have passed out their treats. But this time it was different- I was on the other side. Happy Birthday to my little friend! 

This weekend we are going to the campground for the annual Halloweekend trick-or-treating event. The kids have been looking forward to this for months. We have friends and additional family coming so we are hoping it will be a great time. The weather isn't promising to be very good, but we will still have fun. We only have two more weekends left in our campground season. This is crazy to think- it went so fast. I'm sad to see the season end, but at the same time relieved because it is very difficult to go between the campground and writing lesson plans.

Today marked the halfway point for student teaching. How is that even POSSIBLE?

The results are in...

I got the results from my mid-term today. It happened quite some time ago, but RM and SM (field supervisor) had told me that there was a lot of information to cover and it would take a while. I was patient-- hey, I figured if I was going to get a failing mark they wouldn't have let me continue to lead the students! I got an A- on the mid-term, but I understand why it wasn't a full A. This is still tough to swallow for my perfectionist self- hopefully I can still pull an A out of the class with my papers and whatnot- otherwise I'm blowing a GPA here. Really though, I'm not going to stress about it. I will just  make sure I get a regular A for the final. They wanted to show my areas of improvement actually improving- which makes sense. I know I have certainly grown a ton since I started so I'm excited to see where I end up. 

Something peculiar happened today. When the school year first started, I had a couple of students display the attitude that I wasn't their "real" teacher. RM set that record straight right away and made sure they knew that they were to respect and pay attention to me just as much as they were to her- and that I was there to teach them and not just fill their time. I really appreciated that! This week RM introduced Math Workshop. I had taught a few math lessons a couple weeks ago and we have been working on understanding digits and words related to numbers. There hasn't been a lot of "new" teaching regarding this because we are strengthening their understanding of this. Today RM introduced some new things to the students and was exposing them to the workshop format we will be using. She was moving at a slower pace because she wanted to make sure everyone understood the process and what the expectations were. The quick finishers (the students who get done quickly and want to know what to do next) were coming to ME asking what they should do next! Robyn was leading the lesson yet they were coming to me. Of course I hadn't planned her lesson so I didn't know what she wanted them to do-- therefore I was referring them back to her (or asked her myself and then guided them). But my point is, they totally trust me and understand that I'm capable of leading them and helping them with their questions. At the moment, I was stunned and shocked- but after talking to RM and getting some feedback I realized that this is a good thing- and that I'm not really taking over her classroom but instead helping to make it an even greater place to be. 

Say NO! To Bullying

I have been having a hard time keeping my posts up- but I have been writing notes in my planner for what has been going on each day- that helps when I am updating my posts. Wednesday was a great day. A lot of air was cleared and peace returned to our little corner of the world. I had a couple people email me asking what happened with our class, and really- it isn't important about what happened- what is important is that it was handled effectively and everyone continues to work with the student's best interest in mind. I know as a mom I will make sure I do what I feel is right for my kids and I would expect nothing less from the parents in my class. It was just a lesson as a student teacher to see how it unfolded from a professional side as well as the parental side (since I am both at this school). 

Wednesday I continued working with the students in their reading and writing. I work with them all morning and usually well into the afternoon. The goal is for me to complete all of my lessons in the morning so that the afternoon can be dedicated to math, writing workshops, and science. I'm doing my best and working on pacing. I just struggle with a fast pace when I know there are students that need that extra time. I have been using the techniques we talked about in the differentiation workshop on Monday with some of my fast learners and it has been working well. I don't want to give them "more" work- I want to challenge them more. I'm writing lessons for next week with more depth to them so that those students who seem to get done so quickly have a deeper level of challenge to complete their assignments. 

Everyone in school was wearing orange today. October is National Bully Awareness month. Orange is the movements color- so to symbolize our awareness of this, we were all asked to wear orange.
I went shopping last weekend to find the kids and myself orange shirts (not normally a color I choose so I didn't have many selections) Anyway, I went to the outlet mall after we left the campground and stopped at Aeropostale. I found a shirt for both of the littles and when I got home I was surprised to find this in my bag with the receipt:

I thought that was pretty neat- I didn't even know that they participated so it was nice to know I was supporting this cause in more than one way. So anyway, our whole school was orange and supporting anti-bullying.

Wednesday marked day two of the MEAP tests. We decorated our car Monday evening and it was still decorated. I let the kids write with an orange marker on the windows (it was a window marker) It was cute, but definitely something I don't want to leave on there! It will be cleaned tonight for sure. 

In Fourteen Hundred Ninety-Two....

