Tears for fears

9/27/10

Well, it was bound to happen - the melt down.  Didn't think it would happen this early in the experience, but it did.  In the car.  At 6:35 am.  It was only a few minutes long, but it was bound to happen.  With long, long, days and unrealistic expectations of standards and inquiry, I physically and mentally can't keep up.  I talked to my CT about the meltdown, and she was totally supportive.  She committed to having me leave on time as many afternoons as possible.  Sounds like a plan!

Today the students worked on a math assessment (yup still working on assessments) in the early morning activity.  This assessment will help us to group students into their PLC groups on Thursday/Friday.  They also received new seating assignments, one of which will promptly be switched because they just couldn't handle the excitement of sitting together.  

I delivered a lesson on the fantastic four elements of setting - clarifying how to write a paragraph using the four elements of setting to describe any book.  I reviewed the worksheets they completed on 9/22 during my lesson and realized that they hadn't made the jump from writing bullet points to compiling a paragraph.  Also, a number of students had a hard time understanding the difference between the mood of a character and the mood of a scene.  I decided to write an example paragraph and create an overhead for students to follow along with.  I color coded the four elements of setting, then underline each element, in the prescribed color, in the example text that I provided on an overhead.  The students seemed engage and were eager to participate in the activities.  As I went around the room and checked on their progress, it was clear by their work that they understood what mood of setting was, and that they were correctly completing the paragraph assignment.

Science: 

We started a unit on electricity!  It's electric...boogie woogie woogie!  The students tested electric currents with batteries, copper wire, and tiny light bulbs.  It was so fun to see the students engage in experimenting!  You could literally see the light bulbs lighting up in the minds.  So fun!

Math:

It was all about MEAN (or average).  Did you know that students are encouraged to add two numbers at a time in a data set, as opposed to all at once?  Crazy!  It is supposed to help cut down on errors. So instead of adding this way:

100

  57

  23

+12

------

192

Students now do the following:

100

+57

-----

157

+23

-----

180

+12

-----

192

Interesting, eh?  A bit more work, but should cut down on carrying errors.

We also watched a video about how to calculate a batting average: hits/at bats

I also loved how Dr. Morse explained rounding on a number line.  If you have the number 97.3 does it fall closer to 97 or 98 on the number line.  

<------ 97 ----- 97.3 ----- 98------>  

Absolutely love the visual!

SS:

Yet another assessment - this time it was on the continents, oceans, and hemispheres of the earth.  You'd be surprised how many students confused Africa and South America...  

Picture Day

9/24/10

It was picture day at the Angier School today!  We all had our picture taken, and every student who remembered to dress up, did so from the waste up - nothing but athletic shorts on the bottom.  Why?  PE today!  About half of the boys wore navy blue polo shirts - it was like a memo went out to parents suggesting that shirt for a classy picture.  The day started out freezing - which of course is when our pictures were taken - but ended up being close to 90*.  

The students came back from recess in the late afternoon drenched in sweat (in their business on top, gym class on the bottom outfits) and completely hyper.  Awesome - just in time for me to give a spelling assessment.  Ask me how many students out of 24 didn't talk during the test - seven.  They were even bribed with extra recess if they were good, but the pressures of the weather, a half hour left of school before the weekend, and just all around 10-year-old energy got the best of them.  So, only seven students were allowed to go to recess while the rest were given a guilt trip by Ms. Wink.  

I worked with the student mentioned in earlier posts on his challenge ticket tracking during recess.  I taught him how to use Excel to calculate ever changing totals of tickets into percentages.  He was super impressed and happy to know that he had to do a lot less grunt work than he was thinking.  Thank you Excel and your magical equations!

I stayed after school to correct the spelling assessments.  At this point, students are supposed to get only 2 wrong out of 50.  Seriously?  I probably would have only gotten an 80% as an adult!  Some of these words were tricky!

After those were corrected, I drove down town to hang out with my friend Amanda.  We grabbed Thai food and went to her house to see if Oprah had been Tivoed.  Sadly, it hadn't, so we didn't get to watch Cory Booker accept $100 million dollars from Mark Zuckerberg - founder of facebook.  I did however get to hear their voices over and over on NPR on my ride home.  I love it when good things happen to my friends, and they in turn do good things to help others. 

 

Governor Chris Christie, Oprah Winfrey, Mayor Cory Booker, Mark Zuckerberg.

