Snuggle Up and Read Day

     This Friday was my favorite day of teaching thus far! We had a half day of school plus it was Snuggle Up and Read Day plus it was Valentine's Day. Special days just seem to not go well with my class thus far. I've planned fun things to do on other days, and they either end up hating it or someone ends up in tears (usually more than one person, and yes I do have upper elementary kids; maybe I'll have time to go back and share these stories later; for now, I'm just glad to be blogging again). Anyways, Friday was perfect!

     Since it was Snuggle Up and Read (part of our two-week long Read-a-Thon), I focused most of our day on reading. I knew that some of my kids thought they were too old and cool to wear their pajamas to school, but I still wanted to make this day fun with lots of reading. So what did I do? Bring a tent to school! My roommate had a tent and graciously allowed me to borrow it so that my students could read inside of it.

     At the beginning of the day, I didn't have it set up. I wanted to be sure that we were clear on rules first. It was treated as a privilege that most of my boys didn't want to lose (this helped with the no tears part). Then, my class was sent to take their Bible verse quiz and a math quick check (might as well get the boring stuff over with) while I set the tent up with help from students who were called upon (everyone wanted to help or at least watch). Our tent was huge! Everyone who walked past our room commented on it. The rest of the day, we did our version of Daily 5 with Read to Self and Read to Someone in the tent, read with our little buddies (taking turns in the tent), had a small Valentine's celebration, and finished by fitting our whole class into the tent to read Just a Dream by Chris Van Allsburg (the author that we are studying for Read-a-thon).



Read to Self



Read to Someone

Reading with Little Buddies

Why did Friday go better than other days? (a little reflection)
-Having a tent to read in acted as positive reinforcement of behaviors. They didn't want to lose that privilege.
-It was still in routine, even though it was special. We still did our work; we just added a fun twist to it. This worked to keep my students focused  while having fun and enjoying the day.
-I was excited, but cautious. My students responded the same way. They weren't overloaded with excitement to make them crazy, but they were still excited enough to have more fun than a typical day.

What makes some days more fun than others for you? How do you balance fun with work and behavior boundaries?

Loving, Thoughtful Responses that Make My Heart Melt

     Today as I was grading, I found several papers that just made my heart melt. I thought I'd share them so that you can enjoy them and I can remember them. The first paper is a persuasive letter that is suppose to persuade the person to give you something specific for Christmas. I did an example as a letter to my class asking for chocolate for Christmas. Here is what one sweet boy asked for (after responding to my letter by bringing me some chocolate along with another Christmas present):

Dear Lord,
     For Christmas I would like you to make this the best Christmas ever, but not only for me but for everyone. I think everyone should know the real meaning of Christmas and have a happy Christmas this year. If this were to happen, people would maybe understand you and your love for us. Your love fills us up and you have the power to fill more lives up with your love. Lord your love lets me live, that's what I most desire for your beautiful Christmas creation.

Love,
Student's Name


     Isn't that awesome? The teacher asks for chocolate, and a student asks for everyone to know God's love. I was so amazed. Another thing I loved reading were their thanksgiving/praise journals. Back in November, I had students keep a journal as part of Bible class, saying one thing they were thankful for every day that we were in school. Some students had a hard time with this. Others couldn't stop writing! I just skimmed their responses, and here were some of my favorites:

-Thank you Lord for giving me self control when my friends hurt my feelings.
-I'm thankful that I got to paint my nails.
-Thank you for helping me come to school.
-Thank you for keeping my fish alive.
-Thank you Lord for giving me one true friend.
-Thank you for being with me when I was afraid.
-Thank you for healing me during the weekend.
-Thank you for makeing me move my clip up.

I love working at a Christian school!

Because of Mr. Terupt

     I spent this afternoon consumed in the book, Because of Mr. Terupt, by Rob Buyea. I originally bought this book for my classroom, but as I read it I felt that it was worth it even if I end up being the only one to read it. I found this book when I was searching for others on Amazon. It kept coming up as one of the most sold ones. After reading the description (copied in italics below), I knew that I need to read it and some of my kids did too.

