words to teach by

I am not a teacher; only a fellow traveler of whom you asked the way. 

I pointed ahead–ahead of myself as well as of you.

George Bernard Shaw

holy math manipulatives!

I got into my classroom for the first time today! In trying not to overwhelm myself too much, I brought my friend Miss R for support and ideas. I also brought only two tiny crates of supplies, putting off the big hauling of my books as long as possible.

The Good: My room is big! It's bigger than I remembered from when I visited the school in May, and has tons of space. It has two windows that are in little "nook" alcoves that will look awesome with some pillows on the floor and posters--perfect places to read, work independently, or just take a break (or a nap after school if you're me...). I also have every math manipulative imaginable, including a class set of fraction circles! Good thing my mom talked me out of buying the big bucket at Lakeshore for $30! (I also have about 10,000 unifix cubes, not even exaggerating) Miss R and I agreed my room is Math Manipulative Mecca. I have a gigantic white board and plenty of cabinet storage.

The Bad: No bulletin boards. I mean I quite possibly have the only elementary classroom with no bulletin boards. I have two cork "strips" on the wall outside my room, but that's it! If you know me, you know that I pretty much breath arts and crafts, and I have been planning cute bulletin boards in my head pretty much since I decided to be a teacher, so this is a bummer. My room does have two chalk boards in addition to the white board, which I think I'll cover with paper and make a magnet board of sorts... Anyways, I also have a whole bunch of big pieces of furniture for which I can't seem to figure out a functional arrangement...I'm bringing in my mom Friday and crossing my fingers her incredibly high spatial skills will see the room and instantly have a floor plan in mind (complete with accents, decor, and a color scheme. if only I could paint :) )

The Ugly: Huge file cabinets, this really ugly book storage contraption (picture to come) that I can't make sense of, and orangey-brown carpeting.

The Wonderful: It's my real classroom and I'm going to be a real teacher very, very soon!

The Terrifying: See above.

I will post pictures tomorrow :)

Back to School Countdown: 27 Days (yiiiikes!)

More on the 32 Third Graders?!

Imagine how excited I was today when I sat down at my computer and saw that I had a message on goodreads.com (a wonderful site for the reading-obsessed) from Phillip Done, author of 32 Third Graders and One Class Bunny (see my book review from a few weeks ago). As if it wasn't exciting enough to hear from the author and receive a thank you for the 5-star rating I gave 32 Third Graders on goodreads (rightfully deserved!), Done informed me that he has a new book coming out early this September! It's called Close Enconters of the Third-Grade Kind: Thoughts on Teacherhood. I cannot wait to read this, and you can bet I will be ordering it from amazon the day it is released. Check it out in September! And thanks, Phillip Done, for letting me know! ;-)

PS- On a different note, if I get this excited that an author messaged me, perhaps I should have my students write to authors this year... *files idea away in mind amidst a million and a half other "brilliant teaching ideas" and hopes we have time to actually do it*

"darn, that would have been so cool"

My OMG moment from my morning at the gifted program:

Me: So, you're staying for lunch and recess this week?
Second Grade Boy: Yeah, my sister has batman camp everyday at 12 and my mom has to take her there before she can pick me up.
Me: Batman Camp? What does one do at Batman Camp? (confused and intrigued)
SGB: You know, it's a game. With a net and you hit the plastic thing back and forth...
Me: BADMINTON?
SGB: Yeah!
Me: Is that what you said? Or did you say Batman?
SGB: (smiling) Batman...
Me: Darn, that would have been the BEST CAMP EVER!

oh batman camp...if only

difficult parents

Like I said in my last post, I've been working in a gifted enrichment program this summer. needless to say, some of the parents we encounter at this program can be a little...well, interesting. Because my program works with the little kids, we always see a bunch of really young kids who maybe aren't truly gifted or are still developing academically in certain areas and it's more that their parents WANT them to be gifted, so they get them in this program. They still need test scores to back them up, but as far as I have seen, difficult parents can sometimes get their way and get their children in even if they don't exactly meet the criteria.

While giftedness is a wonderful thing and gifted children deserve to be challenged just as much as on-level children, it's always rough to encounter those parents who are already pressuring their children way too much. When did being on-level become unacceptable? It always makes me sad to think about how some children already have so much pressure placed on them before first grade, and I wonder how that will affect them in the long run.

