Week 7: A little bit of Heaven

Monday, February 18

Today was President’s Day so we had no school. Instead I spent the day getting ready for starting at Beecher Elementary next week by getting my state and FBI background checks, and got the TB shot. I’ve got everything ready now to get started! 

 

Tuesday, February 19

Starting my last week at CPCS was sad—I’m not quite ready to leave. It’s been strange giving the responsibility back to Elaine, and I feel as though I should be doing so much more while there. This week I am only teaching the reading lessons, and it feels weird! Because this week is a shortened week, our schedules are a little more packed trying to get all the material in.

Each reading lesson starts with reading phonics words but I did today a little different in that after going through the words, I said riddles for them and they had to guess which words I was referring to. After I did a couple examples, I had the class write some too and then share their riddles with the rest of the class. They loved this! It was a simple activity but definitely one that they thought was a blast. One girl, Amanda, was very excited to share her riddle. She warned the class that it was a long one and proceeded to read her sentence: “This is what my brother and I do: Did too! Did not! Did too! Did not! Did too! Did not! Did too! Did not! Did too! Did not! Did too! Did not! Did too! Did not! Did too! Did not!”

Can you guess the phonics word she was referring to? Argue J

 

Wednesday, February 20

I mentioned last week that the school is purchasing a new reading curriculum for next year. After school today we had a meeting with all the primary grades teachers to discuss which was the favorite in the lower grades. After talking for about 30 seconds, it was clear which curriculum the majority liked the best. The curriculum does a great job integrating phonics everyday and also teaches the alphabet at a faster pace than the other curriculum. The second option however is what is liked better by the 3^rd-5^th grade teachers because it contains much more high-interest level books. It primarily uses non-fiction rather than fiction, so it would draw in the children who typically are not interested in reading. The option that would give everybody the best of both worlds would be to split, and have one reading curriculum for prek- 2^nd grade, and another for 3^rd-5^th. It was unknown though whether the budget could allow for the split. The votes are supposed to be handed in on Friday, so by next week, they’ll at least see what decisions the teachers made, and then the ideas will be presented to the school board. I was able to cast a vote as to which curriculum I liked better; I told Elaine she better tell me what ends up happening!

Thursday, February 21

Today in reading we had a test on our story for this week, The Way of an Ant. The students did well on the test and were excited to read the next story, The Fox and the Grapes. In this short story, a fox tries to reach some grapes but cannot, so he therefore decides the grapes are sour. The students did a great job interpreting why the fox called the grapes sour. They had no problem saying that it was just because he couldn’t reach them that he said they were sour. I applied this lesson to their own lives and asked if anyone had ever not received something they hoped for and got sort of mad; their responses were hysterical! Something I have come to do while at Crown Point is to find joy in the little things, and this was definitely one of those times where I could not help but smile.

We also had another teacher luncheon today. Because of this, lunch went a little long so we did not have time for the students to clean their desks like they normally do on Thursdays. This was a huge deal to the kids; they were very concerned with when they would be able to clean them next. Their reactions made it even clearer to me how valuable structure is in a classroom. Having set things for certain days helps students know what to expect, and helps them stay focused. Hopefully things will be okay and we’ll have time to clean desks tomorrow! 

 

Friday, February 22

Last day at CPCS today L I knew I would be sad at the end of the day, but I was not expecting the amount of emotion I would feel leaving!

Over the last couple of weeks, my class has earned 25 compliments. It may be from a teacher passing in the hall who tells Elaine that our class is walking so quietly, or it could have been from a specials teacher who says that our class listened extremely well and had a great art class. Regardless of who the compliment comes from, once the class has reached 25 compliments they were able to vote on a reward. Their three options were extended free time after lunch, extra recess time or a movie with popcorn. On Tuesday they voted and unanimously voted for the movie so this afternoon we got to watch Bugs Life because of our reading story being about ants.

