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!

Week 10: Getting into the Swing of Things Again!

Monday, March 11

At my last placement, I talked a lot about how much I loved the entire school community. All of the teachers I met were kind and welcoming, and just made me so excited to be at CPCS. I am so blessed to say that here at Beecher, I am experiencing the same thing. All the staff has been so friendly and are willing to help me with whatever. (One teacher heard I was getting married and started offering some of her own wedding things for me to use!) I have just felt so overwhelmed by all the smiles they offer. At one aiding placement I had, I would dread lunchtime because I could not stand the lunchroom talk with the teachers; they were always just degrading their students and talking about how much they don’t like their job/school. It is nothing like that in Beecher’s lunchroom! The staff is composed of caring individuals who not only love their job but also their colleagues and their district. I look forward to lunch and hearing from other grades’ teachers how their day is going, how their weekend was, and what exciting things are happening in their lives. It’s been a really neat experience.

The only negative comments I have heard lately in the lunchroom concern the new superintendant. This school year the district hired a new superintendant, and no one is excited about her, including our principal. The superintendant is extremely strict and unwilling to work with the teachers it seems like; they all miss their old one very much. Apparently the new superintendent was told at her last district that she could either quit, or she’d get fired. Because she chose to quit, her old district won’t give out any information as to why they did not want her, so she got hired for Beecher’s district, and so far, it has not been a great experience. Hearing their stories about her has opened my eyes to how different public and private schools are. It seems as though public schools have a lot more hoops to go through for certain things and it is disappointing to hear about.

Tuesday, March 12

Today I got to use some knowledge I gained at CPCS at my new placement! Something I learned at Crown Point (I think I wrote about it before) was a game called Silent Ball. Essentially it’s a game where students throw a ball to each other but they cannot talk the whole time. If they drop the ball, they’re out; if they throw poorly, they’re out; if they talk, they’re out. I explained the game to Christy before and she thought it sounded really neat (I think she was mostly interested in the quiet factor!) so today I got to teach it to the kindergartners for an indoor recess.

It went really well and the students loved the game. We played it a little different than we did at CPCS because of desk structures being different but they really enjoyed it. It was fun to compare how the first graders play to how the kindergartners play. The first graders would try to throw to someone across the room, making it harder on themselves whereas the kindergartners kept passing it to the person right next to them so that they would for sure not get out. Either way, it’s fun to learn about games that can be used at multiple ages!

Wednesday, March 13

My cooperating teacher Christy’s younger sister Emily taught at Beecher Elementary last year. Because of budget cuts, she was not given her job back this year, but she did manage to snag a maternity-leave position. It’s kind of a strange situation because she’s teaching in her own room from last year; the teacher’s had switched rooms around, so the one who she’s subbing for now has her old room. It’s been frustrating for Emily, but she is glad to at least have something for awhile.

Today I went to Emily’s class to observe her use iPads in the classroom. Apparently they “belong” to the fourth grade classes, but the third grade classes get to use them today/tomorrow so Emily was excited. Emily is extremely awesome at integrating technology into her lessons (she has a SMARTBoard in her classroom) and she was so excited to have an iPad for each student. The lesson I got to watch was one about time. Each iPad had a certain app already downloaded, so the students just needed to open it up and move the clock’s hands to whatever time Emily said. The app did have the digital time in the corner so the students needed to cover it with a piece of paper when moving the hands, and when they were done they could check their answer simply by moving the piece of paper. It sounds like a simple lesson but it worked great because the students were able to check their own work and get immediate feedback. It was really fun to see how iPads can be used in the classroom; their uses are unlimited I’m sure.

Thursday, March 14

Today our class had some special visitors. Each week we have a Star Student where they get to fill out facts about themselves and the other children get to interview them. At some point during the week, the Star Student gets to have a special adult come in and tell stories, and then we do the actual interview. This week’s Star Student, Treycen, was so excited for his dad to come in, and so was Christy because Treycen’s dad used to play on the Bears! Fabien Bownes played on the Bears and the Seattle Seahawks, each for 4 years, so the children absolutely LOVED him coming in with his jerseys and helmets. Treycen was so proud and it was really endearing to see him look up to his dad so much.

