"Myers is the place for me..."

Yay! It's finally spring break. I am so excited for the week long break, even though I will be working at the day care I am employed at. It will be nice to take a little break form the planning and preperation though.

Week 10 was very stressful, and the fact that I was losing my voice did not help at all. The weather has been crazy here, hot, cold, then hot, then cold again, and it is really playing with my sinus'. Monday I woke up feeling like a golf ball was in my throat. It was really hard to explain myself during lessons when I could barely speak, and sneezing every three seconds. Ms. M let me take a break and sent me home early on Tuesday to rest up. I really needed to get myself together since P. Stef was coming for an observation on Thursday.

Monday afternoon me and Ms. M put together the students' totem poles. They turned out really cute, and when the kids came in on Tuesday they were so excited to see them displayed in front of the class. They kept calling themselves a "clan" all day, since they had totem poles to prove it :)

The students had a math test on Wednesday.The test was on Unit 8 which was fractions. I was really worried because I already felt like I didn't teach all of the materials needed for them to do well on the test. The fact that some of the lessons were being taught during PSSA did not help ease my worry either. I am truly afraid the students were not prepared. The test was originally supposed to be on Tuesday, but I asked Ms. M if we could move it back a day to better prepare them. I still didn't think the students were prepared, and I was right. The majority of the tests were C's, which is not the normalcy of the class. There were a few B's and a couple D's. Absolutely no A's. I am really upset because I knew they were not prepared because we didn't have enough time to cover everything. I really felt like I was rushed through, and it really difficult to rush through fractions without making sure the students understand,. Ms. M said that she wanted to stay on pace with the other third grade classes, but they all struggled in their scores too. I think it was just a mix of PSSA craziness, and a lack of time. Planning for the next unit, I am making sure to fight to be able to have enough time to cover everything, all while making sure the students understand.

P. Stef came on Thursday for a formal observation. It was a math lesson, which P. Stef hadn't seen be teach yet. I was introducing the new unit. My goal was to stay slow and steady, and make sure the students were soaking up all the information that would be vital for the rest of the unit. I used individual white boards, which they always enjoy, and the students actually handle them well without many problems. During my lesson, which I thought was going smoothly, Ms. M was interrupting me a lot. For example, I had called on a student to explain how he had solved a problem I asked. He explained it to me, but I knew half of the class either didn't hear him, didn't understand him, or just weren't listening. So, as I always do when a student explains something, I repeated it. I was saying things like "OK, so J's first step was to think about what number multiplied by 7 gives me 42. Everyone see that?" and then i would wait for them to tell me they saw that. Then I repeated the next step. "Okay, now just thought about it and he knew he had to think 7 times blank gives me 42. Well what does 7 times blank give him?". This is where Ms. M interrupted and said "Well I think J was about to give you that answer." I am not sure if she was even paying attention or not, but J had already given me the answer, and I was repeating the process for the rest of the class. I find Ms. M doing this a lot, interrupting me on things to tell me to explain something important in the lesson, when I already have the intention on explaining it, I just have not got to that step yet. It can be very distracting, and I feel that just because something pops up in her head doesn't mean that I am not thinking about it either, and that I know I need to talk about it, I just haven't gotten to it yet. During my conference with P. Stef, I was talking about this a lot. He reassured me and said that sometimes teachers who have working a while in the classroom have trouble letting go of all the control, and its hard for them to not chime in when they think of something. He told me I should try to discuss it with her, but I said I'm too much of a chicken, and I will just have to live with it. It just annoys me because it is in my plans what I am covering for the lesson, so why not just have faith that I will do what my lessons say, like always?

Wednesday night was "Barnes and Nobles Night". B&N was hosting a night for Myers, and 10 percent of all purchases went to the school (I think). It was really fun. I got to meet a lot of parents. Mr. K (The Principal) came, and he read aloud to the kids which was really cute. The school choir also came to sing for the parents and shoppers. It was a good fun night, but I was exhausted my the time I got home.

I am looking forward to the week break, but I know April 9th will be here before I know it! After that, it will be the final weeks of my experience, something I am not looking forward to.

Halfway There!

I cannot believe I just finished my ninth week of Student Teaching! It seems like only yesterday I walked into the classroom for the first time. I know the end is coming, and will come sooner than later, and I am trying not to think about it, since I know I will be a complete mess.