In the middle of watching it, Elaine paused the movie and announced that it was time to give me my present—cue the starting of tears now! J She brought in a cupcake-cake that said “Miss DeVries gets an A+ in teaching!” as well as a huge Tupperware container full of great teacher gifts. I guess two weeks ago she had sent a note home to the parents inviting them to contribute anything for my future classroom someday; their kindness and generosity blew me away! There were tons of cute teacher-y things in the box, but what I loved the most was the book Elaine had made with the class entitled “Miss DeVries is a SUPER teacher!” The book was a collection of pages from each student saying why I was a “super teacher”. (Apparently she was not doing sight-words with the kids in the hallway last week like I thought she was!) She read through the book with the class and then we took an all-class picture together. Afterwards one girl said she had a great idea: she wanted me to sit in a chair so that they could all put their hands on me and pray a blessing over me—cue the tears again!

This little girls great idea is just one reason why I have fallen in love with this school. It is definitely a place where God is being praised everyday in each grade; I do feel like it's been a small taste of what heaven will be like. Who would have thought a first grader would come up with such an idea?! It has been so great to witness such a God-centered community, and I feel blessed to have been a part of it for the last 7 weeks. As I move on and start at Beecher Elementary on Monday, I am excited to see what God’s got in store for me there. I was nervous to start at CPCS, and looking back, I could not have asked for a better experience. The nerves are coming back as I start a new placement, but I am confident that God’s got great things planned for the next 10 weeks!

Classroom Confidential

In first grade, there is not much social studies taught, and I did not teach a specific art, gym or music class. I have however seen how beneficial it can be to integrate activities from these specials into the general education classroom. I learned this fact in our Fine Arts in Education class with Professor BC and have seen how true this is throughout this semester.

Every so often we made sure to do some type of art project with the students; whether it be making a groundhog for Groundhog Day or drawing a creative self-portrait for Bible class, we did our best to incorporate art into general education classes. Doing this not only made the lessons more interesting for the students, but also gave them a way to just let go and do the best they could artistically. I have also mentioned in the past how drastically different it was on the days when the students didn’t have outdoor recess. On those days, we tried to use more kinesthetic learning, such as moving from station to station in math, acting out a Bible story or actually planting plants in science. Incorporating these type of activities can definitely help the teacher reach all her students and it is something I hope to continue in my upcoming placement, as well as in my own future classroom.

Throughout my own years of schooling I have experienced little authentic assessment. I sat through lectures, filled in blanks, and answer multiple choice questions on a test—not too much critical thinking was involved! Classrooms should not be like that thought. During our methods classes at Trinity, we have been shown how to use authentic assessment, such as using debates, skits and games in our history classes. It was a great way to learn as a student, and as a teacher, will help show what the students really understand. As I move into my next placement, I am excited to see what type of authentic understanding I’ll be able to incorporate.

Week 6: The clock still ticks!

Monday, February 11

I’ve talked before about how my teacher was going to implement Words Their Way for their spelling curriculum. They took the pre-test a couple weeks ago, but because of how the program works, it takes quite a lot of time to get the tests graded. Each letter in the word gives the child a “point” and so the teacher grades them on whether or not each letter is right. Then groups are made based on what type of sound the students need to work on. In my class for example, there are four groups and each group is working on a particular sound/spelling: short e, /oi/ spelling patterns, /oy/ spelling patterns and /bl/ blends.

Today the students received their spelling words and need to sort them in a certain way. For example, they could sort alphabetically, by noun/verb/adjective, by the letter the words start/end with, or whatever other ways they could come up with. It was neat to watch them sort the words; they really got into it and had fun coming up with different ways to do this. With the Words Their Way program, the students will sort their words everyday and are also expected to do them at home each night. The idea is that the students will see and work with the words enough that by Friday, the tests will be relatively easy for them. The problem with starting the program this week is that teachers have an inservice day on Friday, so the students will have one less day to practice with their words. Hopefully they’ll still do all right on the tests though!

Tuesday, February 12

Last week we started Young Author’s stories with the kids for Trinity’s program. The students were SO excited to get going! In my very first blog post, I wrote that the first graders had read the story Knuffle Bunny earlier this year, and we had a field trip to Governor State’s University where we got to watch a play re-enactment. The students absolutely LOVED the play so for the Young Author’s festival, the first grade teachers decided to have the kids make books based on the Knuffle Bunny and use a similar format for the stories.

