Week 17: Done!

Monday, May 6
Today starts the end of my student teaching career! I can't believe that my last week is here. It's been a fun adventure but I am ready to move on to the next step. Both of my placements were great with awesome students, teachers and colleagues. As I look back on my time at the schools, I can see a lot of growth. I think back to my first day and how nervous I was, and now I feel such confidence in front of the classroom. I remember not knowing how to prepare those agonizingly long lesson plans, and now I can whip them out in no time. I remember not feeling so confident in talking to the other teachers at the school, and now I'm collaborating with other teachers on what we should do in what units. I remember having a hard time remembering my students' names, and now I could tell you their names, family life and how they are doing in school, or what they need to work on. I absolutely feel like I have grown in my teaching ability too; I have a better idea of what lessons need in order to be effective and engaging. Student teaching has been an incredible experience!

Tuesday, May 7
Because I am only teaching journal this week, I have a lot of free time. This enables me to spend time in other classrooms so that I can see even more variety of teaching styles. Today I spent time in the other kindergarten teacher's class. Her class is actually a little behind ours, so what I observed were lessons that I or Christy have already taught. It was really neat to see another teacher do the same lessons and pick up on the differences between us all. Christy is very laid-back while Dawn is a little more strict. Her classroom seems to have more rules in it and the students are much more responsive to her. I think my teaching style is in the middle between the two but probably closer to Christy. I am more of a relaxed person so I would guess that I am more laid-back. I still maintain my classroom management, and so does Christy and Dawn, but overall I am more relaxed. It was good to experience another classroom though and see another teacher in action!

Wednesday, May 8
Tomorrow we are having our Mother's Day Fashion Show so I did a lot of prep work for that. Here's what the day consists of tomorrow: students change into an outfit of their parents, parents arrive at school, students do a fashion show, sing some songs, students eat ice cream with parents, students sing another song, and then students go home with parents! The whole thing only lasts an hour but we have been practicing for a loonnnngggg time for this! The students are doing a great job with their songs and their runway walks are hilarious; they are putting so much hip into each step-- it's great! I spent today cutting the flower nametags for the adults and putting together their presents for their mothers. Our aide Mindy made silhouettes of their side profiles, and we made CDs with mother-y songs on them that the students decorated CD case covers for. Today was mostly spent getting all those things ready for tomorrow; it flew by!

Thursday, May 9
Today was an absolute success! The students did such a fabulous job with everything! The only thing was that the morning class had a little bit of camera-shyness and were quite a bit quieter when singing their songs, but otherwise they did amazing. The students were hilarious walking down the "runway" in their parents outfits; obviously the clothing was large but they did the best they could for walking. When we were helping the kids getting dressed for the fashion show, they were sort of having a hard time getting everything on. One boy who's quite small, Jace, was putting on his dad's pants, and Nick says, "Wow Jace, those are some big pants." Jace looks up quite exasperated and says, "Yeah, I wish my dad was skinnier!!" =)
It was a great day though; everything went according to plan and the kids did a superb job!

Friday, May 10
Last day =(  it is definitely a bittersweet feeling. I am SO sad to leave Beecher; it's been an awesome placement where I have learned a lot and have made some awesome friends. Christy and Mindy took me out for lunch to celebrate. I feel so blessed to have met them this semester; it has been awesome getting to know them and I will absolutely be staying in touch with them, both professionally and as friends. Because this week was Teacher's Appreciation Week, I've given a little something to Christy each day to show her how thankful I am to have been in her class. Overall when I look back over the semester, I have seen God's hand throughout each day at my placements. I feel so blessed for such a great semester!!

Week 16: Sad that next week is #17!

Tuesday, April 30

My classes welcomed me back to school today with the sweetest gift—a book made by the students entitled “Marital Advice”. Each student made a page giving advice as to what my husband and I need to do to keep a happy marriage. Their responses were hilarious! Some suggested jewels and rings, opening up car doors, painting the house and my favorite, buying me a monster pointer finger. (The children have little plastic pointers that go on their fingers that they can use whenever we do letterbook; the idea is to help them follow along better and stick with the class). It was the sweetest gift; I was so touched by Christy’s thoughtfulness!