Monday was the big day, the Midterm Evaluation. This is the meeting where my supervisor fills out a paper and this paper gets sent to the Department of Education, so it's kinda important! I was very nervous, and not too sure why. I know that I have been progressing well, and have been getting lots of positive feedback, but I was still nervous since it is such a crucial point in my experience. Well the meeting went really well! I received "superior" in all areas! Here is a preview of what went on:

Planning and Preparation: Superior; well planned and prepared for lessons. Had all materials ready, and has lessons timed well.

Classroom Environment: Superior; effective classroom procedures and routines. Clear standards of conduct, has an awareness of behavior.

Instructional Delivery: Superior; Use of questioning and discussion strategies that encourage students participation. Great rapport with students.

Professionalism: Superior: integrity and ethical behavior; professional conduct

Additional Notes: Teaches in a logical, sequential manner. Has a very natural and relaxed manner.

I am very happy about my evaluation. I can only strive to strengthen these qualities, and aim for "Exemplary" on my final eval!

The rest of the week was pretty normal, though I am starting to feel overwhelmed. I am currently teaching all subjects, and handling all classroom routines. It is becoming a lot of work, and I am exhausted at the end of the day, but it is still such an amazing experience, and I can't imagine doing anything else.

This week was my first week teaching Social Studies. In my school, they split the afternoon block between social studies and science. We have been working on science the past two weeks to finish up the unit on measurement, so this was my first experience with teaching social studies. In third grade they learn about 4 Indian tribes, and the new tribe I introduced was the Haida, which are Northwest Indiands from areas of Alaska and Canada. The first day was an introduction where I introduced some background knowledge of the tribe, watched a short video, and read a story called "Storm Boy". We took a picture walk through the book to point out any things they saw that they mentioned in the video.

On Tuesday, we started our "notes". Social studies is the time where the third grades takes the opportunity to practice note taking. Usually, Ms. M writes the notes on the overheard projector, but I decided to make it a little different. I made a power point on the Haida. After each section of information (clothes, food, hunting, activities, etc) I had a picture to help illustrate that particular section. The students really enjoyed this. It was nice for them to see a picture that related the whatever section they were taking notes on.

On Thursday, we worked on "Totem Poles" using symmetry. The students were to fold a piece of construction paper in half, and draw half of the animal or person they wanted. Then, they cut it, and when they unfolded it, it was a whole image. It was really cool, and the students really enjoyed it. Next week we will attach the images to brown construction paper to create poles outside of the classroom!

The picture below is the image Ms. M created a few years back. I always tell her she should have became an art teacher! She makes really great stuff!

 We also did Readers Theater on Monday and Tuesday. This is where the students get into groups with other students who are on their level of reading, and practice a "play" that revolves around the theme from Story Town for that week. The students really enjoy doing this.

Since this was my first week completely taking over all areas of the day, I wanted to change the way classroom management was handled. Ms. M did not really have any type of visual or routine to managing the class. Do not get me wrong, the kids behave well for her, and she knows when to give punishments and such, but she had no type of system. Just verbal warnings, and eventually a punishment. I asked her if I could implement something that I thought of. She told me that I could do whatever I pleased. I really appreciate the trust she has in me, especially in allowing me to change the routine of classroom management. I decided to make behavior charts. Each student will get their own individual chart on their desk each day. It is a reward and punishment system. The top three boxes are their 3 "warnings". The bottom three are the punishments. If a student gets no boxes checked, they get 3 tickets, which is part of a school wide lottery system. If any of the three top boxes get checked, that's how many tickets the lose. They get up to 3 chances to lose tickets.After that, its punishment time. The first consequence is losing recess, then contact home, and finally a visit with the principal.

 The system really worked this week. I only had one student lose a recess. Not all students received all 3 tickets, but some did. I even started marking the "good students" if they acted a certain way. The trend I have started to see in the classroom is that the "behavior" children are constantly getting corrected for behaviors, but if a "good" student who rarely misbehaves does the same action as the other student, they get no type of correction. I wanted to make sure I am fairly treating all students when it comes to discipline. An example of this is when I was going over Haida notes. A student, who is constantly misbehaving and is an attention seeker, got up from his desk in the middle of me speaking to get a drink. I told the student to sit down and to wait until I am done lecturing. A few minutes later, a girl who  is never in trouble and is that "perfect" student, got up from her seat and headed over to her cubby. I would usually let it go, but I was trying to be more aware of this so I asked her what she was doing. She said she was getting her water bottle. I told her she needed to sit down and wait until I was done. She was pretty shocked, but I just didn't think it would have been fair to not correct her when not even five minutes ago I corrected another student for the same behavior. I was pretty proud of this move, and Ms. M even complimented me, saying that ever she tends to overlook the "good" students wrong doings.

