Technical difficulties

I was showing someone my blog today and realized there weren't posts from the last several days. And Tuesday's post was listed as Wednesday. I'm having trouble posting and having it "stick". I will try to make sure that I check after posting to make sure it actually went through- sorry for not seeming like I was posting!

Fridays are a wonderful thing!

RM was back today and I don't recall being so happy to see someone as I was to see her today! Not that I couldn't handle it, but I like the comfort of her being in the room and knowing that she has my back when things aren't going so well. With the sub there she (the sub) was asking me almost as many questions as the students. She had never been to Keystone and only one other charter school so she wanted to know all this information about differences between charter and public and really I didn't want to get into a debate or anything so I just kept my answers short and referred her to the office or NHA's website (I know- copout- but I am making sure I don't do or say ANYTHING that could follow me and cost me a job opportunity!)

We had a great day today! We started our day with a school assembly where the band played (my first time seeing my saxophone playing 6th grader playing with the band! How awesome they were!) and then they gave out awards for Student of the Month. This months moral focus virtue was Wisdom. RM and I had chosen a student from our class that used Wisdom consistently over the month. This student, along with one student from each class in the school, was honored for their wise choices during the month. We also had our ice cream social for the students who completed their bridge books over the summer. We had over 180 students complete and turn in those books- those are a lot of effort- the parents of those students should also be invited to have an ice cream! :)

It was the last Friday of the month so it was Spirit Day (don't have to wear uniforms- can wear jeans and either a red or black shirt) and popcorn day. We let the students watch a video at the end of the day for about 30 minutes to celebrate this as well. Meanwhile we still fit in a vocab and pronoun assessment (which my friends did great in- yay!) and spent a good amount of time reading and writing in their books.
I left school completely exhausted and came home to pass out on the couch. Every single Friday I come home and don't even realize I'm passing out- and wake up several hours later. Good thing workweeks are five days long- I don't think I could do a sixth day!

Another day without RM...

Today I was teaching solo again. RM was not able to be there, and I knew the night before so I wasn't flustered or anything- just busy as a bee!
I had prepared to teach "drawing conclusions" as a lesson in reading and I was prepared to review some concepts in math. We will be assessing them next week so I wanted to see how much they knew with skip counting. I had copied a worksheet earlier this week so we used that.
I had some problems with behavior with specific students today. Yesterday I had problems with the group as a whole but today was the opposite. It seems the individual students were challenging me- and I didn't like it one bit! I handled the situations as they came to me but went to two other teachers and asked their opinions of different situations.
We have three students that I can bet money will be off task at a moments notice if I let them. That is one thing RM keeps pointing out when giving me feedback- I can ignore their behaviors and this isn't necessarily a good thing. So I have been trying to focus in on these three and making sure that I'm addressing their needs and keeping them on task. The one student will shout out "I NEED HELP!" not a second after I have given the instructions. I will review the instructions with him and he will be able to answer several questions if I ask him. I will walk away and within seconds, he is hollering again. This is very frustrating! I understand he needs additional affirmations but I don't want to coddle him either. If he will just take two seconds to look at the question or read the sentence, he can get it- he is a rather smart child. But he needs that affirmation every step of the way. I'm struggling with this- not with the child, but communicating to him that he can indeed do it. For now, I am just sticking to reminding him not to shout out and giving him a "check yourself" signal hoping he will have some patience.
The other two students who I can guarantee will be off task aren't loud most of the time and I can stop at their seats every time I pass while going around the class and remind them of where they should be. I honestly don't know how these students learn anything given their 3 second attention span! But again- they are all rather smart- just busy busy busy!
Today was a bit different though. Aside from the normal three that I work with keeping on task, I had a student try to pull the wool over my eyes on three different occasions during the day. I know he is testing me, but that doesn't mean I have to like it. Up until this point I have been laid back and trying to be nice- but after being with the kids for two days without RM I grew a spine (so to speak) and laid out the law. This child was not honest multiple times so now they are on my radar and I will keep track and make sure to hold them accountable. I don't want to be that way, but I also don't want to lose the established classroom management system either!
I was able to show them a couple of videos from YouTube on pronouns today. They had said a few days ago that they watched a great video on YouTube last year and they really liked it. So I went looking and thought I had the right one. I wanted to show them the Schoolhouse Rock one anyway. I had the screen up on the projector after the Schoolhouse Rock video and they saw the other one and they were all hollering, "THAT'S IT MRS. LEECE! THAT'S IT!!!" So I thought I would share...

I scored major bonus points with them for finding this! I let them watch both videos twice and I let them get out of their seats and dance to the music. We sang (yes, I sang too....) the song a couple times after the video and we brainstormed some other pronouns that aren't in the video. 

Other than some behavior issues, I think we had a good day. The students are ready for their pronoun and vocabulary assessments tomorrow. And I am happy to say that I finally think I can do this "teaching 28 kids at the same time" thing... at least as long as a I a pronoun song to play!

On My Own....

I knew going into today that RM was not going to be there. While I was driving in I had the song "On My Own" from Les Miserables stuck in my head for some reason. I got there at 7:25 and got the room all set up for the day. I went over everything RM had left in the sub plans and made sure all my copies and whatnot were made. School starts at 8:00 and the doors open at 7:50. The sub came in at 7:55- she had gotten lost trying to find the school. She was a pleasant lady who retired from the State of Michigan two years ago and was subbing a couple times a week just to keep herself doing something. I ran the show in the classroom. She didn't know the kids or any routines (and had never taught) plus RM expected me to take care of the lessons.
I am happy to say that everything went well today. We had a couple of Chatty Cathys in the room today but they were respectful and I was able to keep the noise level under control.

