AND weekend. :)

Wow, after the four-day week last week (seriously, was that only last week?), this week was LONG.  I had dinner with the fabulous Miss R monday evening, which was the perfect way to start the week.  Although by that time I was already convinced that it was Tuesday.  That should tell you something!!

No, it wasn't a bad week.  Actually, it was pretty good overall.  I taught a few fun lessons I really enjoyed, some that kind of fell apart...but I'm definitely getting better at knowing when to STOP and reassess, and also when to decide it's just NOT worth trying to rush and squeeze in everything I had planned for a day.  For example, this afternoon I just knew my last lesson of the day was SO not going to happen...and opted for a quick recess and a quiet read aloud with the lights off to calm everyone down.  Definitely the right choice--anything I tried teaching by that point wouldn't have made an impact, and would have resulted in me VERY frustrated and yelling.

It was certainly a LONG week though.  Good things: someone on our staff kindly purchased a fabulous keurig coffee maker for communal use in the lounge.  hooray!  While I have always scorned single-use coffee contraptions like keurig and tassimo for their incredibly WASTEFUL single serving packagings (seriously, so. much. waste.  my coffee maker doesn't even use filters), I am crossing over to the dark side.  Sorry, Earth.  Sometimes you just need a pick me up.  And it makes REALLY good coffee... :-/ <- my guilty hippie soul... Oh well.  You gotta do what you gotta do to make it to 3:00 sometimes!  (I did get fair trade coffee, so at least that's something?  Maybe?...)

Anyways, I am looking forward to a productive and fun weekend.  My to-do list for tomorrow morning is pretty ambitious, so we'll see how it goes!!!

One quick "insight" from one of my "sharpest" fifth graders: "The sun is so bright!  Look, it follows me wherever it goes!"  Oh dear...

1 of my few talents:

I've never had a lot of fun talents that I could share at parties or in the talent show.  Nope, can't Irish dance or sing or even something silly like tie a cherry stem with my tongue.  I AM though GIFTED at reading aloud.  No seriously.  I excel at read alouds.  Reading aloud to the students is my favorite time of the day.  Last year I didn't make time for it as often as I should have.  This year, I am really making an effort to fit in a few minutes a day.  I love it, the kids love it, and it's a great opportunity to expose the kids to grade level text and model fluency.  But I digress.

In my attempt to make my fifth graders fall as deeply in love with read alouds as I am, I decided to start the year with a silly read aloud.  I chose Sideways Stories from Wayside School by Louis Sachar, one that cracked me up as a 5th grader.  My kiddos DIED over it--they laughed constantly and would actually quiet down and listen intently when I started reading!  

We finished Sideways yesterday afternoon, and I immediately pulled out book two, Wayside School is Falling Down.  Anyways, yesterday afternoon I had a grade-level planning meeting to work on our interventions, so my kids were with a sub (side note: one of my library checked out calculators seems to have disappeared during that time...sweet...), and she read the first few pages of Falling Down aloud.  Today, I pulled out the book and asked how they were liking the beginning of it.  I was SHOCKED when the kids gave me a lukewarm response!  "Eh, it was okay." 

I gasped, "What, you're not liking it?!?"

Someone volunteered, "Well, the sub read it to us."

Half joking, I responded, "What, she wasn't as good at reading aloud as me??" 

"No!  She wasn't!!!"

And that's what made my morning: not only have I succeeded in my goal of getting my kiddos to LOVE listening to a read aloud, but they think Wayside School is funnier when I read it. :)

Not that I need constant reaffirmation, but it is nice every once in awhile... ;)  I teach for moments like this...

Photo Update: I AM A SCIENTIST!!!

I wrote the other day about the fun Science Careers interest activity I started with the kids last week.  With most of them finally having finished their detailed drawings, I wanted to share a few of the final products.

My absolute favorite:

Left side: "Who is a scientist?  Wahahahahahaha" (<-- evil laugh)
Right side: "I am a scientist!  I'm a engineer scientist"

Another favorite:

Left Side: "Who is a scientist?"
Right Side: "I am a scientist!  Ecologist, Botanist"

Amazing that kids who had never heard of these careers before are are actually interested in them now, and can SEE THEMSELVES doing them someday!  Next year, I'd love to extend this activity by having the kids research different science careers and present on them...or maybe I could have some science professionals visit the class...hmmmm something to keep in mind :)

Anyways, seeing those final products was a very happy part of my day.