I am looking forward to my final 7 weeks, 6 if you do not count spring break which is the first week of April, YAY! I know May 11th will be here before I know it, and I am getting a little sad. But I need to stop thinking about it, and just go day by day.

"Everyday I'm Shuffling.."

The title of this post has been stuck in my head all week! Why? Well, because the teachers had a flash mob at the PSSA pep rally!

We had a pep rally on Monday to get the students excited for the PSSA, the PA state testing. We had words of inspiration, and PSSA man, who was a senior from the high school. He came in and put on an amazing performance that got the kids really pumped. Then, before closing the rally, the teachers rushed the stage to dance to the song "Party Rock Anthem". Then, the students were so excited it became a huge mosh pit of dancing and jumping. It was so much fun, and a memory that I will forever keep.

The weather has been so nice, and since PSSA takes a lot out of the students, we were not doing too many formal lessons. On Wednesday, we went on a Haiku Hike. Ms. M and I took the kiddies out for a walk around the building to make observations on what they saw.

Then, we went inside and students created Haiku's about what they saw. They were really good! We created a board outside to show off our Haikus and other spring crafts.

I had another formal observation on Wednesday. Let's say it didn't go as well as my others. Not that it was bad, but the kids were so excited and out of their element due to PSSA, it was hard to get their attention to try and teach them a science lesson. When it came to the actual experiment, it was fine, but just getting them to listen to the directions and procedures was difficult. I wish I would have came up for a more creative, fun lesson for that day, but I guess we learn from our mistakes. P.Stef still gave me positive feedback and said my classroom management is great, just the circumstances of the week made the lesson difficult to teach.

I created PSSA good luck pencils for my students. This incentive got them really excited, and they were all happy and had confidence in themselves when using their pencils on the first day of testing.

Speaking of incentives, I received my first Parent "Concern" this week. Our school gave out rubber bracelets, similar to the LiveStrong Bracelets, that said encouraging words about the PSSA. Well, the kids spent more time playing with them, breaking them, and flinging them around the room then actually wearing them. We had to take a few from students, and I guess one particular student was upset over getting his taken away. His parent e-mailed not only Ms. M but also the Principal, saying that I took his bracelet away for no reason, and put it in my pocket and took it home. Ms. M replied to this, completely having my back. She said that I had put the bracelet on her desk after telling the student a number of times to stop playing with the bracelet. The principal even came to see me to make a joke about the situation which made me feel better. I knew that parent concerns or complaints cannot be avoided, and I am so glad that not only Ms. M, but the principal had my back in resolving the issue. I must say, it was a good learning experience.

Next week P.Stef is coming to conference with Ms. M and I about my Mid Term Evaluation! I am so nervous and excited!

Getting Ready for the Big Test!

Wow. Week 7 flew by! I can't believe that it's Saturday already! Let's see, what happened this week...

I gotta say that this was a pretty normal week. Nothing crazy happened. Nothing out of the ordinary. We are finishing up Story Town Theme 4 this week, with the final lesson next week which is just a review and Readers Theatre, which I am very excited about! When I started taking over the Reading block in my second week, I had started Theme 4. To be finished the whole theme, and know that I taught it is a great feeling. Hopefully the theme test will go over well!

I have also taken on Math full time. It's funny because I'm actually really good at math, even though I don't like it too much, but I think it shows. Teaching it has come more naturally to me than the Reading block, which took me up until this point to get used to and create my own kind of rhythm. With Math, I already have a rhythm and I can see a change in students' understanding already, and so can Ms. M, cause she told me :]

I decided to take a picture of a sample of my writing on the board. These are pictographs that we were working on for PSSA prep during RtI. The kids couldn't stop making fun of my ice cream cones. Hey, I never said I was an artist.

Science is getting better each day. I only taught 2 science lessons this week, because Social Studies and Science blocks are split throughout the week. Science is also something that I say I hate, yet I feel comfortable teaching it and my point gets across to the students. Isn't that ironic, that my favorite subject, Reading, was my biggest struggle teaching, and my least favorite subjects were a piece of cake?