 

     It's the start of fifth grade for seven kids at Snow Hill School. There's Jessica, the new girl, smart and perceptive, who's having a hard time fitting in; Alexia, a bully, your friend one second, your enemy the next; Peter, class prankster and troublemaker; Luke, the brain; Danielle, who never stands up for herself; shy Anna, whose home situation makes her an outcast; and Jeffery, who hates school. Only Mr. Terupt, their new teacher, seems to know how to deal with them all. He makes the classroom a fun place, even if he doesn't let them get away with much... until the snowy winter day when an accident changes everything - and everyone.

     In my class, I have at least one student if not multiple students that could fit into each of the bolded names above. Reading this book and seeing how these kids' lives affected them in the classroom was like watching a scene play out from my classroom. I'm willing to bet that many teachers would also relate. After all, I only have 14 students and if they can fit into these 7 kids lives, wouldn't a class full of 20 or more students fit even more so?

 

     This book does an excellent job showing how kids' emotions, home lives, friendships, and pasts all intertwine to make up who they are. This background is so important and can't be overlooked by teachers, who are sometimes more concerned with test scores. Impacting a child's emotional side, including friendships and relationships with their parents, can leave a much greater impact than simply teaching what they need to learn to move on to the next grade. This book was a great reminder for me as I begin our third quarter on Tuesday; it definitely has made me stop and think.

 

     My students come from all kinds of backgrounds. Some have lived all over the world: Canada, China, Nigeria, South Korea, and the US, just to name a few. Many only live with one parent. Some get to see the other parent; others don't. I have had students cry in class about this. They don't feel understood by their peers, yet so many peers just fail to admit to them that they feel the same way. Other parents are in the midst of a divorce. Some students feel loved, but others don't feel that way at home. Some parents push their students too hard in school; others don't even seem to care. Each precious child comes from a different background, has different opinions, and needs to grow emotionally in different ways.

 

     The description for Jeffery says that he hates school, but it is so much more than that. He has a broken family with parents who are experiencing such grief that they can't get out of bed. There have been three points this fall when I had students saying that they hated school too. They refused to come. Thankfully, two of the parents didn't let their kids push them over and not come to school. All three of these children didn't want to come because of a deeper issue, either with friends, at home, or both.

 

     This book also talked about girl wars. I know girl wars all too well. This fall has been roughest emotionally on my girls. One of the group leaders from last year left, and two grades were combined into one class. This lead to a beginning of the year fight to see who will control the classroom dynamics. Like Alexia in Because of Mr. Terupt, one girl seemed most popular at the beginning and used this power to be friends with one girl one day and her enemy the next. By the end of December, all of the girls realized what she had been doing, and her world came crashing down. Some felt shunned by the other girls, which led to equally bad problems, which were made worse by things happening with other friends outside of school. I spent more days talking with girls about friendships and conflicts at recess than I can count. There are only 6 girls in my class, so they need to at least cooperate with each other and respect each other to survive the day.

 

     How do I handle this all as a teacher? Do students respect me even though I'm a first year teacher? Are there things I let slide that I shouldn't? Do I care for each child's emotional growth when dealing with them? Do I show them how much I care and love them?

 

     The last two days before Christmas break, the president got on the t.v. and announced that school was cancelled until January. I was heartbroken! How dare he cancel my two fun days that I had planned with my class?! They had worked so hard and earned so much. I had been looking forward to these days to show them how much I appreciated their hard work and loved them. Then the president cancelled them. What could I do? After sulking over the weekend, one of my roommates suggested getting together with them because that actually is a perfectly acceptable thing to do at my school. So, I invited them over for a Christmas cookie party. 9 of my 14 kids came. I gave them recipes for chocolate chip and sugar cookies. Then they ran off their energy outside and came back in to play Apples to Apples while we ate our cookies. After the party, one of the other teachers said to me, "Wow, you must love your kids a lot to have them all over." One of the students commented, "I bet the other teachers are really jealous that you get to have your class over for a party but they don't." Haha. I loved the difference of opinion. What's most important, though, was that my kids and I left for break knowing that we loved and cared for each other. Now, parties aren't the only way to show kids that I care (it's just the most recent). Earlier this fall, I made one child's month by asking him to do a video editing project for me.

