Lesson Learned

I’m terrible at blogging…. I feel like there is not even a moment to spare. But here I am trying to type away.

Yesterday I finally got to make some money substituting! Yay! It was the first time I was without Mrs. Christensen all day. It was really weird. I was so afraid that I was going to forget to take them to specials, or forget to pick them up at recess. Things however did go okay… We ended up doing tests all day anyway, so it really was an easy day lesson plans wise. They had their reading assessment in the morning, and while they were assessing I had to test students on fluency (done weekly).  All but one student got all the way through their assessments.  In the afternoon we had a math assessment, and I had planned to do a Jeopardy game to review. It was getting pretty late though by the time we checked our homework. I thought about just nixing the  game and going straight to the assessment but I was worried that they wouldn’t do as well without it. Well…. Lesson learned, I should have followed my gut feeling.  By the time i stopped the game (even though we only spent 10 minutes on it), we only had 35 minutes left before they had to go to music. A lot of the students had to come back after specials and try to finish up before the bell rang. Because of this, some of  the slower students felt rushed, and it was hectic when the bell did ring.

I haven’t graded their reading assessment yet, I wonder how they did? We made little stick puppets and split into two groups to practice performing it, so I am curious if this styling of reading the story affected some differently.

I did grade the math tests. and I’ve found that it is a little depressing sometimes to grade.  A lot of the students did pretty bad. I’m thinking that part of the reason for this is because everyone has been so sick. We’ve had about half of our class missing at least 2 days of the 5 days this last week, and every day after that at least 5 students absent. Not necessarily the same students either. I’m fighting to stay healthy.

Thursday Mrs Christensen brought brownies and pink lemonade for my birthday. All of the students were so excited. It was super cute. I got all of these little birthday notes, and one student even gave me an acorn!

Classroom management still frustrates me, they really are not that bad, but still they are less talkative while Mrs. Christensen is teaching and I wonder what I am doing differently?

I’ve been trying a couple of things, but I could always use some more suggestions. There is one student in particular that craves attention. Threats of refocusing or detention doesn’t phase him because he tells me that he wants a refocus or detention. I don’t know what to do with him.

Social Studies Interactive Websites

http://www.geosense.net/- This is a website where students can either play alone or compete with other players to find countries that the site specifies. A bit challenging for my third graders.

http://www.fekids.com/img/kln/flash/DontGrossOutTheWorld.swf Cute interactive site where students can learn all about eating in different cultures. Appropriate for a PAT time activity I would think.

http://kids.clerk.house.gov/grade-school/lesson.html?intID=18 ”Kids in the house”  is really fun. In each section it has information students can read, and it has an interactive tool to go with it on most sections (either a game, or a power point)

Reading OCR Block

Today I taught all of the reading block, with the exception of spelling! I wanted to get experience doing this because I will be subbing for another 3rd grade class soon. Whew! I survived!! I noticed that everyone was a little more fidgety and talkative than usual. It seems to me that the class is starting to test me out as disciplinarian. Gah! I refuse to lose that battle. Unfortunately, students lost marbles from the marble jar during word knowledge board time. However, after a very serious talk about respect,  we continued on to reading our story of the week out of the anthology. Oh my word, they can behave! Faith in the students was restored in a matter of an hour Not that I had come to seriously doubt them.

After we read the anthology, Mrs. Christensen taught for a while. Swimming lessons for 3rd graders was today, and everything went so smoothly at the YMCA again! Unbelievable! The kids were so exhausted from swimming, that they sunk right into their desks and into today’s math assessment. Easy as pie! (wish they went swimming everyday haha)

We usually end each day in a closing circle. At this time, each student takes a turn telling at least one other student something nice about them. Its a great time to allow students to share things that are important to them, or to compliment students.

Today during closing circle, I decided to read a story to them. I read Strega Nona. Every single student  was engaged! I was so so very happy. Everyone left the circle feeling very hungry from all the pasta talk though!

Reading went so well today in fact, that Dorene and I have decided to start reading a chapter out of a chapter book everyday for closing circle! I think the first one we will start with is The Lion, Witch and Wardrobe.