In math, the lesson I taught was about base-ten number cubes and single cubes. All the students created their names with strips of 10 cubes (paper) and single cubes. Then I had them fill out a paper with how many blocks it took to create their names. The bulletin board has to be changed monthly and this is going to be the material for the new bulletin board. I started that board this evening- Alex took down the paper that was on it and I put up the new paper. I am working on a paper chain to put around it and tomorrow I will cut out the letters for the board. I'm still not too sure what I want it to say- something catchy about names and numbers-- if you have any suggestions please share!

While I was still at school this evening I heard that RM will probably not be there again tomorrow. I'm sure things will be fine if she has to miss again- but it is nice having her there and not being the most experienced person in the room! This evening I'm going to go over some things and make sure I have everything I would need to take care of another day. I wanted to firm up my math plans and review the ELA material to make sure I cover everything. I also need to look and make sure that I have solid plans for Friday since I have to teach at least one thing that I plan each day. This teaching thing is a lot of work!

One Two, Buckle My Shoe

Today in math we are talking about knowing numbers as words. I found the poem One, Two- Buckle My Shoe online when I was looking for ideas and thought that would be a fun way to talk about it.

So I found a fun printout of the poem and put it on the ELMO (document camera) and we went through the poem line by line and found the words that were also numbers and then I gave them a worksheet I had created to identify the value behind each number word. There were 20 different numbers for them to read and then determine how many each word represented. It took them a good amount of time but they certainly understood what they were doing by the end of the activity. This was a fun coloring project for them for math- the kids really liked getting out their crayons and doing some fun things. I had another worksheet to have them decode what numbers were written and they did well with that as well. Hopefully they will do well with this section come assessment time.

I have been getting feedback on my lesson presentation from RM each time I teach and have been making an effort to address the issues/concerns that she brings to my attention. I don't remember everything she tells me but I know a repeating thing I'm struggling with is keeping all the students involved and having their attention all the time. There are three friends in the class in particular that are always off task. They are each different (of course) but I have to make sure I'm constantly around them to make sure they are coming along with the rest of the group. Two of the students rarely, if ever, finish their work. All three of them are smart students- but I do not believe they are distracted because they are bored. I have been making sure I do my best to keep up with them and today I felt like I climbed Mt. Everest because all three of them (as well as the rest of the class!) finished the lesson. Yay my friends!

RMs little one isn't feeling well so she will not be there tomorrow. I'm sure it will be fine- they will have a sub there in case Mrs. Leece goes insane-- but I'm sure we will be fine. I'm a little nervous but I guess there is no time like the present!

Getting creative...

So I have been spending the last several weeks writing lesson plans that I don't necessarily love- but wanted to do efficiently. I won't say that I'm completely comfortable in front of the kids at this point- but I am comfortable enough to start spinning some of my own personality into the lesson plans at this point. I'm very blessed to have teacher's manuals that basically tell you what to say and when to say it- but I don't want to be spoonfed all the time. Tomorrow and Wednesday I'm teaching different styles of math lessons. Tomorrow I plan on introducing numbers as words by reading "One, two, buckle my shoe" and then having them find show me the value of each word by coloring or circling the number of shoes related to the written number. Then on Wednesday we are doing an artsy lesson where I'm having the students create their own names using base-ten number blocks. I did my own last night as a sample and learned quickly that I need to have the blocks cut out before we do this to cut the time needed in half. We are going to use that lesson for our new bulletin board- so I'm excited to see how the students do with them. 

It seems the "honeymoon phase" is over in our class. I had two students today point-blank refuse to do something I asked of them. I backed down both times because I didn't want to push the envelope but I did return to both of them and explain that when I'm asking them to do something or telling them that something is incorrect, they should listen to me. I'm sure that went in one ear and out the other-- but at least I said it! 
My struggles with lessons are getting smaller. I'm still working on keeping the student's attention. We have three friends in particular that are always an issue. And I'm moving along too fast- not giving them enough time to do what I have asked of them. So I have to speed up my presentation, slow down when I'm asking them to do something, and keep those three friends invested so that they don't daydream. That's all I have to do. Yeah. Yikes!

So long my sweet friend...

I was teaching a Scholastic lesson today when one of the students pointed out that tomorrow is the first day of autumn on the calendar. Which obviously means that today is the last day of summer. Oh so sad! I understand school has been  back in for three weeks and obviously fall is the next season in line, but it is still sad to me to see summer go and the cold weather gear up to move in. We didn't do much this past summer- no major family vacations or anything but we did go to our camper a lot at Taylor's Beach Campground. We love going and spending time away. 

So this morning I woke up an hour late. Yes... a full hour. Oy! My alarm went off at 5:40 and I thought I hit snooze. Usually I lay there for 5 minutes and then get up. This morning, well, not so much. Next thing I know Greg is saying "It is 6:40" YIKES! I have two alarms that I set each night- but of course something happened and I didn't set one of them. When I got to school (pulled into the parking lot at 7:24 I might add!) I looked at my phone and the app for the alarm clock had an error on it. So it wasn't completely my fault- but still frustrating! Needless to say my hair was pulled back today and makeup was minimal- but I was there. My kids were fabulous this morning too- they hurried and got dressed, made their own breakfast, and Alex put most of his lunch together for me. I even made it out the door with coffee in hand (thanks to Greg for setting it up Thursday night!) 

Even though my day started out frazzled, the rest went smoothly. I reviewed morning work (still have to get faster at that) and all went well I think. I presented a lesson on butterfly migration (Scholastic) and the kids seemed to enjoy that. I showed a video and then presented. 

With three weeks under my belt, this means that I am 1/4 through this experience. I am SO not ready for this to end!!! I can't believe how fast it is going. I think I have grown the last three weeks- I know that I have a WHOLE LOT more growing to do though.