"I SWEAR I'm not an idiot..."

One last quick post before bed, because I cannot rest until I recount this stupid idiot moment of my morning...

I was expecting a phone call from a parent about an incident that happened with her child Friday which resulted in him being sent to the principal's office.  So when the phone rang at 7:50, I wasn't surprised.  I picked up the phone, said good morning, and heard a fast "parent voice" say, "Hello Miss Teacher, this is Mrs. _______."  Let me clarify the ______.

Miss Teacher hears: "name of parent she expected would be calling"
What the parent actually said: "name of completely different parent that only sounds SLIGHTLY similar"

You can imagine what ensued...oh, you can't?  Let me elaborate:  Miss Teacher proceeds to talk to the parent as though she was the parent of the Friday incident child, describing what had happened and growing confused when the parent knows nothing about this.  Miss Teacher assumes the child simply didn't TELL the details, and is disappointed.  Miss Teacher quickly begins to realize that the parent is confused, and says, "Wait, who is this?...Oh dear, I must have misheard you when you said your name..."

Yikes.  Open mouth, insert foot.  ANNND how's that for professionalism?  :-/
Go ahead and laugh.  I know, only I would do something like that...

Christmas for Teachers :)

I have a secret.  Well, not so much a secret, but a confession.  I love books.
Let me say that again a little louder: I love ADORE WORSHIP books.  (Well, maybe that last one was a little dramatic, but you get the idea!)  Years ago, like any other nerdy bookworm elementary school student, I looked forward to getting those crinkly scholastic book order fliers in my mailbox as school.  I would pore over the pages and make my MANY selections, dreaming of ordering every book that peaked my interest (although of course my mother would always make me pare my order down significantly...).  Then, I would eagerly await the day my teacher would receive the big red and white box in her classroom--the books!!

Now that I am the teacher, book order has not lost any of its appeal.  In fact, I may be even more excited about it now. :)  Why?  Two words: BONUS POINTS.  Who knew that teachers make out like absolute BANDITS when their students order from scholastic?!?  I sure didn't!  Last year I passed out book orders every month and usually scraped together a $20 order from my kiddos.  Just enough to get shipping costs waived and usually enough to allow me to pick out a few titles for myself with bonus points.  It was thrilling. :)

This year, I handed out a book order the first week of school and was SHOCKED and ELATED when the orders poured in!  Tallying up the money last weekend, I couldn't believe that I was placing a $160 order!!!  That happens all the time in my mom's classroom, but at my lower income school, it's pretty rare.  Not only did that kind of order give me a TON of bonus points (I even had some coupons that doubled my points!), but the September order catalogs had tons of free book awards for orders over $20!  Amazing.  I was like a kid in a candy shop selecting my free books.  And seriously, I was even more excited than the kids waiting for them to arrive.  And arrive they did, in the biggest scholastic box I have ever seen.  After I sorted out the kiddos' orders, it was time to take in my bounty:

A beautiful thing...

(Almost as beautiful as how good it felt passing them out to students during Daily 3 and telling them I just bought them and KNEW they would love them)

:)

Helping Kids Fall in LOVE with Science :) (or that's my goal at least!!)

I'm not exactly a scientist...in fact, I barely scraped a B- in high school biology, and that was only because I went in constantly for help from the teacher.  But, that aside, I really do love teaching science--in fact, while I may not be good at learning science myself, it's probably my favorite subject to teach.  There's just something magical about seeing kids ask questions about nature, conduct hands-on experiments, and grasp for the first time the science behind how things work in the world around them.

During my student teaching experience two years ago, my students loved science.  Almost all of them were interested in learning more about the sciences and looked forward to our activities.  It was exciting to learn and discover along with them, and so special to watch them become excited about the sciences. You can imagine my disappointment when, last year (my first year teaching), I read a shared reading story about the space program to my kiddos and asked, "Who thinks it would be exciting to be an astronaut?" and NO ONE raised their hands.  I was completely taken aback!  What, NONE of you thinks that would be cool??? Come on, I could barely make it through basic high school physics and would never seriously consider the career, but you have to admit it'd be pretty awesome!  But nope, no interest.  Nada.

This year, I am determined to "capture" my students' interests in science right off the bat.  I had them do a fun activity called, "Who is a scientist?" that I dreampt up this summer based on bits and pieces of other sciency activities I stumbled upon this summer.  I had the students draw a picture of a "scientist" including where they are working and what they're wearing.  Not surprisingly, almost every drawing pictured a person wearing a white coat mixing chemicals in a laboratory.  Many were "mad scientists," characterized by their fantastic hair styles.

