A Great Book!

Over the winter break I decided to get caught up on some reading that I was long overdue. But not only that, I got 4 great books for Christmas and Birthday so I thought that I should take some of my time (and the time I had on my plane rides to and from Phoenix) to make a dent in the books. I decided to start with The Freedom Writer's Diary by the Freedom Writers and Erin Gruwell. It is definitely one of the best books that I have read, especially related to teaching. The students in this book write very candidly about all of their life experiences and their feelings about school and life. I recommend all teachers to read this book, regardless of age level that you teach. It inspired me to be a better teacher, but also shows me how much students benefit from the extra time that teachers can put in for their students.

Back to School

Jnet and I went back to the classroom on December 30th for the first time since the snow days. I didn't realize how much catch up work we had to do! We were there from 8am to 3pm doing so many little things that I didn't realize needed to be done! Changing the calendar, writing new vocabulary words, getting plans set for the week back, and on and on the list goes. Time absolutely flew by but we really did get a lot of stuff done, not that there weren't a ton of things that still needed to be done!

Planning really helped me realize how busy this quarter is going to be! Monday, Wednesday, and Friday I am going to be in the classroom full days and most likely will be teaching a good portion of those days while I am there, if not for the entire day. I am really excited to get back into the swing of things but I am nervous because I have teaching, two full days of class per week, as well as work on weekends. Hopefully I don't get overloaded! I am sure that all will be well and I need to just keep up with things, otherwise the work (both for student teaching and for projects on main campus) will definately take over.

School is starting up and it is going to be an incredibly busy but very exciting time in life... and I can't wait!

Snow Days!

Washington has been hit by a big snow storm and school is cancelled. Part of me is excited, I mean an early start to Winter break, right? Who wouldn't be excited with that! And besides, outside is a snowy wonderland that is rarely seen in this part of the country in the 16 years that I have been here. It's pretty exciting!

But the other part of me is thinking, how excited am I really going to be when we have to make these days up in the summer? Probably not very excited, I can say with relative certainty.

The one benefit to making up those school days in the summer is that I really get to see how the kids are going to act on those make up days, which is going to be a valuable learning lesson for me to have under my teaching belt. I don't know if the students are going to be completely apathetic about being in school when the weather is so nice, or just completely bouncing off of the walls because the weather is so nice and they want to get out there and play! This is clearly based on my assumption that the weather is going to be nice, which, if living in Washington so long has taught me nothing, is that June does not automatically equal sunny weather. There could very well be rain and hail at that time of year. It is really a coin toss!

With either result, or one not described above, it is part of my student teaching experience and I look forward to encountering that obstacle when I get there. For now, I'm just going to enjoy the snow!

Another Amazing Teacher Site!

Wow, I was looking around the Internet for some more ideas for literacy centers than the ones I have developed so far, to keep things interesting for the students. As I was searching, I came across Beth Newingham's Third Grade Classroom's Website.

The web address is: http://hill.troy.k12.mi.us/staff/bnewingham/myweb3/

This is one of the most amazing teacher websites that I have ever been to. Not only does she provide countless photos, but she lists thorough explanations for the activities that they are doing as well as countless links to the pdf files of her reproductibles for other teachers to use for free. Her website is a true testament to the care, devotion, and time she puts in day after day to make sure her students are enjoying school and are really learning in a hands on way!

She is inspiring because you can see the time and planning that it would take to complete all of these tasks, activities, and accomplish them all in an organized manner so they are effective at teaching the material to students.

This is a teacher that makes me want to reach for the stars and be a better teacher for my own students! And she also shows me that her time and energy is clearly paying off for her students, the real reason we are teachers!

Insights from Craft Day

Although craft day itself was very popular and successful with students, it was also a valuable learning experience for me upon reflection.

First of all, cleaning the floors. My CT and I made sure that the students spent at least the last five minutes or so cleaning the floors. With five stations of crafts going on at the same time, things are going to hit the floor, it's inevitable. However, my CT and I didn't want our janitor to come in the room and think, "Oh man, they did crafts today!" Instead we told the challenged the children to clean the floor so well that our janitor wouldn't even know we had crafts that day. And it worked! Our students did a great job cleaning the floors and it looked like any other day in our room.

Though we were slightly unsure if our floors were to a good standard of cleanliness, we visited the other classrooms and found a completely different scene. Upon reflection, I realized that I would be incredibly embarassed to be a classroom teacher and have the janitor dread coming into my room because of the mess he or she would encounter. It also would make me not want to do those fun arts and crafts projects with students because of the mess that they have to deal with. It is not their job to follow behind students and clean up the disaster trail of messiness that they leave behind them. Their job is to maintain the cleanliness of the school and it takes only a few extra minutes out of our day to help those people have an easier job, which is worth it.