The students absolutely loved the idea and were so excited to get started on their books! They followed the template the first grade teachers collaborated on together and came up with some really creative things. We’ve continued working on the books this week, and some kids are already starting their final draft. It’s been really cool to go through the writing process with them. Throughout the process, I’ve seen how important it is to not just tell the kids what needs to be fixed but literally walk them through my own thoughts so they realize what the need to change. For example, when working with them individually, I read their story out loud so they can hear it too and sometimes I’ll stop and say, “Wait a second, that didn’t make sense.” I then re-read the sentence and the students 9 out of 10 times are able to say what needs to be fixed. I’m really enjoying going through the process with them, but also absolutely love their creative stories! First graders’ imaginations are absolutely awesome J

Wednesday, February 13

Last week in Classroom Confidential, we talked about parent communication and I explained how great Elaine is at this. I mentioned that the first grade teachers have a newsletter that gets e-mailed home to all the parents each week, and I have seen how valuable this is. Today after school I got to observe first-hand how important it is to have strong parent-teacher relationships.

One boy in my class, Carson, is an absolute sweetie. He is more on the quiet side, but can definitely get rowdy with the other boys during recess! During Daily 5 time, I read with him occasionally and I have noticed that he always read Dr. Seuss books. I mentioned this to Elaine, and she said that Carson has been on her “watch list” simply because she wants to make sure that he’s on-level in reading. He’s not a bad reader but whenever he reads with me/Elaine, he tends to read the same books that don’t challenge him. Elaine hypothesized that it’s a confidence thing; because he might not be as strong of a reader as other first graders, perhaps he just keeps reading the same things because he knows he can. Seeing this, Elaine had him tested to see if he was on-level for reading. It turns out he’s right on the edge; he could go to the Discovery center for a little extra help, or he could just stay in the classroom.

Today after school, Elaine had Carson’s mom and the Discovery center teacher in for a meeting to discuss what the best plan would be for Carson. Elaine started by saying that Carson is a great kid, and a very hard worker. She also said she knew that they were working on home at reading and how great that was; she definitely started the meeting right by saying true compliments to Carson. Next she explained how she has had Carson on her watch-list for a little while, and decided to just get him tested to see where he was at because it was hard for her to judge his level when he always picks books that he knows.

The Discovery center teacher, Julianne, started with giving compliments to Carson also. She continued by explaining his test results and how he is not below level, but just a little slower to pick up on the reading skills than other first graders. (That is one huge thing I have noticed in first grade—the learning gap is huge sometimes!) She explained some activities she would like to practice with him, and elaborated on how the extra help would do nothing but help Carson. Throughout this time, Carson’s mom just kept nodding and saying “Mhmm” but did not say too much. After Julianne finished explaining what the Discovery center is all about, Carson’s mom admitted she has been worried about him for a little bit too. She was all for him getting extra help and was really excited about the Discovery program. It was really neat to be in this conference; it could have gone very differently had Elaine phrased things in another way, or had Carson’s mom reacted differently, but thankfully all went well, and now Carson can get that extra boost he needs to increase his confidence in reading.

Thursday, February 14

Valentine’s Day! Essentially this day is all about getting sugar-high in the realm of first grade! It was a really fun day; the morning was pretty normal where I taught a reading lesson and gave a test, and then Elaine gave the Words Their Way spelling test. The students did awesome on their reading test; the spelling test was another story though. 6 students got 6/6 words correct, 4 got 5/6 and the rest scored lower. Elaine said she figured they would not do so well this week. Some of the groups were in between word sets, so she chose to give them the harder sets (better to challenge than to not!) and so some words were very tough. Foreseeing this, Elaine had decided before that this week and next week would be practice weeks because they are both short 4-day weeks, and because she is still figuring out how to best choose words for each group. We spent an hour after school choosing the words for next week so hopefully next week’s scores will be more on-target!

Contrary to the typical morning, the afternoon was nuts! Before lunch the room moms came in and the students made “houses” for their Valentines so that they could pass them out. It was fun to meet some more of the students’ parents, and again, I just love the parent involvement at school. Very exciting and encouraging! After that the students got to pass out their valentines to one another which they absolutely loved. It was a valentine-filled afternoon so going with the flow, I made today’s math lesson be similar to one we did last week. Last week Friday we graphed the colors of M&Ms in individual packages, so today we graphed the colors of the Valentine candy hearts in individual packages. The kids again loved the activity, and very much enjoyed eating the hearts afterwards.