Quote from a student while drawing "mad scientist": "How do you spell, 'Wahahahaha!'" :) amazing.  (PICTURES TO COME!!)

Anyways, we talked about the pictures and what they had in common.  Then, I showed them a picture of my brother and told them that he's a scientist (he's an aerospace engineer).  Obviously he looks nothing like their drawings.  I told him that he wears jeans to work, loves xbox and wii, plays hockey, and works mostly at a computer.  But he's still a scientist!  Then, the students took a science careers "interest survey" that described different career interests in  some of the different fields of science.  After they had selected the most interesting descriptions, the kiddos got to see which science career matched their interests.

I have to say, it was wonderful to see my students realize that they could be scientists too.  It is heartbreaking to me when minority students or female students see certain careers as being completely out of their element.  I wanted to drive home the idea that anyone can be a scientist, and that scientists do many, many jobs.  Do I think they're all going to start doing science projects on the weekends?  No.  But just like the first step to classroom management is getting them to fall in love with me, the first step to teaching any subject is to get them to fall in love with it. :)

Sweet relaxing..

Sometimes, no matter what happened during the school day, it is absolutely NECESSARY to leave by 3:30 on Friday to grab drinks with teachers.  NECESSARY.  Such a good idea for one of the last summery days of the year... :)

Touching Musings from a Tough Child

One of my little darlings is quite the handful.  (Well, MANY are handfuls, but one in particular keeps me up at night)  This child has frequent "temper tantrums" throughout the day, triggered sometimes by the tiniest thing, and other times by nothing at all.  He will throw his papers off his desk, slump down, and "grumble" to himself for about 5 minutes.  I typically ignore, or ignore as best as I can...Anyways, this child can barely read.  He has been at 8 schools by 5th grade and obviously has an unstructured home life to put it mildly.  He is disorganized and easily frustrated.  He does not have an IEP, although he would probably qualify for one, because he has never been in one place long enough to be truly evaluated.  So you can imagine that, even when he drives me freakin' crazy, I have a soft spot in my heart for him.  Deep, DEEP down.

Today he refused to start his writing.  I gave him some time to start on his own, but then decided to try stepping in.  With most "grumbly" kids, I would hesitate before offering them help mid-pouting, as it may inadvertently reinforce an idea that pouting will get them what they want.  But I had a pretty good idea that this child had given school everything he had to give that day, and that writing was just too tough for him at that point.  I offered to write the words for him if he would dictate, and he jumped at the chance.  For some kids, the ones with serious decoding gaps, that is really what they need.  Anyways, this child then proceeded to dictate paragraphs about how wonderful his mom is.  He "wrote" that she is a single mom with three kids, and works so hard to support them.  He wrote about how she gets them everything they need, feeds them, and supports them.  He wrote about how much he loves her for all she does for him and his two siblings.

I was in awe of this child.  Sometimes, in situations like this especially, it's easy to get caught up in how much there is to teach a child that's as behind as this one.  We get so caught up in the daunting task ahead of us that we forget how much there is to learn as a teacher.  There is so much we can learn from the children in our classrooms if we are open to it.  Today I was in awe of a child who can barely read, who wants for so much, but who, at age 10, appreciates his mother in ways many adults never do.  I am honored that this child trusted me enough to let me put his words to paper for him, and am humbled by the maturity he showed through them.  He has experienced things that I will never know or understand.  He has been let down by many, many people.  Yet he still has faith in his mother, and realizes what a tough job she has.  Even though the rest of our day together was anything but easy, it was all worth it to share this special moment.  I teach for moments like this.

Writing Workshop Fun: Looping Stories

Last spring I attended a fantastic workshop called 101 Writing Mini-Lessons that changed my entire concept of teaching writing.  After I left, I vowed that this year I was going to teaching writing through a true Writing Workshop, using the Mini-Lesson, Writing Time, Sharing format.  So far this year it has been going great.
Last year, my mentor, Mrs. H, stressed the importance of using the first month of school to lay the foundation with procedural lessons as well as "ideas" lessons.  She said that before I worry about taking any pieces through the writing process all the way to publishing, I should get the kids started on a TON of pieces so they have an arsenal of ideas to pick up at any time.  So, I've been doing a bunch of fun ideas lessons, and loving every minute of it.