Super Nintendo Chalmers

9/23/10

The school was on high alert today - the Superintendent was coming in to visit each classroom! It is his first year as Superintendent of Schools in Newton, and he is going around to every classroom in each school to get to know the lay of the land. Love it!

Science:

We started off with science today, and the Superintendent happened to stop by during the lesson. Before he arrived, Ms. Wink reviewed the three parts of a Testable Question: materials (what you can use), problem (what are you trying to do), and the criteria (what it successfully has to do).

When the Superintendent did pop in, Ms. Wink had the students explain what the lesson was all about. She also proceeded to have him hold out his arms and she stacked 6 dictionaries on them to demonstrate how much weight one index card had to hold.

Math:

We continued the mean/median/mode lesson by learning all about the median. Median: the number in the middle of the data set. Dr. Morse again had fun act-out activities for the students to demonstrate. She passed out index cards with numbers on them to create a student data set at the front of the classroom. After a student "dismissed" equal numbers of students from each end of the data set (with a magic wand, of course!), the remaining student put on a monkey mask, and Dr. Morse and I played "monkey in the middle" by throwing a ball around that student. Hilarious! Dr. Morse also explained what to do when there is an even-numbered data set and you end up with two medians - take the average of the two numbers and you've got the correct median.

It's so funny to me that I feel so much more confident correcting the math work than I do the spelling or grammar...kind of the opposite of most girls (sadly - come on gals! let's love math!).

Social Studies:

We continued the text book scavenger hunt - and Ms. Conrad had to leave the room for a moment to take care of an issue. She let me take over the microphone (literally, all teachers use microphones when instructing during class to help the hard of hearing students), and engage the students in a discussion about the answers and the searching strategies they used. The students got really into it, and the one student who is usually tough to get involved/interested was contributing the entire class! He even took over the microphone on two occasions to answer the question. It was great to see him be so engaged in class.

Towards the end of the day, I read another chapter of "Night of the Twisters" to the students. The book is getting good...the weather is starting to change, and the twister is about to hit.

At the very end of the day, the student mentioned earlier made an announcement about the number of challenge tickets that have been collected thus far - 123! He also announced the top three challenge ticket holders in a very creative and dramatic way. I think this student is starting to find his niche, and the class is starting to see more of his personality and is becoming more open to getting to know him. He still has bad days (like yesterday when he stormed out of my lesson), but days like today are so thrilling to see.

My First Lesson

9/22/10

Science:

We reviewed the materials and criteria of the index card structure: 1 index card, 6" of tape; structure must hold 6 dictionaries 1/2" off the ground.

Students teams were given the chance to try out three structures...so far, the highest has been 5 dictionaries. Will the illusive 6th dictionary ever be conquered?

Math:

Students began to learn about mode/median/mean - today we focused on mode. Mode is the value that occurs most frequently in a data set.

Dr. Morse made up this interview between a Vogue editor and a celebrity - "Mode." Mode was seen everywhere out on the town, because "Mode" was the most popular of them all. After reading the interview, she handed students index cards with numbers on them and brought the students to the front of the room. She then had the class describe which number was the mode in the data set. In this case, three out of the four students were the mode. Dr. Morse then rolled out the red carpet (laminated red construction paper) and dressed them up in boas and sunglasses an had the mode students strut down the isle. They LOVED it! Totally hammed it up and were dying to participate in her next volunteer activity!

Social Studies:

Ms. Conrad also had a learning activity prepared for the students. After learning about the many features of the text book, the students were sent on a scavenger hunt for items like "Who was Crispus Attucus and why was he famous?" They got really into it and had a blast! I really liked how Ms. Conrad had the goal and directions on the board for students to refer back to.

Language Arts:

Today I gave my first observed lesson! YES! Eileen, my supervisor, came to observe me and to provide feedback. The lesson was on the four elements of setting, which I referred to as "The Fantastic 4 Elements of Setting!" I used the characters from the Fantastic 4 to introduce the four elements. I started off by asking the students if they had ever heard of the Fantastic 4 - nearly everyone had, and they were so excited to talk about the comic book characters. I sucked them into that lesson! They loved the PowerPoint presentation which had fun and colorful pictures of the characters along with the definitions of the elements of setting. I also scanned in - page by page - the book "Thunder Cake" by Patricia Polacco. The goal of the lesson was to have the students listen to the story and write down the elements of setting that they heard in Thunder Cake on to the graphic organizer that I created. They totally bought into it! I think they had a lot of fun with it as well. Eileen and Amy both provided me with positive feedback - they seemed very impressed with my energy, enthusiasm, and creativity! YAY! Only four more chances to out do myself...