     I highly recommend this book to teachers and students. Although with students, I would note that on the second page one of the boys talks about goofing off in the boys' bathroom and urinals, which I know some girls could be mortified to see a book talking about the boys' bathroom. This book also deals with special needs as becoming buddies with a self-contained class in their school changes several lives. There are lots of family situations represented. This is a great book for teachers to reflect on and students to learn about emotions, friendships, and family lives. Plus, there's a sequel, which I can't wait to read: Mr. Terupt Falls Again.

Turkey Book Reports - Freebie

      Starting in November, I realized that many students in my class were reading their required twenty minutes at home, but they weren't reading an entire book or a book at their level. To keep them accountable for doing these things, I started giving a monthly book report. I keep it simple since my purpose isn't to test comprehension but to make sure that they are reading at least one whole book every month (not counting their literature circle) that is at or close to their level.
 
     For November, I made them do their book reports in the format of a turkey. My students enjoy projects, so many of them enjoyed making this turkey. Since we were learning about writing paragraphs, three of the five feathers required a complete paragraph. The report covered setting, problem and solution, favorite part, and characters. Overall, it went well, except for a few students who didn't read the directions or simply didn't do the project (yep, that was a big 0).

If you want a copy of the instructions, click the picture below.

Creation Projects

     Since I teach at a Christian school, I have the privilege of teaching Bible. We use the ACSI curriculum for Bible, which I quickly realized was outdated when I found the workbooks, which are the exact same ones that I used and hated in fifth grade. Needless to say, I haven't used the workbooks for much other than a general guide of what I should cover. Since I am teaching fourth and fifth grade, I chose to teach Bible altogether, teaching everyone the fifth grade curriculum. Difficulty wise, it's fine for both to do the same thing as the only difference is what is taught. My fourth graders will go through the fourth grade curriculum next year.


     The fifth grade curriculum walks through the Old Testament, which some people might think is really boring. I'm excited for it though and hope that my students will see how many times the Israelites messed up and God still gave them grace and forgiveness. My class is an unique mixture of kids from different backgrounds. At my school, it is not required for kids or their families to be Christians, so some of my students have never heard of the Bible until they began at our school. Several other students in my class are pastor's kids or missionary kids. Some know great details of the Bible, and others have never even heard the story of creation or Noah.

     During the first week of school, we began with creation. Knowing that this may be something many of them know, I made it a project where they would teach the class about their day in creation. I was amazed as the students took off with this project! They put more effort into their posters than I had imagined. I quickly learned that they love projects, and it engages them more than other learning activities. Knowing this, I have planned in more projects than I anticipated.

Enjoy seeing their final posters!

 

 

The Ups and Downs of Teaching

     Wow, did I really finish three weeks of school already? Time just seems to fly by! I can't believe we have been in school three weeks. I felt like we have not learned much except for the procedures and math (they just had their first test). Today, I'm going to share some of the ups and downs and teaching. We all know they exist, but sometimes I feel like other teachers who blog never have bad days because their blog is always to upbeat, so today I want to share about some of the hard parts of teaching.