Tomorrow is drama club, and I’m so excited! I always look forward to Thursdays, and I think the rest of the students do too. There are 45 students in drama club, ranging from Kindergarten to fifth grade. It’s so much fun to watch the students participate so willingly and with pure joy. Looking around, one can tell they are already comfortable enough to be thinking out of the box, and acting out of their comfort zones!  I can’t wait to see what risks they will take tomorrow! We will be doing some Reader’s Theatre for the first time tomorrow, so we will see how that goes!

Do YOU believe in me?

more about "Do YOU believe in me?", posted with vodpod

Still trying to get all of this figured out.

Well…. I am thinking that I finally have this all figured out, two blog creations and a couple of postings later…

I had to transfer my first blog to this new one since I gave everybody this blog name. Mondays are hard for me, I miss being in the classroom after the weekend. Looking forward to teaching tomorrow though. Tonight is a faculty meeting and we are going to be learning all about SIOP! I’m hoping that it will be very beneficial! I’m very happy though, that I am going into the training tonight with some knowledge of SIOP already.

Its crazy how teaching has already kind of taken over my life. If I’m not in school, I’m thinking about tomorrow. If I’m asleep, I’m dreaming about it. Perhaps after we are settled into our new school, It will not be ALL consuming.

I’m going to try to figure out how to add a video to the video widget. The guy’s name is Taylor Mali, he is a teacher and an awesome slam poet. He’s pretty entertaining.

3rd Grade So Far…

This was a title of one of the very first papers Dorene and I had the students write. So I only felt it appropriate to title my first blog entry the same way. Third grade so far is amazing.  I started out in the education minor wanting to end up in third grade. Last Spring I doubted that I was even in the right career! However,  every day in the classroom that goes by is a confirmation that I am in the right spot.

Dorene and I are a great match. We work so well together, and have been learning from each other. In fact, not only is she my teaching mentor, but she has become my cooking mentor as well

I have taught a lot of  mini lessons, but I have been trying to teach more. Thursday was my first math lesson, and boy was I nervous! I got up there and instantly turned red because of nerves. Its strange how it gets about ten times hotter when you transfer from the back of the room to the front of the room. Math is certainly one of the subjects that I struggle with the most, and teaching it terrifies me.  We have math at two o’clock. Keeping the attention of 24 eight year olds at that time in the afternoon is definitely no easy feat.

The lesson was on the value of money, and on counting money. It was a fun and engaging lesson, but it was rough. Most days it feels impossible for them to whisper, and it got very loud very fast. We keep a marble jar for classroom management and I took quite a few marbles out of the jar during this lesson. They had a lot of fun with the play money I passed out. I had them explore their play money, then I asked them to show me random amounts of money. It was great how enthused they were. Some took forever though, because they would end up using all pennies.

I definitely did not get as much done as I thought I would in this lesson, and my pacing still seems to be off. I felt like we took too much time with the counting out money, and not enough time on the worksheet. We had to hurry through that at the end, and didn’t get all the way through the side of the worksheet we were supposed to do in class.

I felt that it was a very long lesson. I felt flustered. I felt that it went terrible, and I was so very afraid to see how they did on their homework they had to take home. However, Dorene and Kay both thought it went well and didn’t have much critique for me. As far as the homework goes? A success!! All but 3 had brought their homework back complete! Two had just left it at home, typical for them (sad but true, I’m hoping to figure out a way to motivate them), and One little guy just didn’t have his all the way finished. Seeing this made me feel better about my lesson. Sometimes I think that teaching is actually a lot like birthing a child. The process can be painful and leave you breathless and sweaty and exhausted and red in the face (gross metaphor). But the after”math” is totally worth it. Pun intended, hahahaha.

Discipline in the classroom is pretty few and far between. All of the students are careful to show Dorene and I respect in the classroom. There are a couple that are challenging. One particular little girl loves to talk. She has the disposition of a mother hen. She is always trying to take care of others before she takes care of herself.  Always the last one to finish her assignments, assessments, even breakfast. Giving her a refocus does not work. It wastes more time (her specialty), and puts her further behind. Dorene and I have been trying to figure out what we can do to motivate her more. I am careful to show her positive attention when I can though. She is apparently a difficult child at home, and I wonder if she is shown love?

I am already hanging up drawings and little notes from them on my refrigerator, and eating my gifts of apples at lunch. I love each and every one of my students already. Even the difficult ones. I’m already dreading mid January, when I switch not only classrooms, but schools. Sad day.

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