Weekly Recap - Student teaching just might kill me.

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 7, 2014

Weekly Recap

Monday: Something big has happened! I finally gave a spelling test, nobody panic! After announcing the schedule for the kids and settling them into the Monday routine, I administered the spelling pretest. I had observed my master teacher giving one before and pretty much knew the drill...and let's face it, giving a spelling test finally made me feel like a teacher. When I was little and would play dress up I would walk around with a clipboard and write down interesting words I saw off of the television then later I would test myself and, of course, all of my stuffed animals. So this spelling test was a big deal, this was everything I had been waiting for. And it was wonderfully awkard...practice makes perfect.

Tuesday: I lead the class through the weekly reading, which was a wonderful story about an author and what she does with her spare time. I was able to introduce the new vocabulary words and while defining them for the classroom I had the students create movements or show my with their bodies what each of the five words meant. (This came in handy later. :)) After listening to the audio tape of the story I lead the class in a discussion about the short piece and had them complete a graphic organizer. Overall, despite being sick to my stomach, it was a great day. This kids were attentive and very invested in their own learning.

Wednesday: What a great day! There were a lot of successes throughout the day, including the reading portion. I was in the middle of assigning sections of the story to each student so that could practice what they were going to be reading. I had them read their assigned section to a partner and made sure if they had any questions they were comfortable asking. While I was walking around helping a few students with pronounciation and other common issues that readers struggle with, a strange man in a suit walked in and planted himself at the back table. Ok. No one panic. After about 6 or 7 minutes I had the students read the story out loud while others were following along with their finger. The strange man pulled out a pen and paper. He's writing notes. Time to panic. After the story was finished and the students were on their way out to recess, my master teacher introduced me to the man who does all of the hiring for the district. Yikes, good thing he observed me during a fun lesson. (That was sarcasm.) He gave me his notes, which despite being such a boring lesson, were all positive.

Thursday: Today I introduced alliterations to the class. They started out on the ramp in a line and I explained that I hada surprise for them and all they had to do was pick a piece of paper out of the bucket. The papers each had a seperate letter of the alphabet. I explained the concept, using a few of my own creative examples (which had a student's name in each of them) and they thought that my examples were hilarious. They kept giving me letters so that I could create a new sentence. After some suspense was built I allowed the students to create their own sentences. I also reminded them they had their spelling dictionary in their desk and that they should open them up to their assigned letter so that it would help think of words. I listed the instuctions of the board so that I was not answering the same question over and over. 1. The sentence must be at least five words long. 2. The sentence must contain at least three words that start with the same letter. 3. Have fun. The kids had so much fun with this assignment. They were also given the opportunity to draw a picture of what their sentence represented, but only after they had correct spelling and the sentence met the rules. Such a fun day!

Friday: Art Day! I lead the kids through a Burton Morris inspired art lesson. I will post photos of them, they look amazing on the wall display. Another important note: I dominated the tether ball court during free choice recess. It must be my amazing athleticism...or that I'm about 3 feet taller than my opponent. I can't be sure.

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 14, 2014

Weekly Recap

Monday: No school! Sigh.

Tuesday: Today we started the assessment for the second trimester. This test was done during the first hour of school, when the kids were most likely to try their very best. The questions were read out loud so that the assessment would not be a reading test but more a comprehension check. We also reviewed for the math test that we would be taking on Wednesday. And last but not least, we had parents come in after lunch to help with an art project that they wanted the kids to be a part of. Oh and for the kicker, Grandma Kay, the parents, and myself all had a seperate activity for the kids..only mine was whole-class instruction. It's ok if you want to pray for me.

Wednesday: Second day of testing...the kids knew what to do. (Smarty Pants – the lot of them). My favorite activity of the day was the Valentine's Day Acrostic poem that I had found on Teacherspayteachers.com. I started this lesson by reading a Valentine's Day book that I checked out from our school library which the kids took a liking to. Then we reviewed what an acrostic poem was and with the use of the Smartboard began filling out the poem together. Note: I asked the students what they knew about acrostic poems...that way my silly brain could figure out how to explain them to my students in language that they would understand. Tricky, tricky.