During the interview, one of the children apparently felt sick and threw up all over the carpet rug. The flu must be going around again because he was the fourth student today to get sick at school. It was good to see how Christy acted in the situation; she first took care of the sick boy and then moved the other students to another part of the room to finish the interview. Thankfully the boys and girls quickly forgot about the incident and were captivated by the football gear. Our second special visitor was my supervisor, so thank you Mrs. Hysell for being understanding about the craziness of the day! J

 

Friday, March 15

One student had her last day in our classroom today. Jordane’s mom decided that Jordane needs to be in a full-day kindergarten program so she is pulling her out and switching schools… right before the fourth quarter starts. It doesn’t really make much sense to Christy; at this point in the year, it’s going to be a struggle for Jordane to switch. Jordane does have younger siblings and the mom has made talk of how inconvenient it is to drop off and pick up Jordane throughout the day, so Christy is guessing that has a lot to do with the switch also.

It’s crazy to think how much classes can change throughout the school year. It seems to be more of an issue in public schools, but for Christy’s classes this year, she has had 3 students join the classes at random points in the year, and has had 2 leave. I can’t imagine being Jordane’s new teacher, and having another student all of a sudden at the very end of the school year. It’s going to be hard for her to figure out what skills Jordane has/needs to improve on, and it’ll be hard for Jordane to accustom herself to a new class’ rules and routines. All together it just seems like a crazy situation.

Week 9: Things are goin' fine!

Monday, March 4

Today was Casimir Pulaski Day so no school!

 

Tuesday, March 5

Because of the large snowstorm that didn’t come until 11 in the morning, school got cancelled. I thought it was interesting with how they call off school—the district has an emergency alert system where all the staff gets emails and text messages. They then get a phone call, and need to pass it on based on the phone tree so each staff member gets a text, an email and a phone call. As Christy said, after all that communication, there’s no point trying to fall back asleep! Christy kindly texted me letting me know, but I did check the school’s website and saw it on there as well.

Wednesday, March 6

Because last week Friday was Family Ocean Day, the kindergartners did not celebrate Dr. Seuss’ birthday yet so that was scheduled for yesterday but due to the snow day, we celebrated today! We wore pajamas and made white and red striped hats in honor of the Cat in the Hat that the kids got to wear the rest of the day. We read some of Dr. Seuss’ stories, but other than that, we did not spend much time focused on him because the week was cut short, and the time that we do have with the kids is so valuable that we need to focus on other things. Doing simple activities like this though is a great way to make days exciting for the kids without taking up an entire day’s time.

Thursday, March 7

I began taking on responsibility this week by opening up each class with the calendar time. Calendar time here is very different than how I did it at CPCS. At CPCS, we had the same routine each day where we had a devotional, changed the calendar, talked about the weather and read the message I wrote telling what specials we had today. At Beecher, Christy has literally about 20-30 things that she uses randomly, so each calendar time is different. I like this because it keeps the kids interested because it’s not the same-ole, same-ole every day, but I did like the consistent structure of the morning meetings at CPCS. Christy is great, but admits that she “flies by the seat of her pants” most days, especially when it comes to morning meetings. This is fun, but will definitely challenge me to be more creative with what activities I choose to do!

For this week, Christy asked me to do focus on addition during our morning meetings. Because the days go by so quickly, sometimes she squeezes in math during the morning meeting. Even if it’s just a few minutes, it’s more than they would have gotten otherwise. So today after discussing the calendar, I did some math facts using manipulatives on the whiteboard and had the kids figure out them out on the board. We only spent a few minutes on this but the kids had no problem with it. It was pretty fun to do a little bit of teaching again!

Friday, March 8

Both yesterday and today, Christy was gone because of a huge kindergarten conference in Schaumburg that she attends each year. It’s a huge event that she always looks forward to and comes back excited about trying new things. She says the hard thing is coming back, excited to integrate all these new activities, but then there’s nowhere else to go with it. Christy thinks it’d be great to have the conference, then go back in a month or two to discuss with others how things are going and what they’re finding to work, or not work.