I am only in charge of journal and science this week, so I don’t feel like I’m doing too much. We are changing units now in science, and are starting the butterfly unit. It’s really neat because the kindergarten teachers order butterfly kits where actual caterpillar eggs come in the mail and the students are able to watch them become caterpillars, make their cocoons, and then become butterflies. For science today, we did a worksheet that explained the phases of a butterfly’s life. The students needed to cut out the squares and put them in order so that a book was made. It’s a great activity because many students still need to practice their cutting skills.

Wednesday, May 1

I am still in shock that May is here. I cannot believe how quickly this semester has flown by! Each month Christy does an assessment journal with the class and puts them into a binder to better assess their progress throughout the year. The journal pages have a question on the top of the page and lines on the bottom for the students to write their response, and then color a picture above their answer. Each assessment is done at the end of the month, so today I did April’s which asked, “What do you like to do on a rainy day?”

Going over this page with the class made it even more obvious to me how each student is different from one another. Some of their responses were complete sentences with great descriptions and perfect spelling while others were struggling with words like “to”. It is crazy how much of a gap there is in the students’ ability levels. What’s great about assessments like these journals though is that the teacher is able to see the student’s progress based on his or her work since the beginning of the year, rather than just comparing the student to where everybody else currently is.

Thursday, May 2

Whenever a student has a birthday, the parents are always welcomed to bring a birthday treat for the class; Christy sent a note home in the beginning of the year letting the parents know. It usually is a cupcake or brownies, but sometimes the over-the-top parents make it much more of a bigger ordeal. Tomorrow is Caroline’s birthday and her mom went completely overboard with the treats. She brought ice-cream cups, brownies, strawberries, lemonade and made goodie bags to go home with each child.

Christy is thankful that we’re towards the end of the birthdays because if there were many more, she would probably send a note home letting parents know that just a simple treat is fine. After exquisite birthday treats like these in the past, students have gone home telling their parents that they had to bring xyz and had to make goody bags for all the students. It’s fun to celebrate birthdays, but when snack time takes a half-hour because of all the birthday treats, it’s a little extreme. The children obviously love it though; one student said today, “Now this is a birthday party!”

Friday, May 3

Today was a half-day of school. Though most grade teachers look forward to these days and get excited for them, they are days that Christy has come to dread. Because of having half-day kindergarten, that means there are two classes, so on the half-days, the afternoon does not have school whereas the morning class still comes in. When looking at the academic calendar for Beecher, I found that there are seven half-days so the morning class essentially has an extra week of school than the afternoon class! This makes it extremely hard to keep the two classes on track.

Yesterday we squeezed in extra projects in the afternoon, and they did a fabulous job getting everything done. In the morning, we went at a much slower pace and spent extra time on things like coloring, cutting, snack time (thank goodness for all those extra birthday snacks!), etc. so that today, the morning class could do the rest of the things that the afternoon class did. The morning class got everything in and the classes are on the same spot now in each subject, but because we still had extra time, the students got to watch a short video on phonics. It makes it hard having the keep the classes together, but it’s worth the extra effort.

On another note, I cannot believe that next week is my last week at Beecher. My time here has flown by! I will greatly miss my class and my teachers; they have all become so special to me. Both of my student teaching placements have been such a blessing in my life!

Week 15: I am blessed.

Monday, April 22Today was Earth Day, so I started the classes off by doing a coloring page of a bear hugging the earth and then we did a Weekly Reader on Earth Day. In the reader, it explained how all our trash goes to landfills and we are simply running out of room to put our trash; this is why it’s important to create less trash because we are then taking better care of our earth. This led into a huge discussion from the students about how smelly and gross landfills are. The expressions they were using to describe dumbs was hilarious!
Later on when the class came inside from recess, they told me that I should be very proud of them because they spent their recess cleaning up garbage off the playground. I absolutely was proud of them, but told them that they needed to definitely wash their hands before we started letterbook J
Tuesday, April 23This is our last week studying dinosaurs in science, and we are finishing it strong! We made dinosaur eggs today using paper maché and balloons and it was so much fun. It was my first time ever working with paper maché and it was definitely an experience. We started with mixing the glue and the water and I explained to the students that we were going to make dinosaur eggs out of balloons and newspaper. I described the steps that we would use today (mixing the glue and water, dipping the newspaper strips into the mixture, wiping off excess dripping, wrapping the paper around the balloon, patting the paper maché flat) and what we would do when the eggs were done drying (pop the balloon, cut a hole in them, paint the eggs and put baby dinosaurs inside). After giving a quick description, I asked if there were any questions—about 20 hands shot up, of whom 16 all were wanting to know what would happen if the balloon popped while putting the newspaper around it J
It was an extremely messy project, but one that I know the kids really enjoyed, and so did I. I am very thankful that Christy, Mindy (classroom aide) and Rachel (one-on-one aide) were all there to help in the morning; all the extra hands definitely helped things go so well. In the afternoon, it was just Christy, Mindy and I, but it still went well. For it being my first time working with paper maché and having to explain it to kindergartners, I’d say it went great!
Wednesday, April 24We finished our letterbook Ww today so we celebrated by having Wacky Wednesday! Basically the students were encouraged to wear something wacky and Christy and I changed some things around the room (i.e. turned posters upside down, switched the calendar numbers, put our class stuffed animals on top of the log cabin), just a lot of random things that the students thought were hilarious.
During our letterbook, I told the students that because everything is so wacky today, we should do the pages sitting under our desks instead of in our normal seats, which they LOVED. They thought it was so funny and awesome doing their work on the floor rather than in their seats. These silly little things reminded me that it’s the little stuff in life that mean the most sometimes. I sported a fabulous outfit today complete with cheetah tights, a red boa, and a polka dot shirt; one of my students asked me if it was my wedding dress. When I said that it wasn’t, he looked kind of sad and said, “Well, I think it’d be a great one!”