     Some days I love teaching, but to be honest some days I don't even want to go to school. Yesterday was one of those days. I woke up feeling sick with a runny nose and sore throat from my students. Side Note: As a class, we've already gone through five Kleenex boxes, and we don't have many! Granted, we've had five bloody noses, a few students abusing the use of Kleenexes (using them to wipe off sweat), and students who don't know how to fully use a Kleenex, but still, that's a lot of Kleenexes (and I live in warm place). Anyways, I started thinking about some of my fifth graders and different things that they have done that have been disrespectful, and it just really got me down. I have lots of patience for misbehavior for younger children, but not much for upper elementary. Why? I understand many times that younger kids don't understand some things or forget more easily, but in my mind, this should not be as big as a problem in upper elementary. The problems that begin happening in upper elementary are because students are purposely disrespectful and disobedient, and I don't have any tolerance for that. It annoyed me as a child, and it annoys me now. For example, during the first week, one student wore a hat to school just to see if I would notice and what I would do. This past week, I saw one student throwing her graded work away before bringing it home. I told her that was not allowed, and she lied saying that she had already showed her parents. I had just graded it that morning! The next day, I found her work torn up and buried in our recycling bin as I was cleaning it out. These little acts of rebellion really bug me.

     I went to school anyways, had a great prayer time with another teacher about my class, put on my happy face, and forgot about my feelings before school as soon as the students arrived. Some days are just like. Once I start teaching, I'm fine and content, bouncing from one activity to the next. This week, I'm going to work on seeking out ways to engage and excite my learners. They are rarely excited for learning, except when they are doing projects, which they make very long and time consuming. Last year I was able to make my first grade class excited about learning much more than I have been able to do with my older kids this year. I need to figure out what they like soon so that we will all be much happier with learning and teaching. Some days can be like pulling teeth (we have actually already had two lost teeth during class) to get enthusiasm in my classroom.

     Last night was Meet the Teacher Night! I was excited and nervous to meet some of my parents. Since some only speak Spanish, I had the school secretary who is also a parent in my class translate. I explained that we are two grades but one class, how our day runs, our rules, their expected responsibilities, homework, and our classroom economy. Maybe I shouldn't have ended with our classroom economy, because a few parents had some very deep concern about why I make students pay to go to the bathroom or rent their desks. One set of parents were arguing about it in Spanish for a while. It really made me feel bad because I was doing what was best for our class in my opinion, and no students seemed to be having a problem with my policies in class. They knew why we had them, when they can go to the bathroom, and what I expect of them. In the end, these parents came up to argue their point afterward saying that their student had a urinary tract infection from not going to the bathroom during class and was starting girl issues, so I did understand their point and explained how I just needed to know about special circumstances. I'm willing to accommodate if I know it's an issue. I honestly don't believe her infection was my fault as they can go to the bathroom four times during the day for free with no more than two hours in between, and she's never asked me to use the bathroom during class. Afterward, I had about 6 other pairs of parents come up and say that they love my economy system, what I'm doing with the class, and that I shouldn't listen to just those one parents. That was very encouraging. In the end, I felt encouraged to continue my economy system, paying for bathroom, desks, chairs, and all, and will ask that student to use the bathroom every break we have this coming week so that I know she is using the bathroom every time she can.

     Teaching is hard work. Planning, grading, and being emotionally prepared for the day takes so much time outside of school. Some days I just want to curl up and stay in bed, but I know I have the responsibility to the students to continue helping them learn. When I'm at school and see my students starting to arrive for the day, I know that we are going to make it through the day and have some fun with it too. I can't wait for next week, but first I need to think about some better ways to engage my learners.

     In Social Studies, I am starting with a unit on the world, reading maps, and wanted to go back to the 1400s since we are doing world history from 1500 to 1800. I quickly realized my students didn't even know the continents, so we are spending time learning about them. I found my students love projects, so I think 14 students splits perfectly to have partners do a project on one of the seven continents. Before I finish, I'll show you some pictures from last week, when we put together world map puzzles (because what would a blog post be without pictures?).

 

 

     Well, that's all for today. Have a great weekend, and happy teaching! I will try to post more soon because I have so much to share.