Thursday: Today was so much fun! My first field trip with my kiddos and we went to the firestation and the police station. The kids were such a joy to be around and they were so excited to be a part of this day. I was a proud teacher watching them ask great questions and just be amazed at all they were learning. I don't want to leave this class. No way. No how.

Friday: It's Valentine's Day. Oh. My. Word. I'm not sure i've every seen such excitement from anyone in my life. The kids were so happy about celebrating the holiday and I was happy that they were able to have a mental break from testing and learning. Now...don't get me wrong, it was an exhausting day and I dragged myself to bed that night, but it was so much fun. There is one thing that I must mention. On Wednesday, during the math test, I had a few students who did not listen to instruction and as a result scored pretty low on the test. And by a few, I really mean about half. In their defense, the math test was set up so that if the students did not read every single instruction then they were not going to recieve great scores. However, I did point out the importance of reading directions so it was their decision after that. Due to poor scores I gave the students an opportunity to retest at the beginning of the day. Half of them attempted a new test and half of them worked on a Valentine's Day themed word search. Result: better test scores!

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 21 , 2014

Weekly Recap

Monday: Holy potatoes! My first Monday of solo week was so easy...well we had the day off.

Tuesday: Now we get down to the real stuff. My first real day of teaching was intense. I had to be mindful of my time management during tasks and it was, at times, pretty difficult. I didn't realize that I could juggle so many activities. We began our testing again, which was the third day alltogether, so the students knew exactly what to do. My favorite part of the day was writing thank you letters to the police station. Once again, so that I could understand how to explain the activity, I asked my students what made up a great thank you letter. The students understood what was expected of them, but I did not give enough time for the students to finish their illustrations. Also, this week is National Acts of Kindness Week so I took some time today to discuss what that meant. I tied in A.R.K. (Acts of Random Kindness) and explained that I called this week A.R.K. Week because it reminded me of the good deed that Noah did during the biblical times. Yes, I talked about the Bible – from a historical perspective.

Wednesday: Today was the day for second chances. It was a new day and I was ready to tackle all of the challenges. We wrote thank you letters to the fire station and we briefly reviewed what made up a good thank you letter. We didn't need to spend much time on explaining the acitivity today so the students had a longer time to finish their assignment. Because we were in the middle of A.R.K. Week the whole class did an act of random kindness for another person. Today we gave pencils to a randomly selected class on campus. I put all of the teacher's names into a big bucket and had the classroom helper of the day pick out a name. Then during the first portion of math time we lined up and headed over to do our good deed. (I checked with that teacher ahead of time.) The kids dropped off their pencils and left with giant smiles on their faces. Afterwards we settled back into class and we had a short discussion on how they felt after doing their random act of kindness.

Thursday: For A.R.K. Week we decided to clean up the school in a new way. Each classroom has a barrel that hold the basketballs, foursquare balls,etc. The students in my class went outside and returned any of the classroom's balls that were not their own. The whole task took about 20 minutes and the kids were able to do their good deeds as well as get their wiggles out at the same time. Yay! After that we came back to class and focused on our kindness acrostic. Because we had already done an acrostic last week I was able to build upon some of those skills. I wanted my students to understand that while they needed to start each letter with the letter on the line, they also needed to make sure that all the lines connect to a central theme. My class absolutely understood the idea of what an acrostic poem is supposed to look like. -Celebrate-

Friday: My last day of my first solo week and I am exhausted. We finished up the week by writing about all that we accomplished during A.R.K. Week. I let all the students understand my expections of the assignment and they knew how to accomplish the requirements. We brainstormed before we began writing so the children had plenty of things to write about and I required that they finish their writing so that they might publish their piece. They all worked very hard and I could tell that they were excited about their writing. Guess what? I'm still alive.

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 28, 2014

Tuesday: Today was very tiring, we had a lot of things to do in what seemed like a very short time. Like I said, I am working on getting better at time managment. Today we read our main selection in our language arts textbook titled "Head, Body, Legs". We listened to the story from an audio book and completed a graphic organizer. This week I tried something a little different with our weekly vocabulary words. Instead of just having the children memorize the definition I also had them put an action with each of the words. It helped the students retain the meaning of the word. We finished the day with science by drawing the progression of a fossil buried deep underground.