Thursday, April 25Today was a pretty normal today. It’s been strange this week because I gave calendar and math back to Christy, so I’m no longer standing in front of the class all day, every day. I definitely don’t mind giving things back though; it’s nice to see others teach. Next week I am going to spend more time in the other kindergarten classroom and in a second grade classroom because Christy said it would be great for me to just see as many different teaching styles as I can, which I totally agree with. I’m very thankful I was placed with Christy; our teaching personas are very similar so it was easy to take over because the students were used to a similar style of teaching. I definitely experienced some “Mrs. Cox doesn’t do that” times, but overall, I would say it’s been a fabulous placement.
When I went to get the milk from the office this morning for snack time, I walked into the classroom with the students saying “Happy Wedding!” and saw a gift in the front of the class from all the students. Christy had mentioned to parents that I was getting married, and many gave money wanting to give me something (which Christy never even asked for) so I am feeling SO unbelievably blessed. Both the morning and afternoon classes gave me something, and Christy brought cupcakes for everyone to celebrate; it was so sweet. I had many kind words from my students: “Mrs. DeVries, you’re going to be the most beautifulest wife” and “I hope you have a very happy marriage” and “You’re the kindest, most wonderfulest teacher, so you’re husband must be nice”. Let me tell you, these kids have been a blast to teach. They have been such a blessing in my life!
Because the wedding is this Saturday (!!) today was my last day for this week. Christy graciously told me from the beginning of my placement that she did not want me at school tomorrow or on Monday, which I so appreciate. I am ecstatic for the wedding, but I honestly am pretty bummed to miss school tomorrow—the kids are painting their dinosaur eggs!

Week 14: I'm a mean, green sticking-with-the-schedule machine!

Monday, April 15

Christy's son was sick today so she ended up staying home from school. Beecher almost always has at least two subs in each day, and they are pretty picky with who they get to sub in their classrooms. Because they are picky, that means their list of options is small, and because they already had two subs lined up for today, they were unable to find a sub to fill in Christy's shoes. I am in my last week of full-time teaching this week however so even if they had found a sub, the sub would not have needed to do anything. They could have brought a book to read and sit in the corner, and we'd be fine!

Because it is a public school though, I needed to keep the door open between our classroom and the other kindergarten classroom. This way, the other kindergarten teacher could act as my cooperating teacher for the day. It was totally not a big deal to have the door open, but it did make me think about the differences between private and public schools. When Elaine couldn't be at CPCS for the morning one day, they did not even try to get a sub come in. Partly because Elaine came back at 1, but also partly because they trusted me in the classroom and didn't feel a need to find a substitute teacher. I know they trust me at Beecher, but because everything is so involved with the state, I recognize that they needed to have someone act as my cooperating teacher for the day. The whole thing was not a big deal, but it did make me see some distinctions between the private vs. public school systems.