Curriculum Night

9/21/10

Another half day here at the Angier. The day flew by and the students learned a lot!

Spelling:

I'm so excited to learn about spelling! I'm a terrible speller, so I'm hoping to learn the tricks of the trade! Today was all about the closed syllable learning. When a word is spelled with a consonant-vowel-consonant, the vowel is pronounced with it's short sound (think, "cat"). Brilliant! Students get to choose ten words from a list of 30 to learn how to spell over the week. They need to divide the words up into syllables, look up the definitions, and write a sentence using the word.

Math:

Stem & Leaf Plots were all the rage today! Dr. Morse had an adorable flower and leaf visual to help explain how to properly display a data set within a stem & leaf plot.

Here's an example of a stem & leaf plot:

And here's Dr. Morse's awesome stem & leaf visual:

(much cooler)

Grammar:

We learned the difference between common and proper nouns, and discussed how capital letters are used to distinguish proper nouns. Ms. Conrad had a discussion about what the words common and proper mean in general conversation, then applied those definitions to the description of common and proper nouns.

Curriculum Night:

I was able to leave class early to attend the 5th Grade Curriculum Night at the Angier. The teachers gave a great presentation to the parents about the topics that will be covered throughout the year, and the expectations of parents (drop off kids on time, don't help them with homework, etc.).

Parents then came up to the classroom to see the learning environment, and to get a short description of Ms. Wink's expectations of students. Earlier in the day, the students left notes for their parents about the areas of the classroom that they wanted them to learn about. The parents then wrote a letter to their children with information about their 5th grade experience. Super cute! For me, it was fun to meet the parents, and to catch up with a friend from BC whose son is in my class! Impossible odds that I would be placed in his classroom, but I'm loving it! I particularly love to see him wear his BC gear!

Long day, but it was a good one.

Assessment Time & Do I Have a Tapeworm?

9/20/10

Students were hit with two assessments today - first writing, then vocabulary. Don't worry - they had recess after each assessment.  After assessments were through, it was back to the rotation! 

In Math, we plotted the hight/arm span coordinates (collected last week) onto an x/y axis. It was beautiful.

Social Studies was a continuation of Friday's lesson - hunting for textbook features that help to navigate the information.

In Science, students now have to create structures out of just one index card and 6" of tape. The structure needs to hold 6 or more dictionaries 1/2" off of a table...should be fun!

I'm starting to worry that I ingested a tape worm. I do nothing but eat all day long. Many, many, many snacks (healthy, of course) are ingested throughout the day, but nothing satisfies me. I'm in a constant state of hunger.

Also, it seems that the universe is telling me to stick with education. I've been questioning my decision to leave higher ed over the past couple of weeks due to my overwhelming feeling of being underwhelmed by the teaching experience. But, within the last week, Deval Patrick, Sister Helen Prejean, and now Oprah have all told me to stick with it. According to Oprah and Bill Gates, Public Education is in dire need of strong teachers. I'm ready to step up to the plate.

Indoor Recess and Dead Man Walking

9/17/10

Today I got to host my first Morning Meeting!  I led the greeting by asking if students wanted to high five or fist pump.  Fist pumping received 100% of the vote!  After we greeted each other, we talked about how the class can work together to earn more recess and/or not lose recess points.  I was very impressed that students suggested listening to the teachers at all times, following rules and expectations, and lining up quickly and quietly.  It was so nice to hear the students speak these ideas - it seems like all of the work we've put in with expectations and rule explanation is paying off!  I think the next time I ask a brainstorming question, I'll have a mini wipe board with me so that I can display their thoughts for the rest of the day.  

In Math, we continued the Data & Statistics unit by learning all about Rene Dec

artes - the mathematician who created the Cartesian Coordinate System.  What would we do without Rene?  How would we know how to plot points on a plane?  Dr. Morse's intern read a fun Children's book about how Decartes came upon the idea of ordered pairs.  

After the book was read, students used a life-sized x, y-axis graph to figure out how to read ordered pairs.  The graph was on the floor and each integer was about a foot apart from the next.  A volunteer was given the ordered pair (1, 4) and had to walk from (0, 0) 

to that point.  The purpose of this exercise was for students to remember that the first integer represented x and the second integer represented y.