The second realization is liquid glue. Wow. I wasn't even thinking that students wouldn't have an idea of how to use liquid glue, but they sure don't. While at the picture ornament station, I saw 5 groups of students come through and use glue. I would say only about one-third of them actually knew how to use glue. The others, after hearing my instructions to use a little bit of glue over the background of the ornament, proceeded to hold the glue bottle upside down over their paper and squeeze the bottle with every ounce of strength they have in their little bodies. I am not sure if they thought that "a little bit of glue" was code for "a lake of glue that your paper could swim in" or what, but goodness. I was never a fan of glue sticks, but now I understand why we use them. If we didn't one day someone would come into our classroom and be swept away by the river of glue coming from our room!

Winter Craft Day!

Wow, Thursday sure was a whirlwind. It was my first day taking the vast majority of the day by myself. My CT was working on other projects, prepping for Winter Craft Day and working on our bulletin board (Polar Express which requires us making a huge train to hold all of the photos of the second grade students, nearly 60 of them!). It was exciting, even though our day was so much different from normal with play preparation for Friday when our class was performing Johnny Appleseed and the book fair was here, which the kids absolutely loved. The book fair really makes me happy to see all of the students get so excited about seeing books. Granted some are not quality literature by any means, and some only like the pictures, but the excitement for books none the less was worth it. Makes me happy to be a teacher on those days!

So Winter Craft Day! First of all, thank goodness for parents who are able to volunteer! I didn't realize how much help they really can be!

Our craft day consisted of 5 stations:

1. Reindeer Ornaments
2. Reindeer Pots
3. Picture Ornaments
4. Door Hangers
5. Snacks and a winter story

All of the stations were very popular. I didn't hear any of the students complain about the project that was being done, even from the boys that think they are too cool for everything! :) At times the stations felt like controlled chaos, sometimes mostly chaos though. Recess definately helped calm the students down. Getting some of that excitement and pent up energy out of their systems really enabled the students to focus more on the projects at hand.

All in all, Winter Craft Day was successful and enjoyable, and not as much hassle as I was expecting. However, it was incredibly exhausting. Shuffling kids to and from stations every fifteen or twenty minutes and starting with a new group of even more excited students. At the recess break, the three parent volunteers and myself sat in the classroom for the first five minutes in silence, just regaining some energy and taking a few minutes to prepare for the next session of student artists. As exhausted as I was, I realized that my energy was going toward something that the students were really enjoying and were really engaged with so it was all worth the time and effort!

This craft day also helped me understand how effective stations are in student learning. To allow students to rotate through several different, and sometimes related, activities rather than requiring them to focus exclusively on one project is extremely effective. Students focus better when their gears can shift from one topic to another, so to speak, and often can avoid reaching the point of frustration in lower students because they get to experience several different activities in one time period.

New Realizations

The more time I am in the classroom student teaching, the more I am learning, whether I realize it or not. Some things are minor "tricks of the trade" so to speak, like covering one year long bulletin board with a seasonal board to save the time of taking one down, putting one up, taking that one down, and putting the original back up (thanks Jnet!).

Other things are much bigger, things you don't learn in teacher prep classes.

The first thing I am realizing is that you have to be consistent. Of course we talk about this related to assessment and things like that, but nothing related to classroom management. I am the type of person who likes to give people a ton of second chances, so instead of adhering to the discipline system of our school (the Make Your Day protocol) I tend to give warnings... again and again. When I am up in front of the class I don't even realize I am giving so many warnings, but when I reflect on my teaching for the day, those warnings surface in the forefront of my mind and the students sure realize that they can get away with much more when I am teaching than when my cooperating teacher is in the front of the room. Luckily I realize this early enough and I have been working on not giving warnings, just setting expectations and helping students choose the consequences for not following those expectations.

That idea directly relates to my other realization for the day: you really do need to start off the year firm with the students. I am a softy if there ever was one. I do not like being firm with the students because I am always worried that my firmness will hurt their feelings. However, I really do realize the more I am student teaching that you really do have to be firm with students. That's not to say you have to be mean, because that is not the case at all! It is just necessary to set expectations for students and hold them to those expectations. In a way, teachers have to train their students to behave the way that will enable them to get the most from their learning and to understand what actions are appropriate for each activity, whether that be math, writing, or walking in the hallway. In addition, the students really respond positively to the firmness. They may not always like it in the heat of the moment when they are being held accountable for their actions, but overall, they build so much more respect for the person who holds them accountable as well as trust for that person as a teacher and support system in their lives. This firmness gives students boundaries and a clear cut way for them to understand what is okay, as well as what is not okay to do during the day. As the year progresses, I can see a teacher being able to be slightly less firm with the students because they will have been trained to act appropriately and follow certain expectations, that those actions will become almost second nature to them. Until then, it is necessary to be firm with students, regardless of how much I am hesitant to do so.

All in all, I am really enjoying student teaching: learning the little tricks that help teachers or just inadvertently making a huge realization that will positively impact the management of the classroom this year, as well as the management of future classrooms I will be in charge of.

If I can give one piece of advice to any student teacher out there it would be to spend as much time as possible in the classroom. The time you devote to learning the ins and outs of the profession now will pay off in a big way in the long run!