Wednesday: Well...today could have gone better. I fully expected my supervisor to be observing from 12:30 – 2:00 and it made me nervous. She stayed for the langauge arts portion which of course was the worst lesson of the day. But that's ok, she still left me really good marks and honestly she saw what I could have done better. At the end of the day we read about how paleontolgist dig up fossils and how careful they needed to be. Then the fun began! My master teacher and I had covered up previsouly made clay molds of dinosuars with coffee grounds and passed them out as well as paintbrushes so that the children could uncover their own fossil. It was an absolutly perfect lesson. The kids had fun. I had fun. It was great.

Thursday: The highlight of my day was the science rotation that I was able to teach. My university supervisor came again for observations so I was a little nervous...but because it was not my own class I was pretty excited. I was more focused on the challenge that a new class brought than being nervous about my own lesson. To begin my lesson I acted like a crazy scientist and the new students were very unsure how to react. I needed to ditch my crazy disguise so I walked out the door and came back in without my crazy scientist goggles. I came in warning my students about my twin sister. They loved it and from that moment on were very engaged in the lesson. However, my favorite part of the lesson was at the very end when the helper from my new class, who is also a Grandma from the helper program, came up to me, gave me a kiss on the cheek, and said that I would make a fantastic teacher. Joy

Friday: It's Friday! We always have a crazy day on Friday! I did need to complete the math lesson that we did not get to because I wanted a full day for math review. Here's the situation... the students were really overwhelmed with one of the math concepts. So instead of handing them a new lesson to learn the very next day, I decided to spend a day with whiteboard review. I walked through each and every step of three digit subtraction and made sure that all of my students were comfortable with the concept. A great end to a great week. 

We're All Pirates When It Comes Down To It

This week as been so much fun. I have been taking over the class staring with the morning work and finishing just before lunch. I cover every topic but social studies/science. I am starting to understand the balance of what the kids can do and what is maybe too far of a reach for their grade level. I have been developing my own classroom management, and like I said before in my previous post, I am learning from my mistakes and making adjustments.

I have been struggling with some perfectionists in my classroom. There is a group of 7 or 8 students who have a very difficult time feeling any sense of accomplishment if they don't finish a project or if they spell a word wrong. So today, during my lesson, when I spelled "Soccor" on the board while teaching I took a step back and asked the students if that was spelled correctly. -- Side note: my master teacher was evaluating that lesson -- yikes! -- The students responded that it was not spelled correctly and I used that time to remind the students that it is ok to make mistakes and that even though I am the teacher, I still sometimes make errors... but that it was ok because I am learning. My master teacher smiled, my students were happy, and I used my mistake as a learning experience.

On Monday I introduced the book "How I Became a Pirate" by David Shannon and had the students follow along. (I had the book up on the smart board so that the students could see the illustrations and so that they could follow along as I was reading.) I paused and had the students show me their very best pirate voice. -- What a fun lesson.

I also had a few worksheets that I had found on teacherspayteachers.com and had passed those out. One was a pirate themed lined paper and I had asked the students to write down any pirate words that they had heard while listening to the story.**

**I had passed this sheet out prior to the story beginning and had fully explained the activity.** Repetition is key. Reassure the students that they understand the task at hand. Have students rephrase what you just asked them to do. Repetition is key.

The kids loved the pirate theme so I continued it today by recapping what happened in the book and passed out an awesome compare and contrast worksheet I found online. I led the students through the first half of the worksheet and had them work through the rest with their table group. I really enjoy having the students talk through the lesson because then when they are talking it is about the lesson. The kids absolutely loved the lesson and I received full engagement. At the end of the lesson I had the students figure out their "Pirate Name" with another worksheet I had found online. Absolutely love pirates and so do the kids.

Wish me luck,

Megs

Death by Second Graders

I could go into this big long story about how crazy yesterday was and how, at one point in the day, I thought I might die. It was tough. But it wouldn't be as fun to read as today's story will be. Let's just say "Phewwwwww, glad that's over" and move on.