 

Friday, February 15

It was an in-service teacher’s day so school started a half-hour later than normal. The whole day was really nice because it gave me an opportunity to visit with teachers that I normally do not see. It’s been fun meeting all the different teachers and I’ve really enjoyed getting to know them. The primary purpose for today though was to pick out a new reading curriculum to be implemented next year. The literacy committee had narrowed down to three options, so all the teachers listened to three presentations from different companies to better be informed about their decisions. It was really interesting to hear from the three companies; something that stuck out to me was that they all praised themselves for creating the curriculum based on the Common Core. It seems as though this directions is definitely one all companies will be taking soon, which makes sense. Listening to the three presentations also made me realize something. The first and third presenters were very enthusiastic about their product, and it was contagious to everyone. The second presenter was much less exciting, which made the curriculum seem less appealing.

Noticing this, I thought about how students feel the same way with their teachers. If a teacher does not seem excited or pumped about something, why would the students? I know this is something we have talked about in classes at Trinity but listening to the three presentations really drove the lesson home. Unless I show enthusiasm towards the material, it is unlikely the students will get excited too. Overall though, it was a really interesting day where I enjoyed hearing about the three curriculums. I’m excited to hear what curriculum they choose!

 

As this upcoming week begins, I’m feeling bittersweet. I wish I could just freeze time and stay at Crown Point Christian for a while longer, but the clock continues to tick. I’m excited to start at Beecher Elementary however—it’ll be another new journey that I’m sure I’ll love just as much as my CPCS adventure.

Week 5: Full-time teaching, I did survive!

Monday, February 4

This week is destined to be busy! The school is undergoing Measure of Academic Progress (MAP) testing so our special schedule is a little off because we will not be having computers this week. The testing room also is right next door to our classroom, so the principal has asked our wing to be especially quiet when in the hall. To get the first graders much quieter than what they already are would be hard enough, but add in having to put on/take off all the snow gear before/after recess, it gets a little crazy in the hall! The students are trying their best though, and really do take the testing seriously. Our class takes their test on Wednesday this week so hopefully they are able to sit and focus for the 55 minute test.

Today the beans also spilled that I would not be with the class till the end of the semester. One girl told me that she was going to put glue on her hand, then grab mine, and I would never be able to leave J This class has been such a blessing to me!

Tuesday, February 5

Continuing with the busyness of the week today included an all-school picture. All the students are required to wear their Winter Jubilee t-shirts (from their performances a couple weeks ago), and a photographer comes in to take pictures of all the students sitting in the gym according to their grade. I’ve seen pictures from previous years, and they always turn out great. It’s fun for the students to play Where’s Waldo? and look for themselves in the picture. However, in order to take a picture of the entire school, which is about 600 kids, a lot goes on behind the scenes!

They started with the pre-k and kindergarten and sat them down. After finally getting them sat, the photographer realized that they needed to be over about 5 feet, so they all needed to shuffle over. Then add in first grade, and they sit behind the youngsters and need to sit within the boundaries, but not blocking each other, etc. It is a little chaotic, but eventually everybody found their spots. About a half hour after this process was started, the classes were able to go back to their rooms. I was so proud of my class though—during the picture-taking, they did well with just waiting patiently. The staff absolutely seemed practiced at the ordeal; once everyone was told their spots, they moved classes quickly. It is a little nuts, but I know this picture of 600 children of God is worth it.

Wednesday, January 6

Well, my life was made a lot less hectic today! I got home from school around 6 because of a staff meeting after school, and began working on lesson plans for the end of this week, and next. Thankfully before I got too far, I saw the e-mail from Dr. Meyer saying we were no longer required to do lesson plans for each and every lesson—*cue the Hallelujah chorus*. But seriously, I just want to say a huge, huge thank you for listening to us, and understanding that student teaching is not just a 8-3 job where we have an abundant amount of time afterwards to work on other things. Thank you for hearing our calls of distress and taking a load off our shoulders. THANK YOU J