Next week is PSSA, which is the state testing for Pennsylvania. Ms. M doesn't seem too worried about it, so I haven't really worried either. Next week will be a fun easy week. We still have to teach full days, besides the times that they take the test, which is everyday from 9:15-10:30. But the after recess and lunch blocks will be light, fun activities, though still educational. I wrote out the wholes weeks lessons myself, for the first time....

It's hard to see, but the fact that Ms. M is trusting me with the whole week is pretty awesome.

For my last note, I was grading tests last night, and I came upon this....

This is from our "problem student". He is the student who says he can never do anything, and everything is too hard. This is our Story Town Lesson 19 test, in which he got a 100 percent! When I saw this, I got really excited and texted Ms. M immediately telling her. I feel like he is finally getting it, and finally trying. He is a very smart student, yet he doesn't have the confidence in himself that he needs. And the fact that he got a 100 percent on a test from a lesson that I taught does make me feel good :)

Almost forgot... we were playing 7 up before lunch on Tuesday because we had a a few minutes to spare. One of the kids said " You can tell if a boy or girl picks you, cause girls have soft hands." Oh my gosh, I melted! How cute!

Room 320

I finally got a chance to take a few pictures of the classroom without the students being in the room. The classroom is on the small side, but we make the best of it.

The front white board. There is a smart board being put up in the middle sometime in the next week.

23 desks for 23 lovely students :)

 Ms. M's desk.

 The students' cubbies, with their pictures on them! I thought this was so cute when I first saw it!

Computer station that needs some, um, organizing.

The way we do the lunch count. So cute!

 The back table. This is where we do one on one work, or students can sit back here if they want some space.

The job chart.

The white board in the back of the classroom. It doesn't get much use for writing on.

 Vocabulary words from Story Town. If a student finds a vocab word in something they're reading, they get to put their name on a sticky, and put the sticky next to the word.

The view from the back of the classroom. Again, not the biggest, but it works.

Happy Birthday, Dr. Seuss!

Week 6 was an amazing week, and was full of interesting events.

Monday was a pretty normal day. I took the day off from the Reading block because I really needed to start collecting work samples and assessments from my case study student. As part of my student teaching, I am required to pick a student who I feel needs the extra attention they may not be getting. The student cannot have an IEP, but can be on the brink. I chose a student, I'll call him Andy, who really struggles with his work, but has such determination it is almost unbelievable that he is not an A student. He is an amazing little boy, and I really enjoy spending the extra time working with him. So during the Reading block, I collected and copied samples of all subjects, I took pictures of projects and pictures that were in the hallway from art or our classroom, and I copied a couple assessments, a few in which I graded myself. I was grateful that Ms. M let me take the time to just work on the things I needed, since a part of my case study work was due on Wednesday. Below are images of Andy's "bio in a bag" and a picture he created in Art.

Wednesday was a nervous day for me. Not only was my supervisor, Pstef, coming to observe me for the second time, but I was doing a science lesson! Totally not my strongest subject, and I was super nervous. To make it worse, the lesson was right after lunch, so the students would be pretty wild. And to make it even more worse, their Wax Museum was right after science, so they were going to be extremely wild! At lunch prep, I got all of the materials together. I was doing a "Soaking Sponges" lesson from FOSS. The students had to figure out how much water weighs in grams by using a sponge. I already had the groups planned out, and made buckets with all of the materials ready for each group. The only thing I left out was the water, which I would fill up a pitcher during the lesson and walk around giving the groups water when they were ready for that step. Now, to make it even worse, it was a rainy day, so the students had indoor lunch recess, in the classroom! I was so worried that my buckets would get messed up. I rushed to eat my lunch, and went back to the classroom. When I got there, Pstef was already there. I think he could tell I was horrified when I saw him in the noisy, child frenzy classroom, but he greeted me warmly, and made a joke which calmed me down a bit. Once it hit 1:30, it was my time. It took a few minutes to get the students settled, but the second I threatened to keep them from the Wax Museum, they quieted down so quickly, I swear you could hear a pin drop. The lesson actually went really good, and it was really fun. The students were excited about experimenting if water actually had a weight. The lesson was over, and Ms. M took over so I could talk with Pstef. We actually weren't having a legit conference, because he needed to be observed himself conferencing with one of his student teachers, so I wouldn't even find out how he thought my lesson went until the next day. I gotta tell you, this is the worst. Having no idea what your supervisors thoughts or comments are, and having to wait a whole day to find out, and having to find out in front of another supervisor, is completely horrifying.