Because Christy’s been gone, we had a substitute teacher named Michelle. Michelle actually was a student teacher at Beecher last year and now subs 2-4 times a week between Beecher and a school in Manhattan. It was great talking to her and learning more about how it works when you sub and what the job market is like out there. Having Michelle in the class the last two days though definitely helped me see how much kids rely on their normal teacher. Each teacher has their own teaching style and personality, so naturally everyone’s a little different. Christy allows the students to whisper pretty much whenever she is not talking or giving directions; obviously when she’s teaching they need to listen, but if they’re doing a project involving scissors or glue, they are allowed to talk to one another as long as they still work. If their talking interferes with their working, then their privilege to talk gets taken away. Michelle however does not tolerate talking at all; both days she got upset multiple times telling the kids they needed to be quiet. This morning, a student’s mom told Mindy (the afternoon aid) that the girl didn’t want to come to school today because she was so scared of the substitute teacher.

The whole experience just showed me how different teachers are from one another, and also how much students come to rely on their teacher. When something is different, they generally will not like it right away. I can see how it would be difficult to be a substitute, jumping in and out of different classrooms where few things are truly under your control.

Week 8: New placement's going great!

Monday, February 25

Today started the official beginning-of-the-end for my journey of student teaching! Going to Beecher Elementary today, I had mixed emotions. I was extremely excited to start because I was able to visit the classroom three times last semester, and have had tons of email correspondence with my cooperating teacher, Christy. At the same time, it definitely felt odd to leave my house and head in the opposite direction of CPCS. I’ll always remember my time at Crown Point Christian with smiles on my face, but I did head to Beecher with a smile too, so that was a good feeling.

Upon arriving, I talked to the principal for a bit and then headed to my classroom. I have two kindergarten classes, one in the morning and one in the afternoon; each lasts for three hours. I quickly realized how three hours is not nearly enough to get everything done! The curriculum may not be extremely strenuous in kindergarten, but there are definitely are lot of things that need to be finished at the end of the day, and I am greatly aware of the time crunch that the teachers face. With recess, snack time and all the specials such as gym, music and library, those three hours quickly diminish into under two hours—barely enough time for a reading, science, math curriculums as well as time for the fun, exciting kindergarten-y projects.

Tuesday, February 26

Just like yesterday, today flew by. Kindergarten is always busy, but Christy told me this week is even more so than normal. Friday is Ocean Day where the students have special adults who can come in for an hour and do ocean-related activities. Before Friday comes though, there’s a lot of preparation that needs to take place. There are so many art projects that need to get done with the kids and to still squeeze in all the actual lessons is tough. I’ve noticed that both Christy and Elaine share a similar mindset in that, you do what you’ve got to do, and anything else is a bonus! Sometimes it’s just too hard to get everything done that you need to prioritize and just do what you can. Another similarity I’ve seen between my two cooperating teachers is their ability to over-plan! Both have admitted that they are way ambitious and always think more can get done. As we’ve talked about at Trinity, it’s always better to be over-prepared than under-prepared, so I am thankful for their example of me of how to be prepared yet still flexible.

Wednesday, February 27

Because I’m starting at a new school, it’s been interesting figuring out more information about the kids. It’s sort of strange because I do find myself comparing these students to my students at CPCS. Here are a quick facts about my students:

Morning class (8:30-11:30)—23 kids; one student has a one-on-one aide primarily because she has Juvenile Rheumatoid Arthritis. Jenny primarily has this in her knees and ankles, but they are pretty sure she also has it in her jaw and hands/wrists. Part of why they think it’s in her jaw is because Jenny is unable to pronounce certain sounds, so it is hard for her to vocalize and communicate with students and teachers. The aide also helps a lot with another child (Thomas) because he is unofficially diagnosed with Autism. The teaching team is working through the process right now to figure out what to do with both of these two students for next year. Intellectually, they are great and right on track for 1^st grade, but socially, it will be extremely hard for them.