Today:

Math:

 Today the kids had to take a test about what they had been learning for the past two weeks. Yikes. This is when I know I have been doing my job correctly or not. Fingers crossed, I am grading them tonight...with the help of my dog of course.

Before the students started the test, I had them work through a math warmup that was already on their desk when they came in from recess. I walked to each table group and checked over their shoulders if they were doing the work correctly, gave suggestions when needed and very dramatically reassured the students of how proud I was that they were doing such a good job. I wanted to be sure to encourage all of the students, highlighting a few by name that I knew needed a little push in the right direction. I had all the students separate their desk, and with the promise of free choice at the end, the students began their test. I walked around answering any questions that they had on the word problems...after all (and my master teacher assured me of this) the test was not a reading test, it was a math test and the students would be tested on math.

Students worked the entire math period, some took need A.R. quizzes, others read or finished some art projects. Overall, it was a very productive period. :)


Writing:

Yesterday I introduced a new creative writing assignment about penguins. I told the class that I was "giving" each and every one of them a penguin and that it was their job to come up with a creative name, to tell me what the penguin likes, where the penguin lives, and some of its favorite activities.

I was very impressed with some of the names...but honestly, it was a struggle.

Wobbles

Miss. Love Dove

Butterball

FireBall

Bob Stevey

Squigly Squids

-- Like I said, yesterday was crazy. --

Last night I spent some time going over the student's penguin work. I circled misspelled words and asked the students to expand their sentences.

Some needed a lot of revision...some needed a little.

Today I reminded the students of their spelling dictionaries that they had in their desk, had them revise their work and complete a rough draft. Then they got to be creative and draw their penguins. This is always my favorite part of the day because you never know what some kids might come up with.

Updates: 

Ticket System: I have started phasing out the ticket system. It worked to remind students to stay on task, but it was a pain to remember to hand them out, to keep track of tickets (most would end up on the floor) and to remember to have the daily drawing.

I've implemented a table group system instead. Each table group is responsible for their own points. The first table group to get to 10 points - taken and freely given whenever I deem necessary - gets a pick out of the box.



Tomorrow is Friday!

Wish me luck,

Megs

If you can't beat em', join em'.

Happy Tuesday to everyone who reads my blog. Today was a little crazier than usual and the students were all kinds of hyper. It was difficult to get the students to focus on the math lesson (which was coincidentally more difficult material than usual -- not the best combination).

Today we focused on using word problems to solve two-question problems. For example, Tracy has 21 potatoes in one basket. She has 18 potatoes in another basket. How many potatoes does she have in all? Then, Tracy uses 22 of the potatoes. Now how many potatoes are there?

Because of the difficulty of the lesson I worked through each of the problems at the front of the class while the students helped guide me through the problems. I made sure to put the responsibility of actually solving the problem on the student by calling random students to solve parts of each problem. The difficulty did not come from students who were not paying attention (although, like I stated earlier, the students were very talkative) but more from the difficulty of the lesson. However, we pushed through and the majority of the students understood how to complete the work.

Lunch (In other words "Teacher's Rest Time")

During lunch I was brainstorming how I could use the fact that the students were very talkative today as an academic advantage. I knew that for the writing activity I had wanted the students to create their own rules as if they were the principal of the school...so I just adjusted my lesson to fit the needs of the students today.  I decided to move the desks around from rows to groups and created five different table groups. I let the students know before going into the classroom that I had moved around the seating and that I wanted them to find their desk and clear everything off because we had a new assignment.

After the students came in and the noise settled I had everyone look around at their table group and explained to them that these people, THESE SILLY, CRAAAAZY PEOPLE, were their partners in the next activity. Then I had them all close their eyes. This is a neat little trick that might not work for all classes, but for now works like a charm in my class. I told them to imagine that they had their own school and that they got to choose their very own rules. I started giving examples of silly things: No homework, only ice cream for lunch, video games everyday, riding dragons to school, etc. The kids all seemed to love the examples and they started getting very excited about the activity.