Tuesday, April 16

Today was a pretty normal day. We are starting to learn about the dime this week in math, so we started the day off by reading a book about dimes during calendar time and then discussed for a couple minutes how much a dime is worth and how many nickels/pennies equal a dime. The students then went back to their seat and did a worksheet where they needed to color in all the dimes green, nickels orange and pennies blue. The majority of the class did really well with this, so it was encouraging to see such great results already. Next week Christy takes math back, so she will introduce the quarter, but it's good to know that they are grasping the information before moving on. We have other penny activities lined up for this week, but with many of them having prior knowledge for all the coins, it's much easier for them in school to do the sheets.

Wednesday, April 17

As I mentioned before, we are learning about dinosaurs in science. The majority of this learning comes from reading dinosaur books during calendar time and doing simple worksheets twice a week. One of the worksheets was a cut and paste page where the students needed to order the dinosaurs according to size; with this paper, I led a class discussion on how there were hundreds of different type of dinosaurs and we looked through a variety of pictures of dinosaurs. Another page contained pictures of different things: a person, a plant, a dinosaur and a teepee tent. We first discussed which of those things existed when dinosaurs were alive, and then the students colored the ones that were around before dinosaurs became extinct.

 

Today however the students got to do a really fun project where they colored huge dinosaurs with chalk that are going up in the hallway for our dinosaur mural. The dinosaurs my classes colored were a tyrannosaurus rex and a pterodactyl while the other kindergarten class did a brachiosaurus. The dinosaurs look awesome and Mindy, our kindergarten aide, made the murals even better by adding grasses and other scenery items to the hallway. The hall looks so awesome!

Thursday, April 18

We started today off with a weekly reader about rain. Because we've gotten so much rain lately, Christy and I thought it'd be extremely appropriate. As we started reading, it got almost black outside, the wind started to howl and pretty soon rain was pouring down! One of the girls in my class however started to cry because she is terribly afraid of thunderstorms. I was thankful for Christy in the room because it enabled me to continue teaching the lesson while she helped Sabrina calm down.

About halfway through the weekly reader, Liam raised his hand and asked about where the rain came from; I gave a quick shortcut summary of the water cycle and explained that there is a process where basically the clouds absorb the water from the ocean, and then the water comes back down to earth in the form of either rain or snow. Liam's next question was whether there was pee in rain. Kind of puzzled, I said no because the water comes from the clouds so it's clean. Liam looked at me funny, and said, "But all the rain water comes from the ocean, and the fish and stuff pee in the ocean!" I had to keep myself from laughing as I said that the clouds have a purifying system where they make the water clean. It was definitely a moment that I won't forget because it reminded me why I chose this profession: to constantly spend time with children who make me smile each day.

Friday, April 19

Christy was gone again today because her mom is getting married this weekend up in MI so the whole family went up today to just spend quality relaxation time together. Because it was known in advance, I did have a substitute teacher come in. Michelle actually taught at Beecher last year in fifth grade, but got rifted when the school made budget cuts because she was only there for one year. She's extremely nice and it worked fine having her in the classroom today. Because I am teaching full-time yet, she spent about half of each class getting students caught up on projects or papers they missed, and then the rest of the time graded letterbooks. Mindy normally grades all the letterbooks, so she was extremely appreciative of Michelle getting so much done! I was worried it'd be awkward having a substitute in the classroom because she wouldn't have anything to do, but Michelle busied herself which I really appreciated.

Other than having a substitute in, everything went normal today. This week was a successful week to have as my last full-time teaching week. I made a goal for myself at the beginning of Beecher placement to stick with the schedule Christy and I made, and now that I'm done with full-time teaching, I can proudly say that I did it! I got everything done that we planned for me to do, and I feel quite accomplished about it!

Classroom Confidential
Getting involved with the community and incorporating it as a learning tool is the focus of chapter seven. No matter where a classroom is located, there is a community surrounding it where the students can explore, learn and question things they thought they already knew. Schmidt gave some great ideas for ways to get students involved in the community; here are some I would like to incorporate into my own classroom someday.

On page 145, Schmidt describes Before and After maps. With this method, students first draw a map of a certain area, then explore the area, and then go back to either re-create a new map or add additional details to their first map. I really like this idea because it will help the students see what neat things they are missing out on by not exploring their own community. Humans tend to think we know it all (especially when it comes to things that we are familiar with) but doing this exploration activity will challenge the students to look beyond the normal and notice all the special things about their community.

Another idea I liked a lot was the Community Lifespan. Integrating this means to create a timeline of the surrounding town starting at the very year it was founded. As students learn more about their town throughout the year, the students add something to the timeline. Marking off the decades and centuries really helps students put the big ideas all together. As Schmidt notes, “the time line helps visual and spatial learners grasp the sequence and patterns of events over time.” I love this project idea because it’s one that takes place all year long.