In SS, Ms. Conrad explained the difference between reading a fiction book and a text book.  She had a student demonstrate how he would read a book from cover to cover.  Then she explained that the text book was not like that; in class we will be hopping from one page to the next.  She explained the table of contents and then had students find 10 more features of the book that helped students navigate the contents (index, maps, page numbers, references, etc.)

It was raining outside today, so recess was indoors.  Ms. Wink distributed games to each of the tables and used the "Luck of the Draw" chips to determine who would be at which station.  Students were able to choose the table they wanted to go to, but this helped to cut down on the arguing and the stampeding.  

Science was tabled for the day so that our students could display their "Marvelous Me Museums."  Students spent all week (at home) decorating shoeboxes and placing 5 important items into their box that would help others get to know them more.  The students were so excited to share!  It was a lot of fun!  I got to run the show because Ms. Wink had a meeting about a student who needs to be placed on an IEP.  After the museums were finished, I read from "The Night of The Twisters." 

After school today, I went to BC and worked on my Lesson Plan for Wednesday, and also looked up articles on girls and math, and the Professional Learning Communities strategy.  On my way to get dinner, I ran into one of my Kostka 1 Boys and he insisted that I go and visit the gang...which I call "The Vortex" because they suck me in and I don't leave for hours!  I tried to convince them that they should go to the lecture that I was going to attend - Sister Helen Prejean, author of "Dead Man Walking."  They refused because it was at 7pm on a Friday night.  Wimps.  It was great to see them as always, and made me realize that I've been trying to compare my connection with them to my connections with the 5th graders.  Not fair, and not even remotely in the same category.  They're nearly 10 years older than my 5th graders, and I've known them much longer!  Time to reframe.

Sr. Helen Prejean was great.  She spoke about the importance of working with the poor, the sanctity of life - including those who have done unspeakable things, and listening to the times that God sets you on fire.  I feel like I was set on fire the first day that I went to substitute in a 5th grade classroom.  That feeling is why I started the MEd program, and is why I quit my job at BC - to become a teacher.  Now, with no jobs in sight, and my understanding of the teaching profession shifting, I wonder if that fire is still within me.  Sister went on to say that it is through encounters with others that the flint hits the rock and a spark flies - when there is a connection a flame is lit.  So, onward I will continue - hoping for that spark to (re)ignite.  

Sister Helen Prejean

Do you know the difference between a line plot and a bar graph?

9/16/10

In math, we reviewed line plots and introduced bar graphs. A line plot is a visual description of a data set that only has an x-axis.  It looks a little like this:

A bar graph on the other hand uses both the x and y-axis to visually describe a data set.  It looks like this:

Awesome!  Isn't math cool?  Already we have two ways of distributing our data!

Dr. Morse used the Smart Board to demonstrate how to create bar graphs.  Smart Boards are ridiculously cool!  You can display an Excel document and then draw on the projection as if it were a white board - AND the drawn information can be saved into that Excel/Word/PP document.  Technology is amazing!

In SS, we celebrated Constitution Day (9/18) a little early this year.  We learned that the Constitution is the document that gives us rights as citizens of the United States.   Ms. Conrad explained that many countries do not offer the same rights to their citizens - the students were OUTRAGED to find out that in some countries women can't vote and other countries do not allow for religious freedom.  I wonder how they would react if they found out that the US didn't allow women to vote until 1920 (the 19th Amendment).

Fun Constitutional facts: 

The Bill of Rights encompasses the first 10 Amendments to the Constitution

The first three Articles of the Constitution define the three branches of government:

Article 1: Legislative Branch (House & Senate)

Article 2: Executive Branch (The President)

Article 3: Judicial Branch (Supreme Court)

In Science, students tested out their straw/paperclip/index card structures against the weight of dictionaries.  The structure needed to pass a minimum of 6 dictionaries stacked upon it.  the record for today: 34!  The students had so much fun with this activity and supported each other as the towers got higher and higher.

Homework: Correct students' Challenge exercises.  Start to work on lesson plan for next Wednesday.  Topic: Elements of Fiction Setting.  