Then I asked my classroom helper ( I choose a new one everyday) to help pass out the lined paper while I read the following poem:

I reminded the students that they could pick any rule that they wanted but they needed to work together as a team to come up with their rules. Yea for talking! I gave them about 7 minutes to complete this activity and walked around so I could peek at some of their answers.

After everyone had finished I had everyone stand up and push in their chairs and I dismissed them to a certain area of the room. I went around to each group and read the 5 rules from each new "school". I told the students that they were going to need to decide on a school that they wanted to attend. I had them all turn around and tapped each student on the shoulder so they could quietly choose their favorite school.** I did tell them that they were not allowed to choose their own school and that helped balance the selections.

Once everyone had settled at a table group I had the students who chose that school work together to pick, what they thought was, the best rule and indicate it by circling the rule. I had all students return back to their normal seats and fresh paper was passed out so we could compile all the best rules onto our "final draft". I had one student from each group be the spokesperson and they told me what rule had been selected. Our final draft makes for one amazing new school.

Favorite Moment of the Day: 

I had a table group that was half boys and half girls decided that one of their rules was that they didn't want a member of the opposite sex in their school. So we had "THE BIG SPLIT" which, of course, I made a huge deal. The kids thought it was great. The all boys school decided that everyone would play laser tag all of the time. I can't argue with that, sounds great!

You can't scare me, I'm a teacher.

Week 2

Last week was a whirlwind. I had begun teaching writing as well as math. I need to develop my own lessons to teach and on Monday I had no idea what I wanted to do for the rest of the week. Good thing I work well under pressure.

Monday:

We wrote thank you letters as a class. I wrote half of the letter on the smartboard, while being prompted by students, and allowed them to be creative. My writing prompt, that the students decided on, was, “Thank you so much for the beanies. I like them because...” After tossing around creative ideas out loud the students were then given time to write why they each liked them. They were also given time to draw, so that way they could take a mental break from letter writing.

Tuesday:

I had read The Sweetest Fig in class and I wanted to stick with that theme for the following week. The story is about a man who has a magic fig that makes all of his dreams come true. So my extension was, “If I had a magic fig...” As a class we brainstormed different ideas. After passing out small pieces of paper to each student I had each of them clothes their eyes and think about what they would wish for. I made it a game, “Make sure you don't let anyone see your answer.” Then I had my student helper collect all of the small pieces of paper and I read them out loud. I told all the students that when they heard their answer not to make any sounds. When I read a certain answer about quad racing it was obvious who wrote it. So I stopped pacing and stared at that student. This brought out a fit of giggles. I love my students. They are a bunch of silly kids.

"Quad Racer"

"Fire Powers"

"Guinea Pig with a Brown Eye"

"Ice Powers"

"Math Teacher"

"Popstar"

"I would buy a fish"

After that, we worked through a graphic organizer together and I had asked the students to help me fill in the bubbles. The center bubble was “If I had a magic fig” and we made three extensions from there. So on and so forth.

Wednesday:

I had taken home their graphic organizers over night and had circles their best idea and had written small comments encouraging each student. I handed out the templates that I had made for the students to help guide them through the writing process. And lead them through the process. Template shown below:

If a student did not know how to spell a word I reminded them that they all had a spelling dictionary in their desks and that they needed to use it. After the students had filled in the template, I passed out lined paper and had them write their story. I took those home over night and circled, in pencil, any word that was misspelled.

Thursday:

I handed back the lined paper and had students make corrections. Once they were finished I passed out a blank sheet of paper so that they could finish off their creative writing with a visual image. I was really impressed with some of the finished projects.

** Please note the smart board**

Friday:

We had rotations between all of the second grade classrooms. Meaning each teacher had a group of students for 30 minutes each and then they rotated to the next classroom. My master teacher decided to teach about Jerry Rice, some kind of football player that I know nothing about. Yikes. (Don't you worry, I know a lot about him now). That was a lie. Moving on.

I walked around to different classes to check out what each teacher was doing and to also see a few different classroom management styles. The lessons included: Darius Rucker, The Underground Railroad and making a classroom quilt. Each teacher had their own form of classroom management so it was good for me to see all the different styles.

Also, at the end of the day I forgot to finish the Friday drawing. So no one got any prizes. Yikes. I'm going to be in trouble on Tuesday. Yes, we have Monday off. **Hallelujah!**

The Case of the Smellies.