Week 13: Blessed to see on my desk some green and tangerine :)

Monday, April 8

I learned something incredibly valuable today from Christy—use fabric on bulletin boards. Such a simple idea but it is brilliant! She always puts fabric as her backing on the bulletin boards because it holds up better and the holes in the fabric don’t show nearly as much as they do in paper. I absolutely love it. Switching up the bulletin boards is something she’s been doing a lot lately now that she has extra time at school.

This is one thing I really enjoy about Christy. She is extremely laid-back and pretty much just lets me do my thing. She’s constantly moving around the room and going in and out (changing bulletin boards, organizing cabinets, clearing out space, doing laminating) and I really appreciate how much she’s just let me take over. I rarely feel like she’s ever just sitting watching me, and I am thankful for that. My cooperating teacher from CPCS, Elaine, never made me feel awkward either, but she definitely stayed in the room a lot more than Christy does. Elaine did a lot of things sitting at her desk, so though she was never truly just watching me, I felt a little more pressure whereas Christy just does her own thing, allowing me to feel confident in my own teaching. It’s been so great working with Christy!

Tuesday, April 9

Today I had my first official interview and was extremely nervous to say the least. Walking into my classroom this morning, I found a vase of orange tiger lilies from Christy just to wish me good luck; I was so touched. Later on after lunch, I found a card on my desk from the other kindergarten teacher, Dawn, reassuring me that God had this all under control, and that He will make things clear to me and the interviewing committee. I am so floored by how great of a community this school has. It is so encouraging to work with people who really care about you and support you.

Overall, the interview went ok. I would definitely not say it was the best interview, but hopefully it wasn’t the worst either; I wasn’t told a date for when I would hear anything other than ASAP, so now it’s just a waiting game.

Wednesday, April 10

This morning was extremely long and tiring, especially compared to my afternoon class. I had to move 10 stars this morning. The majority was due to talking when I was talking but there were plenty for touching other students, completely not listening to my directions and causing distractions in class. One boy, Nick, frequently moves his star. How the system works is that everybody’s star starts on black; first is a warning, and they move to green. Green is simply a warning so they still get full recess and a sticker at the end of the day. After green is yellow; yellow means half of recess is taken away, and no sticker. Next is red; red means no recess, no sticker. Finally, there’s a black space called “Call Home”.

My dear Nick is a frequent visitor on the call-home slot. He is a sweet boy; he really is; it’s just his mouth gets him in trouble a lot. He is constantly talking and not paying attention. Today he only got onto the red, and when I talked to him at the end of the day about why he was on red, he completely knew why: “Because I talk too much. I’ll try to be quieter, I really will” was his response. He’s a chatterbox for sure, but if that’s the worst problem in my classes, I will absolutely take it.

Thursday, April 11

Today I had a problem with both my morning and afternoon classes with coming back from specials late. It kinda drove me nuts! Both classes came back from gym 5-8 minutes late, and though that may not seem very long, each of those minutes is precious time we could be working on or completing an activity. Feeling frustrated about this, it also caused me to look at things from the PE teacher’s point of view; I know I have sent them to gym late before, and I’m sure she gets just as frustrated with it as I did today. I’m at fault for sometimes thinking, “Well, it’s just computers; if they’re a little late, that’s okay.” That’s completely not true; each special is just as important to the students’ development as the core classes I teach. It was not fun today feeling frustrated and needing to make up that lost time, but it definitely made me think about things from the special teachers’ perspectives.

Friday, April 12

Field trip day today! All three kindergarten classes (my morning and afternoon, and the other kindergarten class) left at 8:30 to head to the Exploration Station in Bourbonnais. Christy and Dawn had enough parents able/willing to come on the field trip so each parent was assigned 2-3 kids. This meant for a lot of people to go on the field trip, but it worked out so well. When we arrived to the Exploration Station, the students were pretty much free to do whatever. They needed to stick with their group, but otherwise, they were able to go around to all the different stations throughout the building. It was my first time here so I had fun exploring what there was too. The building was divided up into multiple little rooms/stations including: Lickety Split Soda Shot, Shop-a-lot Market, Exploralot Castle, Invention Center and places where students could play with Legos, draw, “fix” cars, and climb on airplanes. It was a huge place; I was extremely thankful for all the parents that came! Overall it was a great field trip though where I learned a lot about organization and communication between all parties involved.