In other news, our class had to do their MAP testing today. It went good! Some were nervous beforehand and were unsure for what to expect, but they did well. They got set up quickly, and Mr. Kamien (our computer teacher) did a great job calming their nerves and telling them to just do the best of their ability. Elaine had a little pep-talk to give also that included things like the following: It’s a test that will be shown to Mom and Dad, so do your best and take it seriously; you know a lot of the material on it, so you will do great; don’t be nervous, if you have any questions, we are all here to help. Once the kids got started, they were fine, but it was a little nerve-wracking for them. Some classes have the students bring a book with them to the testing and read until the entire class is done. Elaine understands that this is usually not the best option because asking a first grader to sit quietly for 20 minutes reading a book while his classmates finish probably won’t end so good. Rather than doing this, she allows them to come back to the room when they are done so that there are fewer distractions in the actual testing room. When they came back to the room, they worked on a Daily 5 job, so they were still reading, but at least those still testing could concentrate. Afterwards, they were all happy to be done!

Thursday, January 7

Today went by so fast; I couldn’t believe it when the final dismal bell rang! I’m not so sure why today seemed so crazy but it just seemed little more nuts. Perhaps it’s because of how the day started. Each year at CPCS, they have a “Donuts with Dudes” day. This means that the students come with a “dude” (dad, grandpa, uncle, etc) and arrive early to school where they are treated with donuts. It’s a great morning that is extremely well-attended; when I arrived to school this morning, half the parking lot was full and I needed to park much further away from the door than normal (additional walking never hurt anyone though!) As I was walking in, I talked with the vice principal; he was paying attention to which kids were coming without dudes, and was asking dudes who did come with kids, if the dude-less kids could join his group. I loved that. Because each student has a different home-life, sometimes special days like these can be really hard on some kids. I loved that they saw this, and tried to combat it by giving each kid a “dude” to get a donut with. It’s the little things in life that matter, and for some kids, just getting that donut made the world of difference in what could be a difficult day.

Friday, January 8

Each week Elaine has a “mystery person”. This student brings in a little sheet all about themselves on Monday and the class needs to guess who it is. They guess on Monday, and then the person gets to answers questions from the rest of the class after they figure it out. On Friday then the mystery person is allowed to bring a treat for them all during snack time. This week’s mystery person wanted to do something extra special though—Sidney asked Elaine if his mom and dad could come in so that his dad could play football with the boys, and his mom could do a craft with the girls. Elaine said yes, so he was so excited for today! Due to the weather, Sidney’s dad taught them how to play Paper Football on the table. (This is the game where the football is actually just a triangular piece of paper that you need to make touchdowns with). The boys absolutely loved it! His mom brought cupcakes that the girls got to decorate, and then everyone all ate them together. It was so much fun for the kids, and really just a great idea that Sidney wanted to do.

Seeing this made me realize what a blessing it is at CPCS for the parents to be so involved at the school. In other placements I’ve had, my cooperating teacher barely knew the kids’ parents. It really is so special when the parents are active at the school. It makes parent-teacher relationships so much easier, and also has a huge impact on the classroom itself. Elaine is constantly getting e-mails from parents with concerns about their students, but also gets many that are simply updates on family life at home. For example, one family just bought a dog, so the mom sent Elaine a picture of it (he’s a cutie!). Another family was going on vacation this weekend, so the mom e-mailed Elaine letting her know Isaac would be absent. Little things like this are not always present in all schools; this type of close-knit community has a lot to do with being in a private school I think, but regardless, it’s awesome.

As if the kids did not have enough sugar from the cupcakes today, my math lesson had them graphing M&Ms—which of course they got to eat after making their graph. It was a fun activity that they really enjoyed and also helped improve their graphing skills. This lesson idea has been around for years, but it’s still a favorite for the kids! I think I displayed performance indicator 6G this past week in that I used a lot of instructional methods for graphing objects. One day we did a graph on how quickly students could add up numbers in their calculator (so what they entered was: 1 + 1 = + 1 = + 1 = etc.). The students had a blast doing this and then we made a bar graph on paper of what numbers we got. Afterwards, I had them make a human bar graph which they loved! It was fun for them to do but also helped make the graphing process a little clearer. With graphing the M&Ms today, I’m pretty sure their favorite part was at the end when they got to eat them J

On another note, this week was my second week teaching full-time, so now I am slowly giving the reigns back to Elaine. It's crazy to think that my time at CPCS is almost over; being done with the full-time teaching is bittersweet. These past two weeks were busy and hectic but also awesome and fun. I learned a lot, but mostly about time-management and preparation. I know that teaching is a lot of work, but I also have been able to see the benefits of great test results from my lessons, which makes me feel so good! All the time and work I put into my lessons were worth it, but I am definitely looking forward to the next couple weeks being a little less busy!