First Week of School

     I survived my first week of teaching, and we didn't burn the school down yet. My class tried though. Yesterday, one student randomly threw his water bottle in the air, which hit a light. The light then started smoking, sparking, and became a very small fire before dying out. I quickly got the kids out of the classroom and found help, and it was fixed in no time after spending one of our 20 minute Daily 5 stations outside.

     It is certainly different starting some procedures with fourth and fifth grade then with first grade last year. My students quickly picked up on read to self and read to someone, so today we moved on to a new station. This year, my plan is to do stations similar to Daily 5 on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. On Tuesday and Thursday we don't have enough time so we will do other things like literature circles. Last year, starting Daily 5 with first graders took them weeks to be ready for three stations, but my students already (for the most part) have the stamina built and were ready to do three stations all of next week.

     We are also doing stations for math, since it will be easier for me to meet with my math classes in small groups. This week they learned the At You Seat/Carpet station, which will be a Daily Math review sheet. I'm sure that I'll talk more about my math stations in the future. I am really liking what I have decided to do, but might change a few things around from my original plan to make keep my low fourth graders with me twice, since they will need more than fifteen minutes to understand a new concept.

     Well, now that I've talked about academics that were on my mind, let's go back to the first day with pictures! The picture above is my classroom ready for students. I still didn't have things like bag hooks and our schedule hung on the wall (I finally had that done yesterday). Other things like my computer weren't ready either, but we did fine without it. There was a message on the board, telling them what to do, and a blank nametag on their desk. In the morning, the students came in with their parents and most of their supplies. Some of my students had been hanging around school the week before since their parents worked at the school, so I put them to work. One helped me by making signs for where all of the different school supplies should go. Our spots quickly filled up and overflowed with supplies! Once we sent the parents to their meeting, the students and I dealt with the rest of the supplies that they will keep in their desk after giving me a few more things.

     In the morning, I had a circle time, where each child said one thing about his/herself and his/her name. We talked about the beginning of the year and what some of my expectations were. We also had an elementary school meeting, where we talked about school rules. Between this meeting, morning recess, and lunch/recess, most of the day seemed to fly by, except that I never had time to myself since everyone was on duty for everything.

     Later on the first day, I had students write classroom rules. I told them to come up with any rules that would help us work as a class. They did a great job and came up with seventeen. I then told them that seventeen was too many, and I would narrow it down to three big ones. We now have: 1. Follow directions the first time. 2. Do your best work. 3. Respect yourself and others. On the second day, we found how each of their seventeen rules fit into these three big rules. I also sent a sheet home about the rules to the parents for them to sign and send back.

     Another thing we did was write things we wanted to learn on the board. Why it looks like a graphic organizer, I'm not sure. The students are apparently well trained in using those because when I circled our heading, that it what they did. I have one boy who loves technology and making videos, so I will certainly incorporate a project sometime where he could make a video since that will engage him. We had a lot of science questions, so I'm excited to hopefully look at those.

     Well, this is probably a long enough post. I love my new students. We still have lots of behaviors to work on, but I can already tell they will be a great class. This week was fun, but very hard. Here in Venezuela, even walking home from school is difficult and makes me want to collapse as soon as I get home since I live up a huge hill. Actually, I walk uphill both ways to school, sometimes in the rain. I am so glad it's the weekend, and I can breathe. Maybe I will actually be able to plan for all of next week or make some longer-term plans. Hopefully, I will be able to at least.

     One of my students brought me a flower and a lovely note on Monday, which warmed my heart and kept me going all week, even when things were tough. I hope all of you are having a great week, and I can't wait to share more. I'm excited to have upcoming posts about our nametags (which I love!), math stations, economy system, and more. Have a great week!

Blog Anniversary and Prosthetic Unit Freebie

     My blog is officially one year old! Actually, it was a few weeks ago. To celebrate, I decided to publish my prosthetics mini-thematic unit that I made last year. I first mentioned it here and here. I originally made this unit as a project for one of my classes and taught it during one day to the fifth grade class I was in. Well here it is! Click on the picture to check it out. Please leave me a comment telling me what you think about it.