Yesterday was Columbus Day so the kids didn't have school. Of course that doesn't mean the teachers didn't have school- we sure did! We had a full PD about differentiated instruction. I have taken a couple classes that addressed this so I was pretty familiar. It was still nice to see in person though- given my classes are online, you don't really see hands-on activities like that. The lady that was presenting was very sweet and knew what she was talking about.
Even though the students were not there, I was still there late working on some activities for the week and making sure I was prepared for today. I came home to grab the kids and take Alex to Choi Kwang Do and Liv to dance and Tessa to the vet. The busyness doesn't stop just because I'm gone full time now! I also had a paper to finish up last night to submit so that kept me up later than I would have liked. While I'm loving every minute (well, ALMOST every minute!) in the classroom, I'm also grateful that I won't be in school while I'm teaching - at least not in the beginning. It is just too much to have to keep up on participation, papers to write for school, and plan lessons and teach all day. At least it is too much when you are a mom to 4 kids and trying to maintain some sort of sanity in the household while juggling all of that and never having taught on my own.
Today the kids came back and I was ready for a fun new day. We were starting a new story and they were excited about having a story with Spanish words. The morning was moving along when all of a sudden....

Second grade was hit by the Drama Beetle. Oy- this was not a fun thing! Of course I have been saying all along that I sure am learning a lot of things that I could never have learned in college, but this one really saddened me. Now, I have been a woman in society for well over 20 years. I know people can be nasty and some people can really be focused when it comes to something they believe about their child, but to see my second grade team upset by what happened and powerless to the results was eye-opening. I understand that things like this are going to happen- heck, I dealt with  much worse in the business world all the time. But that doesn't mean that I have to like it. There were a lot of interruptions because RM kept getting pulled out of the classroom and was dealing with the challenging situation. And when she was in the classroom you could see the stress in her face and eyes. I didn't know what was going on at the time- and just kept focus on what was really important: the children sitting before me who came to school today so that I could teach them something. So I made sure to do just that. I learned about what happened later but really, I had nothing I could do to fix any of it.

When I came home tonight I was talking to Greg about what happened and he asked me if I'm ready to deal with people and situations like that- because they will certainly happen in one way or another. I guess the short answer is bring it on. But my long answer is, "Why can't people just learn how to effectively communicate with others so that things like this don't happen in the first place?" 

Another Friday down!

Every night when I am headed home I can almost bet that I will have a text from Greg announcing "another Wednesday down" or "another week down!" I swear, he is really looking forward to me being done student teaching-- my question though is what does he think my schedule is going to look like when I'm actually in charge of my OWN class? Um, I think I will have just as much of a commitment time-wise to face and be just as busy. But I will let him count down for now... for the record, I'm five weeks down and seven to go!

I'm excited to finish up and see what the next step will be (most likely subbing for the rest of the school year) but I'm also REALLY  not looking forward to being done. I have grown rather attached to those little darlings in my class- and I will miss them terribly! Maybe I can just stick around longer and nobody will notice that I should have left already?

Today was a bit of mixed good/bad. We had a handful of the normal Friday assessments. I think the students did well with what they were given. I read a story to them called Goldie Socks and the Three Libearians

I had read about this book on my Daily Five group and decided that it was something that I could use to explain the five finger rule as well as introduce the concept of I PICK. The story is very cute and the students really enjoyed it. I enjoyed when I had them make a prediction about what would happen in the story and when the complete opposite happened, I actually had several call out "what?!" in surprise. I knew I had their attention and they were enjoying the book. 

Many of the students got their yo-yo's this morning from the assembly yesterday. RM had them line up right away and put their names on them so that there was no confusion about which one was who's. I was very glad that she thought of that- that is one of those things that I will have to try to keep on top of- there are so many things to remember!

I am working at Teresa's this evening. I'm excited to see her- I haven't seen her since I started student teaching. That will be good- for both her and I! Then off to the campground for a fun (COLD!) Saturday night "drive-in" event. I can't believe how cold it is this weekend!

Today was a busy busy day but not a lot of learning happened. We had our normal morning routine, but then our first time at Technology/Library. The students were so excited to finally be able to get their library books and go see the Technology teacher! They were beaming when we picked them up-- hugging their library books. They are allowed to check out two books this year and most of them took advantage of that opportunity. Thankfully we had a parent at lunch today so we were able to go to the teacher's lounge and eat lunch a bit slower than if we didn't have a parent. 

In the afternoon we had a great school assembly called NED- Never Give Up; Encourage Others; Do Your Best. 
The link to the website is http://www.thenedshow.com/
They split the school up into two groups so that the gym wasn't too full. We were in the first group and one of my children was in there as well (the first group was even grades) It was fun to watch the assembly, but also to see the kid's faces when they guy was telling jokes and involving them. It really was a fun assembly. 
After the Ned show the kids were pretty excited and wound up. Of course they have specials at 2:30 so it took everything in us to get them focused enough to pack up and get ready to go before leaving for specials. I crazy day-- but a fun day too!