 

Switch-a-Roo

9/15/10

After two long days Monday & Tuesday (getting home at 9pm and 8pm respectively), I was pretty tired today. Dr. Morse and Ms. Conrad were out of class today attending a conference, so we all switched around to cover their rooms. I went to the inclusion room with Ms. Callahan. The day went quickly, and I felt like I was able to contribute to the class. I helped with classroom management, morning meeting, and giving individual attention to students.

Bus Safety & My First Day of School

9/14/10

Half day schedule (every Tuesday) means that we skip SS & Science and substitute in Spelling and Grammar. Math happens everyday because math is awesome!

The SMART board wasn't working in math, so Dr. Morse was improvising on here feet, and did a great job! She had the students talk about what they liked and didn't like about math, and continued to go over routines for math class. I was sent on a xerox copy run, so I missed a chunk of the period. When I came back, the students had gathered information about what states students had visited in the US. They were then plotting this info onto a graph. This was an interesting choice of activity - one student had been to 48 states! I would be careful to do this activity in certain schools...varied socioeconomic could create awkward feelings for some students.

Grammar - the study of the structure of our language. Holler. Let's hit these students with some knowledge! Ms. Conrad gave an assessment (quick) to see where the students fell in their knowledge of grammar. I have to be honest...when I was correcting their classwork, I was totally second guessing myself! I can write well, but I can't diagram a sentence...yikes!

Grammar was split in half so that the students could learn about bus safety. We headed outside and learned how to properly exit the bus during an emergency. I even got to jump out of the back with the students!

Spelling - went over the history of spelling, which was pretty interesting! Lots of countries have had a say in how we spell things! 26 letters make up 44 sounds. 44 = Syracuse. It all comes back to the Orange!

Staff Meeting - went to the staff meeting, which was pretty interesting. Teachers presented ideas about the Professional Learning Communities (PLCs), and it sounds like a great program. I think I'm going to be able to incorporate this into my Inquiry project (dun-dun-dunnnnn!). The focus shift is from teaching to learning, with a focus on team elements: interdependent relationship, common goals, mutually accountable to each other. To fully implement the program, it will take lots of collaboration. Teachers who attended the workshop shared this quote: "One teacher cannot meet the needs of all of the student in your classroom." YES! Thank you for being realistic. We can try, but it's kind of impossible. It can take 5+ years to be an effective PLC teacher, so patience is key.

Another teacher talked about homework - how it's not worth it. It's a trend that goes in and out of style about every 20 years, and it's on it's way out. The theorist Alfie Cohen suggest that the only homework that should be given in elementary school is reading.

First day of Class!
I met my professor, Audrey Friedman. She totally put me at ease about the inquiry project - plus she's from Attleboro, so she's got to be awesome! It looks like my idea of "girls and math" is going to be a good topic - and Audrey is psyched that we're using PLCs. Count it.

First Day of Switching Classes!

9/13/10

Today was the first day that we had a "typical" day! Room 302 switched for Math & SS. Though it was an official switch day, there really wasn't any content - more rules and routines. I'm starting to feel like I need an MBA to be an effective classroom teacher...

SS- We went over binders and how to properly put them away in the closets (skinny end to fat end, so they don't slide). Ms. Conrad gave a PowerPoint presentation that included the following information: Teacher info, days of the week that SS meets, where to store papers (in the binders), what to bring to class (binder, pencil, free reading book), what is studied in 5th grade SS (Native Americans, 1492, Colonial America).

Teaching tip: Ms. Conrad verbalized how to deal with the most annoying thing about teaching - the "Oooo! Ooooo!" Hand raising. Very simply, she just said, "I don't take "ooooh! ooooh! hands." Done and done.

Math <3
Another powerpoint presentation - this time, it was about teaching in the 21st century. We watched a quick clip about how we're teaching the same way that we did in the early 1900s, but our students haven't know a world without laptops and cellphones. Time to integrate more technology! Students then signed a poster with suggestions on how to integrate technology into the classroom.

Dr. Morse informed the students that they would be creating their very own math blog! How cool?!! There's also an interactive Wiki where Dr. Morse communicates information to the class and poses challenges to them.

Science - Students were given the challenge of building a structure out of 10 straws, 10 paperclips, 1 index card and 1' of masking tape...oh, yeah! and the structure had to hold 6 dictionaries! To demonstrate how heavy 6 dictionaries is, Ms. Wink had students volunteer to hold out their arms and bear the weight - their faces were hilarious as the weight on their arms got heavier and heavier!

