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.