In any case, today I had an encounter with a VERY difficult parent who not only did not believe us when we shared that her child had been behaving innappropriately and disruptively all week, but who also refused to believe her child was struggling in our class. While I strongly believe that we should have high expectations for children and believe the best to be possible in each of them, talking to parents like this one makes me wonder: how many parents are seeing only the child they wish they had and refusing to see the child in front of them?

summer with second graders

This week (and the next two) I am working in a summer enrichment program for gifted students. It's always a fun experience and refreshing to work with kids who are excited about learning, but one of the things I really love is the opportunity to work with younger kids than I normally would. I would never want to teach first graders in the regular classroom setting, but working in this mornings-only program for a week at a time with the little ones fills my appetite for cute little kid interaction. I thought I should share a few of the fun things these second graders have said so far this week:

Second Grade Boy during snack time: I would really like a version pina colada right now. Have you ever had one? I love version pina coladas.
-
Second Grade Girl: Miss Teacher, how old are you?
Me: 22
SGG: Wow, you look 14!
-
Me, yawning and hiccuping: Oh man, yawning AND hiccups? I really am a mess today!
Second Grade Girl: (looks me up and down) well, you're not completely a mess. You look perfect.
-
(during a class discussion of the harmful effects of alcohol--don't ask me how we got on this subject)
Second Grade Girl: The moment it touches your lips, you can't tell right from wrong.
Me and Teacher look at each other and attempt to contain our hysterics

I love little kids. Most of the time :)

words to teach by

education is not the filling of a bucket, but the lighting of a fire.

-william butler yeats

i <3 thrift stores

This afternoon after work I stopped at my friendly neighborhood thrift store to check the children's book section for some new treasures. Of course I got a small stack of new books for my library. You really can't go wrong with 25 cent books! I can't believe that when I first started collecting books I bought them for $5 each! what was i thinking :) Anyways, clearly the thrift store is the way to go. Other exciting purchases of the day included a pretty class vase that I'm going to put a beta fish in (and hopefully some pretty stones and bamboo), a battleship game (yes!), and a pretty cool toy that's like a rubix cube but with sudoku numbers! I already tried it and failed miserably (gave up after about five minutes), but it might be something I can give to a student who finishes a math activity early or something--exercise those brain muscles!

Another exciting activity of the day was visiting my friend Miss R's brand new classroom! Attempting to help her figure out how to arrange all her furniture made me simultaneously so excited to get into my own room (still no word on when I'll be allowed in...) and dreading the thought of coming up with my own floorplan. With my lack of spatial skills, needless to say my mom will probably be instrumental in figuring out how to maximize my space...

Well, school is a little over a month away already and I can't believe how fast the summer is going. Yikes!! So much to do!

getting ready for school = $$$

today i visited my friendly lakeshore learning store, and felt like a kid in a candy shop, except most of the candy cost more than i make in an hour (or several) doing autism therapy. yikes! i did find some pretty cool things, like these great magnetic pockets:

i plan to stick em to the board for the kids to turn in their work or for kids to grab the next assignment from when they finish something, and hopefully eliminate at least some of the messy shuffle of paper piles.
pockets

i also got some bulletin board borders, name plates, and a staple remover. oh and fell in love with about a hundred other things, especially a big bucket of fraction circles that was way out of my price range. currently searching the internet for a cheaper option...

getting all my things ready for school = expensive. but exciting!

getting ready for school part 1

i told myself that today would be the day i tackle that reading curriculum teacher edition and figure out how to teach this series. i taught language arts during student teaching, of course, but my teacher and i didn't stick whole-heartedly to the district's reading series. we taught some lessons from it, read and worked with the stories, but mostly just got ideas from the series and created our own activities.
well, my district this year wants me to be pretty by the book, so i have to figure out how to make this series work for me. i'm VERY intimidated by the million and a half lessons/activities the series expects me to cram in every week...and put it off even trying to wade through it. last night, i said today would be the day.

so naturally, i decided that this morning (instead of doing the reading stuff), i just HAD to start organizing that gigantic pile of teacher stuff that i've been collecting. i now have five boxes of books with my last name written neatly inside each cover, and boxes for each of the following things: organizational stuff for room, decorations for room, supplies, games, prizes, toys and fun things for room. somehow it looks just as disorganized as it did before i started... i cannot wait to get some of this stuff out of my house and into my classroom!

sigh...i guess i'm out of excuses now and should probably crack open the text book...wish me luck!