I read more from "Night of the Twister" - the students are getting into the book...and I am too! I'm reading ahead and, man! This book has some serious action scenes in it!

After School: I went over to BC and met up with my friend Tanika for dinner and a lecture by Gov. Deval Patrick. It was a great lecture - more of a conversation actually. He was so passionate about the power of education, and shared his educational journey with the group. He said that he would love to have more people come into the field of teaching after having a career...ummmm, Hi! That's what I'm doing!  Please give me a job!

Trial Run

9/10/10

The PE teacher was out unexpectedly today, so the students were given an extra 1/2 hour of recess. Because PE is prep period for the teachers, I was asked to stay out (along with the other aids) to oversee recess. This was kind of a bummer - though it was a nice day out, I would have loved to sit in on the planning process for the remainder of the day.

Finally back inside, the 5th graders were given the chance to go through a trial run of switching classes. They had an all-grade meeting to go over the logistics, and then were sent back to their classes to give it a go. The students did an awesome job and were so respectful while in the hallways - no talking and were nothing but business. This is the first year in which they get to switch teachers for classes, so I think they're super psyched to start! I remember when I started switching classes in 6th grade, I thought I was a big deal!

At the end of the day, I began to read from the book "The Night of the Twisters" by Ivy Ruckman. The book is told by a boy who is about the same age as the students (10), who is about to go through the worst night of his life (a night filled with many tornados). My CT likes Read Aloud time to be "chill" time for the students. They can lay down on the floor/rug, put their head down, and just relax. A luck few are drawn from the "luck of the draw" canister, which has poker chips with each students name in it, to be given the chance to sit in a coveted seat: the queen's chair (a high life-guard style chair), and an array of beanbag chairs. The only rules are: no talking, no drawing, just listen and enjoy the story. I loved reading to them, and I got some great non verbal responses (laughing, gasps, etc.) that let me know that they loved it as well.

One small note: today is the day before the 9th anniversary of September 11th. I asked my CT if she was going to say anything about 9/11 being tomorrow. She said that because they were only 10 and were too young to remember, she wasn't going to bring it up unless one of the students mentioned something. Having lived in NYC during the attacks, I was disheartened to hear this decision. I feel that it's important to inform children about important days in history to the level they the need hearing. I didn't expect for her to show video of the Twin Towers, but I was hoping that we could talk about how it was a sad day for the country - especially in light of the Islamic Center debate and Koran burning threat that have been in the news so much lately. I feel like students may have questions, and it would be good to give them answers. I offered to field any questions that may have come up, but my CT said that she was nervous that with my experience, students may get a bit emotional. They may have, but I feel like that would have been okay - many people (including myself) get emotional around this day. It's good for students to know that adults and children can be sad about things that happen.

Day Off...Kind of...

9/8/10
Today is Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, so no school for me today. Except for the fact that I go to a Catholic University and they decided that today would be the best day to have a kick off meeting.

It was an informative meeting, and I met my supervisor, Eileen, today.

After the meeting, I went to go have dinner with some of my favorite residents from last year. These guys had the best floor ever, and I probably spent more time on their floor than I did in my office. Well, the guys are big, bad, sophomores now and are living in a posh residence hall. I hung out with them for a while and then we had dinner. They're just so much fun! I laughed a lot and felt very loved. It kind of made me sad that I wasn't still on campus so that I could see them more often and continue to build relationships with stellar students like my Kostka 1 guys.

Binders, Binders, Everywhere!

9/8/10

Today was consumed with more rules, more routines, and oh my goodness LOTS and LOTS of binders! 5th graders have 5 binders. A large 2" homework binder, and 4 - 1" binders - 1 for each subject. The majority of the day was spent constructing the binders - which was a logistical nightmare. Some students ordered binders and class supplies through the PTO - which was great because they had the exact supplies needed - while other students brought their own supplies. Most had the correct items, but a few brought supplies that didn't quite fit the bill and left the teachers scrambling to find supplies for the students. The homework binders were constructed first - each night of the week has a "pocket folder" that students can stuff their homework sheets into. They get a week's worth of homework on a Friday, and can get a jump start on their homework over the weekend if they choose to do so. Great idea!