The Wax Museum however was amazing! It was the cutest thing I have ever seen in my whole life! So many parents showed up, which was amazing. It was so much fun walking around pushing the "buttons" on the wax people. I really wish I had taken pictures, but I didn't know how well that would go over, especially with parents being there, so I decided to just leave my camera in my bag.

Thursday was Read Across America, and the day Myers decided to celebrate Dr. Seuss' Birthday! We started the day off with an assembly. After we got the students settled down, I was surprised to see The Cat in the Hat come on stage, also known as Mr. K, the schools principal! It was so funny, and the students really enjoyed seeing this! He is super tall and skinny, so he played the part well! A couple teachers came out to read, including the Reading Specialists, who were dressed as Thing 1 and Thing 2, blue hair and all!. Again, another time I forgot to bring my camera! I really need to start bringing it with me everywhere we go! Throughout the day, we read different Dr. Seuss books to the students, and we even had other teachers going in and out of classrooms to read. Overall, it was just a fun, relaxed day, in honor of Dr. Seuss!

So I had to leave school early to head up to WCU to meet with Pstef. I won't lie, I was nervous. But I don't think that nervous feeling ever goes away when your are getting critiqued, no matter how much of a confident person you are. I got to school early, of course, so I just hung around the lounge and studied for a test I had later that night. ( I'm currently taking my Classroom Management course) It was time to meet with Pstef, so I headed over to Dr. B's office. Pstef looked a bit nervous himself, which kinda made me feel better. Pstef started by telling Dr. B where I am placed, what grade, and what I taught the day before. The first words Pstef actually said to me made me wanna cry... " I just absolutely love your teaching stye." For your supervisor to tell you this, it's hard to not get teary eyed. But I tried my best and just smiled saying thank you. He continued to go on about my strengths. He said my lesson plans are thoroughly written out, I had a great anticipatory set. He said the thing he loved about my teaching so much is that I pull from the students. He said he noticed it my first observation too. His exact words were " You had an anticipatory set that engaged students and got them thinking about the procedures of the lesson. I like the way you let students "discover" what to do and why. You ask excellent high-order thinking questions." He explained to me that I never give away what I want the students to figure out on their own. He told me I could easily just say "Okay, today we are going to use sponges to find the mass of water. We are going to weigh the dry sponge and then dry the wet sponge and subtract." He said I pull the answers from students. He also told me that this is something you rarely see from student teachers, and is something that cannot be taught. When your supervisor for one of the most important milestones in your life gives you this type of compliment, it really makes you feel great. I think this was the point in my life when I really realized that this is what I love doing, this is what I have worked hard for, and this was the payoff point.

A few other things Pstef wrote on my Observation Sheet were:

• you have a relaxed, confident, and natural teaching style
• conversational tone
• you were aware of behavior, were mobile, monitored progress and gave feedback
• complimented correct behavior
• rang bell for attention, which students responded to
• gave visual by writing procedures on the board, though procedures were said aloud, and given on worksheet

The only thing Pstef recommends is that I develop a paper passing/collection procedure. Ms. M kindly noted to him that she never had any type of procedure for passing and collecting papers, so the students are used to getting papers handed out individually. 

Friday was the day I started taking over the Math block. I started today because they finished up Unit 7 on Wednesday with the test on Thursday, so today I introduced Unit 8, fractions. Eek. I'm actually very confident with fractions and know them well myself, but I didn't know how easy it was going to be to teach 8 year old students about them... The lesson went over okay. I didn't get through everything I wanted to. Ms. M says it has nothing to do with me. She said she can barely get through things herself because for some reason there are so many interruptions and problems during the Math block. Math is the only time we switch during the day. About 8 of the students in our class go to Mrs. S for enriched math, and we get about 7 other students. I would say we are the average math class. Mrs. W has the lower math class, which includes students with IEP's. And for some reason, math seems to be interruption central!. Ms. M says its because the students take it as "social hour", a chance to talk and see their friends from other classrooms. Hopefully Monday will go over better.