Classroom Confidential

Ironically enough, I just reflected on how great of a communicator Elaine is with the parents before even knowing this chapter was on communication. As I mentioned, I have seen how invaluable communication with parents is. It should happen on a weekly level at least. Many grades at CPCS e-mail a weekly newsletter to parents about what’s going on in their child’s grade. So at our team meetings on Wednesdays, the first grade teachers discuss what should go on next week’s newsletter. This is something I really would love to do in my future classroom. As Schmidt points out, “knowing about one world [home and school] can help the adults who are working with a child in the other”. Having the weekly newsletters in my class would be a frequent, proactive way to be in touch with all the parents.

After reading Schmidt’s chapter, something I would like to do to better prepare myself for parent teacher conferences are the student self-surveys. It completely makes sense for the students do be involved but I have rarely heard of this actually happening. I know I never had to do a survey on my own learning for any parent-teacher conferences, and at each school I have aided at, I have heard stories of meeting with the parents, but never anything about having the students involved. I think it would be great to have the students with; maybe at the second conference of the year would be a good time for the student to come also. I love the idea of doing the self-surveys for the first conference because it would be a great way to better understand the student and the parents, as well as the parent-student relationship. Overall Schmidt did a really good job of outlining how important parent-teacher conferences are, and how vital it is to be prepared. Being over-prepared does not exist in the realm of parent-teacher conferences!

Week Four: Halfway out the Door :(

Monday, January 28

Today FLEW by. Part of the reason I think is because it was my first day of teaching full-time—which I was extremely nervous for! All last weekend was spent writing lesson plans, and preparing for the upcoming week. And let me say, though it took forever and a day to write all those lesson plans, I am grateful I spent so much time preparing. I felt ready for today’s lessons, and am happy to say that I think they went pretty well. Reading was the subject I was most nervous to teach, and it ended up going good! Goes to show that God is good and hears us in our cries of distress J
 

Our school also had their first lock-down drill with the police today. All went well, and the students cooperated perfectly. Sitting quietly waiting for the drill to be over gave me a moment to remember Sandy Hook and send prayers up for the remaining loved ones. I cannot imagine the pain the school is still going through, and as I looked over my students while waiting for the “a-ok” over the intercom, I feverishly prayed that CPCS would never experience the same hurt and anguish. As it turns out, a bullet had been found in one of the windows this morning before school. The bullet left a distinct hole through the first window pane, but did not go through the second; it lay in between the two windows. Because it was found just this morning, it’s prayed that it was an accident and that no harm was intended, but at the same time, it definitely causes a tremendous amount of worry. As I taught in our Bible lesson today though—God hears all prayers, and will always keep us safe.

 

Tuesday, January 29

I got to experience my first power outage at school today! Right after lunch, the kids were having some free time at centers (every day after lunch, they get to play with some games Elaine chooses before we go right into class) and all of a sudden, the lights went out—causing all the students to completely freak out. After the initial chaos, the students loved it: “This is so much more fun playing in the dark!” “I like playing in the dark! But I don’t think it would be so fun to learn in the dark—we should just play all afternoon!” About ten minutes after the power went out, the principal told everyone over the intercom that this opportunity would let us think about what it was like for students before electricity. It made the students even more excited about the ordeal. An hour later, they were bummed to see the lights flicker back on.
 

