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!