Week 12: Proud of myself :)

Monday, April 1

We had Easter Monday off for spring break still, so no school on Monday!

 

Tuesday, April 2

When I walked into the classroom today, on my desk there was a bag of Fritos, lots of Hershey kisses and a Lunchable! Christy gave me the little gift to celebrate that my wedding month has arrived, and that I am starting to teach full-time this week! It was so sweet and thoughtful of her; I feel so blessed to have been placed with two awesome teachers for both of my student teaching placements. I know I’ve said this before, but I couldn’t have picked better teachers to work with! 

 

With today being my official first-day of full-time, I would have thought I’d be more nervous but I really was not. I felt prepared and confident going into the day, and am happy to say we got everything in! I mentioned last week that a problem I wanted to avoid was planning too much for each day, and I think today went great. I actually taught the same lesson that I did for my first graders at my first placement for math today; we did an M&Ms graph where the students needed to graph the amount of each color. When I taught the lesson at CPCS, I was concerned with how well they would do it, and they did fabulous, and with my kindergartners, they did just as great! It’s neat to see how lessons can work for various ages when they are just tweaked a little. 

 

Wednesday, April 3

In science, we are starting a dinosaur unit. What I love about teaching science in kindergarten is that it’s not too crazy in-depth; we aren’t going to learn the names of twenty dinosaurs that I cannot pronounce! We started the unit by just talking about what they already know about dinosaurs, reading a book and doing a worksheet that helped clarify what did and did not exist during the time of dinosaurs. We only have official science lessons two times a week, but I am working with the other kindergarten teacher on coming up with some cute projects we can create on one of the non-science days. 

 

Being the official full-time teacher, it’s neat how the other teachers in the school value me just as one of their own. Like I said, the other kindergarten teacher and I are working on finding a cute dinosaur project, and she also came to me to ask what I used to introduce dinosaurs this week as she is starting that next week. I felt like a real teacher handing her my paper so she could make copies of it to use in her class! I’ve mentioned Mrs. Bunte before (the awesome lady who helps with copying and whatever else we need). Even she has been coming to me to ask if I need anything done rather than just asking Christy. I really appreciate how much the staff recognizes me as an official teacher; helps me feel more confident! 

 

Thursday, April 4

Every month a Family Project gets sent home. These projects are normally some type of art-ish thing that the students are encouraged to work on with a family member and bring to school some time that month. Because Earth Day is later this month, the family project is to make “recycleable critters” and they are turning out so cute! Some of the critters turned in so far are a mosquito (made of egg cartons, milk carton, cardboard and paper towel roll), turtle (made of bubble wrap and plastic Easter eggs), and an entire farm with chicks (popping out of an egg container), a silo (Pringles can) and a rooster (made of a milk carton and cardboard feathers). 

 

I love the entire idea of having Family Projects, but I especially love this recycleable critter idea. I think it is definitely something that could be incorporated into any grade, and I will absolutely be keeping it in mind when I have my own classroom. 

 

Friday, April 5

One week down with being full-time, and it flew by. Being in front of the classroom all day definitely can be tiring but it is something I really enjoy. I am so excited and proud to announce that we got everything in just like we planned! It’s a good feeling knowing that when I come in on Monday, we won’t need to switch our plans around; I will still be able to teach what we originally planned for. Christy keeps giving me a hard time that I need to give her some pointers on how to fit everything in; I told her it’s just beginners luck and I probably won’t be in the same position at the end of being full-time in two weeks! 

 

Something I noticed about having the morning and afternoon classes is that my afternoon class generally goes a lot smoother. A huge reason for this is the class dynamics; the morning class is much chattier and harder to keep focused while the afternoon class is quicker to listen and work quietly. Another reason why I think the afternoon class goes smoother is because I better understand how to go about the day; because I just did the same thing in the morning, I know exactly what type of transitions work best and can incorporate those in the afternoon. Not that the morning class has gone badly at all, but I do feel like the afternoon class goes better. I’ve made a goal for myself to make them match up and have both go just as smooth!

Week 11: Still Learnin'

Monday, March 18

Every year in kindergarten around St. Patrick’s Day, the “leprechaun” visits the classes and messes everything up! When the kids came in today, they were quite surprised to find so many things disarrayed. Christy and I changed the calendar to October with a picture of Santa Clause; we hung ghosts and pumpkins on the chalkboard; and Christy even made tiny green footprints going out of the log cabin in our class, up the bookcase, and on the window because the leprechaun escaped our trap. He was able to leave, but he forgot his shoes which were caught in a net in the log cabin!