Monday presented a few challenges. The kids were a little crazy today during the math lesson. We worked on subtraction with regrouping. Because we had already been over this subject, the majority of the students completed this lesson with ease. Like always, I introduced the lesson by recalling previous information.  I made sure the students were telling me how to solve the problems. I went over the first page with them, one problem at a time, while asking the students to help me, step by step, solve the problem.

Weaknesses: The students were pretty rowdy so it was difficult to maintain the attention of the class. When the noise level became so that I became frustrated I had the use the "d" word. I had to tell them I was disappointed in them. After that the class seemed to settle down; the started paying attention and either decided to work on old homework or read a book.

Lunch happened. (Yay mental break!)

Today began my first week in charge of the writing portion and we completed thank you notes. Last week all of the students received beanies with our school pride on them so we focused on thanking the people who helped make them possible.

Because it was my first time working with the students on writing, I was unsure about their content knowledge. So I put the assignment in their hands by asking them what made up letter writing. I asked the students what made up a letter and they answered:

"You need the date."

"You have to start with dear."

"Don't forget your capitals."

I had the students guide my entire lesson by telling me what they already knew about writing letters.

Teacher Read:

Tomorrow I will be using this book as the writing portion of the class. It's about a man who eats magical figs that make all of this dreams come true. My writing prompt will be something like, "If I had a magical fig..." (Still in the works.)

On another note, today the super students were able to take off their shoes during class time...

...and someone had really bad gas.

Smelly day.

Friday Funday?

Let me tell you a little story about Friday.

The Room from Hell

At my school every class has a partner class. As second graders we have been partnered with a kindergarten class. We do everything from art projects to mitten exchanges. Today we needed to help our buddies with a research project. The kindergartners needed to pick an animal that they wanted to learn more about. So we met them at the computer lab. After we were done having all the second graders pick out their computer we led the kindergarteners into the room. They lined up against one wall and one by one they found their assigned buddies.

Using the computer proved easy, as my class had already had previous experience using them. All of the students successfully decided on their animal and printed out the required text. Then we decided to switch rooms. *DUH DUH DUNNNN*

Now, here's the thing, we had 40 elementary students so we needed a bigger room. We wanted the students to read through the material and highlight some important facts. We needed a big room. So we had them line up with their buddies and their newly printed sheet and lead them to the art room. NEVER. AGAIN.

The room has this nifty way of making anything anyone says echo. So you can only imagine 40 elementary students in this classroom. Holy potatoes.

After that, my master teacher was exhausted. So that is a testament to how environments can effect the lesson. Word of advice: never use the art room.

Lesson I Taught

I had a chunk of time to complete an art lesson with my class. We decided to complete a bubble letter project. This is what the finished product looked like:

Step 1: Have students write their name on the big sheet in pencil. Remind them to write lightly as they will need to erase later.

Step 2: Introduce block letters and have them outline their name. I also displayed block letters on the smart board so they could see what the final product would look like.

Step 3: Make sure that each student has a box of crayons and a large eraser. I showed the students my final product and had them answer a few questions about them. I made sure they students understood the importance of outlining the entire letter. I suggested using different colors for each letter while encouraging them to be creative.

Step 4: Provide students some time to start outlining their letters. I had the students use their eraser *very carefully*  to erase the inside of their bubble letters. Then I showed them my final product again. I led a discussion about the different patterns that were inside each letter. I asked if anyone had any of their own ideas for the inside patterns. Students responded.

Step 5: Have students creatively complete their patterns and names. Have them raise their hands when they are done. After they have finished coloring in their name

*Make sure the students color pretty hard with their crayons because they will be painting on them.*

*Also, check their work and give them positive feedback and suggestions, if needed.*

Step 6: Paint over the name. I had students paint in groups of three. I provided three different colors to choose from; gold, silver, and blue. Be careful with darker colors. If the student chooses a darker color remind them to really spread their paint out so their name doesn't get completely colored by the paint.

Step 7: Enjoy!

We are going to use their completed projects as the front cover for their art portfolio.