 

     When I taught this to my fifth grade class last year, our day was very chaotic due to some last minute practice testing. We still had fun, and the lessons went well. My favorite part was showing them some of the nonfiction books about animals with prosthetics. See the children's literature list in my unit for more information. Using those books, the students found answers to questions on the following pages:

 

     Part of this unit includes a project where students build a prototype of a prosthetic, choosing the animal (or human), body part, and purpose of the prosthetic. Unfortunately, since my practicum ended I did not get to see their final projects, but they had some very creative ideas such as a prosthetic ear for a dog that is necessary to help bring scents to their nose.

 

     If you want to hear more about this project, please email me or leave a comment below, and I would be happy to share more about it. I look forward to another year of blogging!

 

I Officially Have a Job for Next Year!

     I just accepted a job for next school year and am very excited for it. I will be teaching a 4th and 5th grade combined class with 10-15 students at an international school in Venezuela. I am so excited for this opportunity! Fourth and fifth grade will be different since I did most of my student teaching in first grade (although the second half I did a special education placement with 4th-6th graders). A combined class will also be interesting. I am looking forward to learning a multitude of new things. The next few months will be consumed with finishing my college classes, planning and training for my new job, and getting ready to move to another country.

     I am still continuing this blog, though not about student teaching, and look forward to adding more things about teaching including things I am learning in my classes and my first year teaching next year.

A Long Way from Chicago - Inferences and Timeline

     With my fifth graders, I had the opportunity to lead one group during their literature circle time. We read a few different books while I was there including Ruby Holler and A Long Way from Chicago. My group of students contained all girls, and they loved Ruby Holler but were not as enthusiastic about reading A Long Way from Chicago.

      A Long Way from Chicago by Richard Peck is a book that chronicles a boy's week-long adventures with his sister when they visit their grandma during the summer. Each chapter is the story from a different summer. It takes place from 1929 to 1935.

      I found that my students struggled with comprehension with this book. Part of this was due to the fact that they did not find it as interesting as other books, but another huge factor was that this book uses inferences regularly. To help with comprehension, I decided we would make a timeline as a group. This worked very well for this book since each chatper was a different year. We would talk about each year, discuss any inferences, decide what they wanted to write for a short summary, and choose what to draw for a picture. Then, the students would work hard on it. This really helped with their comprehension and enthusiasm for the book. Making timelines to aid comprehension is definately something I would recommend and I will remember to use more in the future.

      A Long Way from Chicago is also a wonderful book to practice inferences with upper elementary, even if you just want to use one chapter as a read aloud ("The Phantom Brakeman" is a very good example)
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Thanks for reading this!!!

Have a wonderful end of the school year or beginning of summer!

BattleGraph

     A few weeks ago, the fifth grade teacher I am working with asked me to teach a lesson practicing plotting ordered pairs on a coordinate graph. She had introduced the new concept the day before, and the students certainly needed more practice. I found this game online that is very similar to the Battleship I grew up playing, except it was adapted for teaching coordinate graphs. This awesome PowerPoint was made by Sarah Grabowski.

     Originally, I was going to change it a little bit so that my students only had to graph positive ordered pairs (that's all the standard asked for), but my teacher said she had taught them to graph positive and negative numbers, so I didn't have to change anything. One additional requirement that I did make was that they had to write on the blank part of their hidden board all of the ordered pairs of the locations of their ships. This allowed me time to walk around and see who was understanding coordinates and who needed more help. I also had them play on the same team as a partner so that they could figure out where the point needed to go together (they still each had to fill out their own board).

    The students loved this game! Unfortunately, it took a little while to get set up, so no one finished it before library time, but my teacher said they would finish it another day. I love math lessons/activities like this where students can practice and have fun with it. Too often I see these students hate math, which I believe is very sad as math was usually my favorite subject.