With many summers spent constructing binders for either orientation or RA selection, I feel like I have some authority to speak on this issue. The process in class was nothing but a mess. Students had inconsistent supplies, were missing supplies, and couldn't keep up with the pace of the process. Tips for how I think the process could improve:
1) Check at the end of the day before to make sure that all students have the proper materials. Leave these materials on the desks so that students can begin the process during morning work.
2) Unwrap all of the items that will be used by students. Most of the energy spent on constructing the binders was clean-up management. So many items were wrapped in plastic and had needless paper inside that the majority of teacher/aid/student teacher time was spent keeping up with the trash.
3) Do it in an assembly line. Instead of giving the students individual supplies, pool them all together, push desks together, and create a long table with every supply in order. This would really only work if all students had the same supplies...but trust me, it's the fastest way to do it!

Today, we also went over fire drill procedures. I liked how my CT gave instructions, then had the students talk amongst themselves before interrupting them to go through the fire drill walk through. It made the experience more realistic for the class.

My favorite part of the day was when we gave students a tour of the bathroom, the nurse's office, and the bubbler (water fountain). Students were paraded though the hallways, up and down stairs and taught that you always go to the nurse with a buddy, you go to the bathroom efficiently and alone, and when there's a line at the bubbler, the person behind you is allowed to say "1...2...3...that's enough for me!" to get you moving on your way. The students of 302 were so well behaved - even without my CT being present - that each of the teachers commented on their great role modeling. I let my CT know and she praised them by giving them two yellow "Visions" which we have yet to learn about...more to come about that.

At the end of the day, I read a book titled "Peach & Blue" by Sarah Kilborne. It's a cute story about a frog named Blue and a peach named Peach who become friends. The spend the day together and help each other to see their worlds through new eyes - to see the beauty around them. The book was meant to illustrate the blue "vision". "Visions" of the classroom - a core value system that my CT uses as a way to celebrate and reinforce civil behavior, as well as a classroom management tool. I'll be learning more about the Visions on Monday and will share all about them.

First Day of School!

9.7.10
Schedule for the (half) day:

8:20 - EMA (early morning activity), read morning message
Answer "Guess Who?" questions - give four clues as to who you are (I have blue eyes, I love math, I love to listen to the Beatles, and I love reading), then provide a code name (emsta).

8:35 - Morning Meeting (literally just completed a final paper about this last night at 11:00 pm)
Students gather around in a circle and greet each other by name and with a high five. Then, everyone goes around and says his/her name as fast as possible. We did it in 13 seconds.

9:00 - Virtual Tour of classroom
Ms. Wink gave a tour of the classroom to the students, pointing out important areas such as the reading corner, the room locater board, and Bubba the class fish. She also dropped class rules as she went along. It was a creative way to communicate expectations, while letting the students explore and stretch their legs.

9:15 - Hopes & Dreams
The 5th graders wrote down goals for themselves like "learn to love science" or (for me) "become a better speller."

9:40 - Guess Who
Ms. Wink and I read a handful of Guess Who answers to the class and the students took guesses as to who the clues belonged to.

9:50 - Lunch Routine
Ms. Wink explained that students are to be silent when out in the hallway because other classes may still be in session. The students lined up and walked down the stairs - one flight at a time (from the 3rd to 1st floor).

10:20 - Recess Rules
All three classes gathered to hear the rules for recess. This was done together for consistency purposes.

10:40 - Recess

11:10 - Class Responsibilities
A list of class "jobs" were offered for students to participate in. Examples include class vet (to take care of bubba), seat stacker, board eraser, and pencil sharpener. Jobs rotate every three weeks or so.

11:35 - End of day Routine
Students shared what the do after the bell rings at the end of the school day: after school program, bus, walk, or picked-up by parents. Students were also give a stack of papers to give to their parents. Ms. Wink kept referring to the paperwork as "homework for parents" - the students got such a kick out of it!

12:00 - PE

12:30 - Dismissal
Ms. Wink and I met students at PE and escorted them out of school to their buses and parents.

Fun note:
To stop people from being "Shouter-outers", Ms. Wink has a stuffed animal duck that is "the ostraciser." It's supposed to be an ostrich, but it's a duck. She places the ostraciser in front of someone who is shouting out too much. The duck stares down the student and serves as a reminder to not shout out answers. If the student continues to shout out, the duck attacks the student, and the student is then sent into the hallway for a time out.

My homework:
Read a few chapters of "Night of the Twisters" by Ivy Ruckman to prepare for Read Aloud tomorrow.