We have recess duty this week. Which means we are outside with the students for recess after lunch. If we have a parent in for lunch, we can leave around 11:10 and have until 11:30 to eat lunch and get back to class. Otherwise if no parent we stay with the class while they eat lunch (we eat in our classroom as the school does not have a cafeteria and the older kids are eating in the gym) Anyway, we have recess duty every three weeks so that isn't too bad. We didn't have a parent today so we were in the classroom and then outside with the littles. During recess I was walking around just watching and checking on interactions when two little boys slowly walked past me. They are in first grade. The one little boy said "but that's just how it is. You have to go to school for years and years and then you pass away. It is sad." LOL It took a LOT for me not to just bust out laughing right there! How stinking cute was he!? (and he was right too!) I never heard what the friend said- I didn't need to. 
Lesson wise today we did fine. I cut up my schedule yesterday to try to fit more in. We have a lot of things going on tomorrow so our schedule will be a mess tomorrow. I wanted to make sure I hit all the critical points so I rearranged things. 

Today we reviewed the vocabulary quickly by just having the students tell me the word and what the definition is. Then we moved on to a vocabulary game I changed up a bit- PASSWORD from the 70s. Another teacher created it on the computer for us to use, but I had a difficult time with setting it up for the whole class. So we switched it up and had kids sit backwards against the board and compete against each other. It didn't go perfectly but we will work on it and next time will run smoother. Tomorrow I'm going to have them slapping the bulletin board with flyswatters for vocabulary review- fun! 

Mid-term is complete!

Well it is over! Whew! Thankfully it wasn't during the afternoon and it wasn't during a time when the students were wild and out of control (which they really aren't ever-- but they do get chatty...) 

Anyway, I was setting them up with a vocabulary game (I have____, Who has____) which they hadn't played before so there was some confusion. I went through one cycle with most of them and they got it. However, there was one group that just couldn't seem to get it- so I will work with them again later this week to show them again- there was some frustration there for sure! Anyway, I looked up while doing this and saw my FS (field supervisor) in the room- of course she had a ton of paperwork in her hands so I knew why she was there. No time to be nervous- the kids needed me and I was on- so that was perfect! She was able to observe without my being all worked up and worried about it. Then after we played a couple rounds of the vocab game, we moved on to writing their vocabulary words on index cards to study. Again, this wasn't really a teaching time but more of a classroom management time. My FS has been in the class several times though and has seen me teach. So now that that is done I can breathe a relief- this means the experience is almost half over though- and I'm NOT ready for that! I find myself more and more attached to my class- even the kids that drive me bonkers on a daily basis! 
Today went better than yesterday in general. My lessons this week are better- I'm more comfortable teaching ELA lessons for whatever reason. I just need to familiarize myself with the math textbook and it should work out. Of course right now we are addressing an objective that isn't in the math book so that is challenging- but this week RM is doing math so I don't have to worry about that.

My first bulletin board!

This week starts the beginning of my week teaching the morning part of the day. My specific requirements for my curriculum say I have to teach 2-3 lessons a day. I am well within that requirement. I am teaching most of the day- I was stingy with my time and only left RM about an hour at the end of the day for math. I have to work on my pacing and getting things done within my time guidelines. This morning went well- I felt like things were moving along and going well. This afternoon was another story though. It seemed like things started falling apart and just didn't get better- in fact they got worse as the day progressed. This week I will have my mid-term evaluation. Yikes! Last week my FS asked me when I wanted to have the eval and I told her I didn't want to know- just do it and I will deal when I see you walk in the room! Anyway, I was VERY happy to see that it wasn't this afternoon! 
When talking to RM about why I felt this afternoon went so poorly, my only thought was that I am completely sleep deprived and perhaps that is effecting me. I'm sure it is- I had four hours of sleep last night because I had a big project due and I have to keep up with participating and posting in my class as well. There just aren't enough hours in the day! I'm used to staying up until 2 or 3 in the morning to get stuff done and then going to work- but working with Teresa is MUCH less brain intense than working in a classroom full of 28 friends!
I have been working on getting my first bulletin board together. I found a great project from the Clutter Free Classroom that had to do with base ten blocks and having the students create their names. I didn't want to have to spend money on it- so the background white paper is just paper from the recycle box- there is printing on the other side. Then instead of doing a border I made a paper chain to go around it. I used the same color paper on the kids' projects as in the letters and paper chain- of course this scrapbooker girl is all matchy-matchy! Here are a couple pictures:

 So that is another thing that I had to do that I can check off of my list. I already have ideas for the next board- hopefully RM will allow me to do that one too!