My awesome Writing Workshop accountability chart, custom made by the wonderful Amanda :)

Today's was one of my favorites, and one I took back with me from that workshop.  It's called "Looping Stories," and is basically quick-writing with a twist.  The students start with a 1 word topic and take 1 minute to write about that topic without stopping to think.  (I tell them PENCILS MOVING, EYES ON PAPER!!!!)  Then, when the minute is up, they need to stop writing and draw a line across the page sectioning that writing off from the rest of the page.  They then look over their writing, select a word that they included in that writing, circle it, and write it at the top of the next section of the page, below the line.  They take another minute to write about this new word/topic.  Repeat about 4 times.  After this they have 4 or 5 beginnings of stories/writing pieces.  They should then reread them and choose 1 to write more about.  Last year I had the kids cut that section out and tape it to the top of a blank page, but this year they just started it over on a new page.  Both work.  The kids like it though, and it's a great exercise in quick writing.  It's also a lot of fun to see how your topics evolve from 1 to the next!

Today I modeled it by starting with the topic food:

FOOD

My favorite food is pancakes.  I especially like the blueberry pancakes that my dad makes.  He used to make them every Sunday when I was growing up.  I love to eat them/

____________________________________________

STOP!!!  Even in mid-sentence.  I went back and chose the word "Dad" to write about next.

DAD

My dad is one of the best people I know.  He would do anything for me and my family.  He always helps my mom around the house, and helps me with whatever I need.  He is really good at/

____________________________________________

STOP!!!  I chose the word "Family" to write about.

FAMILY

I love my family.  I have two brothers, Kevin and David....

You get the idea :)  I definitely recommend trying this activity to spice up writing instruction with something different!

Curriculum Night: Check!

Today was a looong 13-hour day at good ol' school.  Thankfully, I no longer take days like that on a regular basis like I did last year, spending HOURS after school every day grading, planning, copying, and just processing everything that was going on in my room.  Last year pretty much felt like one long marathon in which I was the dead-last runner, just trying to hold it together to make it to the finish.  This year I am way more together as I've written a few times, although it is by NO means easy.  In any case, I am doing a way better job of peacing out of school by 5 or 6 every night which is a HUGE achievement for me and a testament to how much more prepared I feel.

Of course every now and then in the teaching world there are those late night school events--thankfully not as many in elementary school as secondary!  Tonight was one such event: Curriculum Night.  A word on how that works at my school:  Typically, a curric night involves the teacher presenting to a classroom of parents on classroom procedures, topics to be studied during the year, and the different curriculums being followed.  Informative and important, but super intimidating.  As my school tends to have problems getting parents to show up to evening events for a variety of reasons, we have switched to more relaxed approaches to things like curric and back to school nights.  Tonight's event was a "scavenger hunt" through the school and classroom; kids led their parents around as "tour guides" and checked in with the classroom teacher, PTA reps, and specials teachers to get necessary information.  I love that the kids are running the show, and it takes a ton of pressure off the teachers.  I still had only about half of the families show up, but all in all the night was a success.

For me there were definitely a few highlights.  Overall, the parents at my school are great.  While many are uninvolved, most really respect the teachers at the school.  It is always wonderful to meet parents who are kind and appreciative of the hard work we do!!!

Another highlight was talking to the "difficult" parent I wrote about at the very beginning of the year.  It seems she has decided I am not all bad, young or not!  We actually had a nice, albeit brief, conversation.  I was incredibly relieved, as I was imaging being approached with another laundry list of complaints...

Last, the absolute best part of the night was watching one particular students show his mom around our room for upwards of 30 minutes!  He literally walked her through an entire school day, shared the text books in detail, told her all about what he was reading and what we were learning, and was just so happy to share our classroom with her.  This is so heartwarming and refreshing.  5th grade is sometimes the start of school apathy for kids--it's not "new" anymore, and many have decided they are "so over" school.  (That's one thing I love about primary--most kids are just pumped to be there!  Still don't want to teach a grade where I have to tie shoe laces and blow noses tho... ;)  Anyways, this kiddo's pride in our classroom radiated from every pore as he paraded his mom around.  I was overjoyed that I had the privilege of watching.

Anyways, I wanted to post a few pictures of the room all spic and span and ready to go for our special guests:

"Gathering Place" in our classroom library (aka my favorite spot in the room)

Alternate view of our badass library--can you tell I <3 books?!

Teacher Corner/Oasis :)

An entire classroom view is still to come...