The whole experience though made me think about how those type of things can really impact a teacher’s lesson. I was teaching Bible later that day, and had planned on showing a quick video at the end to show what Solomon’s temple looked like, so my thoughts immediately went to that when the lights went out. I was nervous that the kids wouldn’t be able to see the video, and wouldn’t be quite so impressed with just hearing a description of the temple. At the same time, I was thankful that I didn’t have any lessons that required technology the entire time! We ended up being able to watch the video and the kids truly did love it. They were enthralled with how big the temple was, and how beautiful it must have been. Overall, today was a great day J

Wednesday, January 30

100 Day! The kids celebrated 100 days of being in school today. Almost everything all day long dealt with the number 100. This morning during morning work, the kids were given a hat to make that looked like the number, and were given a list of 100 tasks to complete that included things like stand up & stretch, get a drink from the drinking fountain, sharpen your pencil, etc. The kids loved it! So during math today, I had the lesson deal with 100 Day also. For the independent work, the kids needed to fill in the missing numbers of the 100 grid and match written numbers to the actual number for 10-100 (so, match 40 ---- forty, 50-----fifty, etc. ) For the game today, I had them do Roll to 100 (roll dice with a partner, and move your penny that number of spots up—first partner to 100 wins). Because we learned about centimeters on Monday, in my small group session I had students estimate what objects would be less than 100 centimeters, equal to 100 centimeters and more than 100 centimeters. They looooved that activity! Some of their answers were a little ridiculous (e.g. 3 cm is less than 100 cm, the equator is more than 100 cm) but they were right on the money with the responses! It was really fun to see them so excited about math.
 

In other classes, students just need to bring in 100 objects of something, but Elaine added a twist—they needed to bring 100 objects and also 100 foods to add to our class trail mix! Some of the food brought was 100 pretzels, 100 M&Ms, 100 Valentine hearts, 100 marshmallows, 100 Kix cereal balls, etc. It was neat because none of the kids brought the same thing, so the trail mix was a huge hit at lunch. I brought to school three bags full of candy—one had 100 Smarties, one had 143 Jolly Ranchers, and one had 167 Starbursts. We made a chart then with the students’ guesses as to which candy had exactly 100 candies inside. Some of my students showed how smart they are—they asked if I meant each individual candy for the Smarties, or if 1 package counted as 1. The four that guessed Smarties were pumped at the end of the day when they found out if they were right—but all soon joined their excitement when they realized they got to take some of each candy home that night J

I don’t remember having 100 Day in any of my classrooms when I was younger; I love the entire idea though. The kids were so excited all day long, and though not everything got done in all of its entirety today, its okay—having fun days like this is what kids look most forward to, and I think that it’s extremely important to have such celebratory days. It has been so fun to see in the younger grades how much it adds to the classroom when little days are made a big deal. For example, Groundhog Day is this weekend, and we are doing a special art project and will read lots of books about Groundhogs during reading time on Friday. I honestly probably wouldn’t even know it was Groundhog Day if we weren’t making a big deal out of it, but the kids get SO excited about that type of thing. It just makes everything more fun for everybody!

Thursday, January 31

As I have mentioned before, every Wednesday after school, all three first grade teachers have a team meeting in which they discuss the upcoming week to make sure everyone’s on the same page. I know I have said how great it is to see such awesome, detailed collaboration, but it truly is AWESOME. It’s great because all the teachers bring their own strengths to the group, and add their own contributions. Elaine says that the best part is simply how well they get along. They all value one another as colleagues, but also as friends, and that has been such a blessing to witness.

I have also seen how teachers can educate one another! One of the other first grade teachers has used the system Words Their Way for a couple years now, and loves it so much that she is teaching the other two teachers how to incorporate it into their classes. Though myself and the other two teachers are trying to figure it out yet, I think I have grasped the basic concept:
 

-- every time a spelling assessment is given, the teacher checks for each letter in every word;

-- each correct letter gives the student a “point”;

-- the manual that comes with the program then has a checklist that organizes the words so that based on the “point” system, the teacher can discover what sounds the student is struggling with (ex. short A, long O, etc.)

-- students are then divided up into groups based on the sound they are struggling with

-- students work with groups throughout week so that they get a lot of practice with the sound

-- spelling tests are done quite differently than typical ones! Every time assessments are given, there are as many different tests as there are groups (so if your kids were in 4 groups, you will give 4 different spelling tests). Sound confusing? Apparently, the colleague says it is GREAT and the kids actually stay in tune better than for a typical spelling test because she calls out the group name before saying the word, so the kids have to listen the entire time in order to know what words are for them (ex. Group White Rhino, love. Write the word, love).
 

Overall, I think the system sounds really cool. I’m excited to learn more about it! Elaine just gave the initial assessment to figure out what sounds students are struggling with last week, so hopefully they can be scored soon and put into their groups. I just hope I get to see it play out before my time is up at CPCS!