Afternoon class (12:30-3:30)—20 kids; one student is extremely bright. Ethan reads at a 4^th/5^th grade reading level, and is quite frankly brilliant. Today he matched all the states with their capitals and after I graded them (using a map of course!) he had gotten them all correct. He is one smart kindergartener!  Socially though, Ethan is extremely immature. He’s already on the young side for being in kindergarten, and though his older sister skipped first grade, it is unlikely that he will because he would be so off socially. Ethan also is much smaller and shorter than the other kids in class so skipping a grade would make him stand out even more. We also have an aide in the afternoon class but she is not a one-on-one; she helps with the whole class.

Thursday, February 28

Today was mostly spent doing a lot of final minute preparations for tomorrow’s Ocean Day. This past week we’ve had quite a few absences in both the morning and afternoon classes on various days, but luckily today we had everyone present so we were able to get the kids caught up. In order to do this though, I worked with them in the back of the room while the other students continued on their normal work. It’s a vicious cycle because then the student that I’m working with misses on their calendar time or their letterbook (the reading curriculum) or another project that they then need to rush through in order to finish on time and get back on track. I’ve seen this crazy cycle in other classrooms, but I feel like it’s even harder in kindergarten—especially when it’s a half-day schedule.

Christy (my cooperating teacher) has said how much she cannot stand doing half-day. If it were up to her, she would completely change to full-day. There’s just too much that needs to get done, and because you do not want to get rid of the special fun, kindergarten activities, you lose a lot of learning time. If it were full-day, the morning could consist of the majority of the actual learning lessons while the afternoons were the specials and the fun projects. But the world is not a perfect place, so half-day kindergarten still exists!

Friday, March 1

Wow, oh, wow. Having family members come into the kindergarten classrooms is a lot of fun, but an incredibly stressful, chaotic time! In our morning class with 23 kids, we had 29 adults come in. Every student had a special adult come, which is awesome, but it definitely made for a cramped classroom. In our afternoon class, we had 14 special adults come in, so the principal, librarian, some office secretaries, and other random people from the school came in so that each student had a special person to go through the stations with. It was really neat that the school put forth the extra effort so each kid felt special.

This was the schedule of the morning: come to school at 8:30 and did calendar and some of their letterbook, at 9:30 they went to music class, and then parents came from 10-11, and were then free to take their students home with them, so they got to leave school a half hour early. The schedule was the same for the afternoon class, so the great part was that Christy and I got to set up final details while the kids were gone at music class.

When the parents arrived, Christy gave a welcome to the parents in which she introduced me, and then gave the directions for how the next hour would go. There were four tables that they would rotate between so that they were at each spot for approximately 15 minutes. Christy had ocean books lying on the carpet and had an ocean video playing (without the sound on) so that if anyone finished any activity early, they did have something else to do. Though it all went smoothly, it was definitely a crazy, exhausting day. I’ll be honest—when the morning class was over, I was not really looking forward to going through the same thing in an hour! It takes a lot of energy to have special days like Ocean Day. They are an absolute blast and definitely something that the kids will remember, but it can drain the energy right out. Overall though, it was a very fun day, and it was neat to meet so many of the parents so early in my placement!

Classroom Confidential

A great strategy that I could use in my kindergarten placement is Schmidt’s Skinny to Steroids. In this activity, you write a simple sentence on the board, and then have the students come up with adjectives and adverbs that would help make the sentence more detailed. I actually did an activity similar to this with my first graders at CPCS and they absolutely loved it. Some of the sentences they created were silly but the amount of detail they had was so strong that their sentences turned out great.

Another technique that Schmidt mentions he calls There’s a Jewel. Using different type of praise words for my students helps improve their vocabulary, which will ultimately improve their writing. Rather than simply saying “Good sentence,” I can say “Outstanding sentence”. Simple changes such as incorporating words like outstanding, superb, exceptional, marvelous, brilliant, extraordinary and dazzling show students that there are a million synonyms out there; using such words makes our writing much more thrilling. Schmidt definitely points out a lot of great writing strategies, but what I really like about these two is their versatility. They can be used in my kindergarten room, as well as a 5^th grade room, and even an 8^th grade room.