It was not much, but it was definitely something the kids absolutely loved. The majority of our calendar time was discussing what things were wrong in the classroom and how the leprechaun escaped. In all my younger years I don’t think I ever had a teacher make such a big deal out of St. Patrick’s Day but here at Beecher, the teachers absolutely take advantage of it. The fourth graders needed to construct a leprechaun trap using one of the simple machines (inclined plane, pulley, lever, wheel and axel, wedge or screw). There were many artsy projects hanging around the school too. It is definitely a largely celebrated holiday!

Tuesday, March 19

As I am taking over more and more of the class, I have come face to face with the two biggest problems of half-day kindergarten. Christy has talked about both of these since Day 1, but I have definitely experienced them myself now. The first problem is simply keeping the morning and afternoon classes on the same page for all the lessons. Sometimes one class gets something quicker so we can go through it faster, allowing us more time for something else, but then the other class might be the exact opposite. It’s hard keeping both classes together, but definitely something I aim to do when I take over full-time after spring break.

The second trouble I’ve become more aware of is just getting everything in each day. Because it is a half-day program, we have the kids for 3 hours. They still have snack time, recess and all the specials—art, music, gym, computers and library—so by the time all those things are said and done, we only have about two hours each day for actual teaching. It makes it really hard to teach the academics, but still incorporate the fun kindergarten projects. Christy has said how much she hates the time crunch, and how she knows giving up the cute projects would give more time for academics, but she’s not willing to give those up. I agree with that; I think kindergarten is a time for learning academically, but it’s also just a year where the kids get used to being in school and all the cute projects are something they love doing, and parents love seeing. In her nine years of teaching kindergarten, Christy has seen a huge change in what the students are required to know. Before they just needed to know their basic shapes; now they need to know 3-dimensional shapes. Their required sight words are increasing, as are the required math skills. As kindergarteners keep being required to know more and more before entering first grade, I feel like the half-day program will have to become obsolete. It is so incredibly hard getting everything in each day!

Wednesday, March 20

To celebrate Easter, the teachers did a potluck brunch-eon. Sign-up sheets were put last week for who would bring what, and today we got to relish each others’ dishes. It was really fun to bring in food and also to eat lunch with those who normally do not eat in the teacher’s lounge. It was fun too because I got to share my recipe, and got recipes from others for their delicious food. It was really fun having the brunch-eon because it just gave another fun topic for us to all talk about while eating.

Thursday, March 21

My lunches have been extremely awesome this week—today Christy, our afternoon aide (Mindy) and I went out to eat at Subway! Christy said sometimes it’s really nice to just leave school for lunch and it definitely was. We really enjoyed just sitting together and talking about whatever. We talked a lot about our plans for the upcoming spring break, when I take over the classroom full-throttle, and just life outside of school. I really feel blessed to be working with such awesome people that I not only look up to as teachers, but also as individual people.

Another person who helps A LOT in our classes is Mrs. Bunte. She is around 75 but is at school every day to help with whatever needs to be done. She puts the homework and graded papers into the students’ mailboxes each morning; she does all the copying that we need; and she helps get ready whatever we need for projects. For example, we did a project where the kindergarteners needed to glue two duck feet onto their picture. The duck feet were kind of odd-shaped and they would have been a little hard for the students to cut out so Mrs. Bunte cut out the 90 duck feet for us. She is such a huge help with whatever needs to get done in all the grades!

Friday, March 22

Today we had a popcorn party because the students earned it by having enough chain-links on their wall. The reward system that Christy uses is that the students earn links when the class does really well with something or is quiet the whole time when getting ready to go home. When they have a certain number of links, they are able to have a popcorn party. They actually earned their party last week, but because I was teaching on the five senses this week, I suggested we have the party today so I could use it as a science lesson also.

It worked out awesome. We started by reviewing our five senses, and then I asked the students how we would use those five senses during our popcorn party. While the popcorn was popping, we talked about what it sounded like, and then when we started to smell it, we talked about what we smelled. They got so excited when they started to see the popcorn coming up the popcorn popper, and of course loved using their hands to grab the popcorn and tongues to taste it. It was a fun lesson that the students didn’t even realize was a lesson, which I loved!