Friday, February 1

It was yet another indoor recess day and in the morning recess, the kids played Silent Ball, an all-time favorite. Today was an Atrium Lunch day though, so we got to go to the teacher’s lounge with other teachers. Everybody was talking about how crazy it has been lately with all these indoor recesses, and one teacher said what her class has been doing is Just Dance. Just Dance is a game for the Wii in that there are people dancing, and you are supposed to mimic all their moves. When playing on the actual Wii, you hold a remote so it can “grade” you on how accurate you are following the dance moves. In her class though, she was pulling up YouTube videos of Just Dance for Kids, and the students needed to follow the dance moves as best they could. Because it’s not with the actual Wii, it’s just for fun, and no one gets graded, but she said her class loved it, so we decided to try it during our afternoon recess.
 

And they absolutely LOVED it!! Because some of the kids have the game at home, they were requesting songs and telling everybody how great it was—getting all the other kids psyched too. Elaine said in the beginning that if you don’t want to dance, you don’t have too, but everybody wanted to do it! It was a lot of fun and a great way to get the kids moving around, without getting too crazy. Elaine told them they had to stay next to their desks while dancing, and they did awesome. For being a school full of Dutch kids, this generation sure got the dancing gene! Elaine and I joined in and tried some songs too, but my first graders were by far more skilled than I! It was a lot of fun, and I am happy to share that the class found a new indoor recess game that gets them moving and helps them blow off some energy—perfect for everyone J
 

This past week was also my first week taking over full time. I was nervous to start, but it ended up going great. Each day flew by so quick that I barely realized I was doing everything. It was fun to be in charge all day, and I’m excited to do it again this upcoming week. Elaine has done a great job of leaving periodically for random spurts of time throughout the day, and the students don’t even notice anymore which I love. The lessons have gone smoothly, and I feel as though I am able to start/end each lesson easier because I just taught the previous one. I’m confident this upcoming week will go just as well! Being that this is week four, it means I am over halfway done at CPCS and only get to stay for another 3 weeks :(  I am so bummed about this! I love my placement-- my cooperating teacher, my students, the supporting staff, the school atmosphere overall-- everything has been awesome. I am sad to think that I won't be here much longer!

Classroom Confidential

The third chapter in Schmidt’s book is all about student behavior. According to her, all behavior is motivated by one of two things: to seek pleasure, or to avoid pain. As a teacher, there are two main things that I can do to help my students accomplish their learning goals: 1) create an environment where they can learn using appropriate accommodations and 2) help them develop the courage and confidence they need to give up the camouflage and tackle the task of learning.
 

When reading this chapter I immediately thought of two very different students in my class. The first is Laila; Laila is constantly ready to learn. The moment I say “Do it now” she throws open her desk to get out whatever material I asked for. She is quick to be ready, and once she has that book open, she folds her hands on top of the desk, waiting for the other students to be ready. Laila almost has a physical accommodation that Schmidt talks about—she arranges her material in a precise order before folding her hands. She self-accommodates herself to be ready.
 

The second student I thought of is Gise; he loves to put on the camoflague of being the class clown. Anytime he can, he’ll throw in a little comment to make the other students laugh. For example, in morning meeting, I tell a riddle that the students need to guess. Two weeks ago, all the riddles were about people so the students needed to guess who the riddle was describing. Every single day, Gise would guess Justin Bieber—and every day the other kids would laugh, so he thrived on that. Elaine talked with him about when it’s appropriate to be silly, and that during school, it is usually not the right time. This past week though, I wrote a riddle just for Gise about Justin Bieber—“Canada is his hometown, his music make people jump up and down, be proud if you’ve got the fever, and love to follow Justin Bieber!” And wouldn’t you know, the one time the right answer is actually Justin Bieber, he didn’t guess it! All the kids did laugh when I told them the answer, but I’m hoping now that Gise will no longer guess him because Justin Bieber was already the answer once.
 

There are many other students that fit the descriptions that Schmidt gave. I’ll definitely start looking for ways in which I can help them accomplish the learning tasks, by asking myself what the students are hiding, or what they are seeking. I know there’s a motive behind every action, so now I am equipped to help them accomplish their learning goals!