Interactive Historian: Thanksgiving

I came across a website my friend posted on facebook. I'm definitely going to use it on Wednesday before the big T-day during our social studies time. It is an interactive website that tells both sides of the Thanksgiving Day story. It's got great teacher ideas and interactive templates for students to write about what they learned from the site.

Great resource! Check it out.
http://www.plimoth.org/media/olc/intro.html

3 Easy Ways to Motivate Students

#1-Let students know that they are valued, appreciated, and that you really do believe in them. Let them know that their effort in trying to tackle the difficult parts of learning is noticed. Let them know that it is human to face hard times in learning and that you are there to support them along the way.

#2- Give students a chance to express themselves. No matter what the form, students want to be able to share their thoughts. A math journal is a good way for students to tell you what they have learned or what questions they have regarding math. Giving students feedback after they have had the chance to express themselves lets them know that what they have to say is important and worth your time to hear (or read).

#3- Let students have fun with learning. This map fell off the wall and without purpose found it's place on the carpeting area floor. During our Halloween party, these boys had a great time traveling across the US. They were playing their own made up game with their own imaginary cars and having the best time ever. The whole time they were learning US geography-very unintentionally. If learning is fun, students will buy in to it, and that is what motivation is all about!

Making the most out of little spaces

Here are some ideas for ways to display classroom things on limited wall space.

Math word wall posted on closet door.

 Text Features. Posted on shades as they were taught in the classroom. 

Classroom news posted on poster-board outside of the classroom door. Lets parents, students and staff know what is going on in the classroom without many words.

Text features work displayed on the wall outside of the classroom. Some even on the lockers, door and behind the door. Although, not the best idea if you are not allowed to post things on the wall with tape (my teacher doesn't seem to mind or care).


Also, center's schedule is posted on the door. Saves room from posting on limited board space or bulletin space.

Recess

STOP TAKING AWAY RECESS AS A PUNISHMENT FOR DISRUPTIVE BEHAVIOR!!!

Thank you.
~friend of children who can't sit still.

Justice

So, I'm in a position right now where my mentor teacher may be moved to another building. If that is the case, I have three options. 1-stay with my mentor teacher,  2-move to another 3rd grade class in my building, or 3-stay with my kids and whatever teacher is placed in the room.

Here's the thing: I'm in a bilingual classroom. The district needs bilingual teachers in another building. My kids need their bilingual teacher. If my MT is taken away, the kids suffer. If both of us are taken away, they suffer even more. If the teacher that replaces my MT isn't an experienced teacher they suffer even more, and that's just not fair!

But, if I stay with my MT then I will be taught how to teach. If I stay with my MT I will get more experience across grade levels. If I stay with my MT then I'll have connections at more than one Detroit school. If I stay with my MT then I will for sure have a solid reference when I am looking for a job.

I can't stop thinking about the kids though. This is an injustice to them. It's not right. It's not right at all. And I have no idea what I should do, if I am given the option. Should I stay with my kids and make sure they are being taught? Or should I stay with my MT and make sure that I have a better chance at getting a job when I need to get one?

I just don't know. Either way I feel like it's lose-lose. LAME.

Books, Journals, Happy Kids

Social Studies, 3rd Grade, Michigan. I am having my students make books about Michigan's First People, the Native Americans. They will make a page of important details about each tribe we read about. They will use the information in their books to do a group presentation for the chapter summative assessment. I told my students that the pictures they draw have to be accurate of the people they are writing about. So far, so good from the looks of things.

 

I also started Math Journals this week. This allows students to write about math. They have to write 3 sentences or questions about what we did in math that day. Above is a copy of my student's work from working with tally marks. I was very surprised by the clarity of his thinking about math. I can tell from this journal that he really understood the lesson. These help me hear my student's thinking about math and I use them to decide if I need to reteach any topic the following day before moving on to a new lesson.

 

My buddy, J, hasn't been doing too well in school. Teachers seem to isolate him as the trouble maker in the class. So far I've only been able to talk with his parents when he has been acting out. This week though I've noticed that he is showing improved behavior. I wrote this note in the morning. I told him that I wanted to give it to him at the end of the day. Throughout the day I would walk by his desk and tell him I really wanted to give him the note. I noticed he would finish his work and wait quietly or follow directions immediately. It was awesome when I gave it to him at the end of the day. He smiled really big and gave me a hug. You know, as a teacher, I have the ability to shape someone's future in a sense. If I can get J to begin to like school and like his teachers and be interested in his learning, I can change this boy's life. He is not hopeless. He has potential. It's my personal goal to get him to realize his potential by the end of this school year. I'm excited to see the progress he'll make.

Teacher=Hoarder

Today after our staff meeting, the gym teacher mentions that she still needs the gym cleared out and people should come down and take a look at what is there. Christina (my fellow intern) and I decide we should go look. We will be teachers next year. We will be starting from scratch. It's a good thing to build up our resources. Down to the basement gym we go.

SCORE!

I have been really missing the individual white-boards that my students had when I was in Australia. It was such a good way for quick formative assessments. Also, white-boards allowed every student to share an answer. Guess what I found in the basement? Heck yes! Mini white-boards. And not only are they mini white-boards, on one side there is handwriting lines. I can use the boards for quick answers in all subject areas, but even in teaching handwriting (if I have 4th grade and under).

And like that wasn't enough to make my day, I found a bunch of math games. But not just ANY math games...I found Challenge 24!!! You probably don't even care, but let me tell you, when I was in elementary school Challenge 24 was the bomb-digity. I am very excited to be able to use this game in my future classrooms.

Overall, I found some things that will be helpful, and probably some things that I'll want to get rid of eventually, but for now, I am an inspiring teacher WITH resources. Believe me, it feels good. ...except for the fact that now I am becoming something that I never was... Here are some pictures of my car:

This is one of the saddest things. My car has always been clean (because I was so traumatized by the abundant storage space that my mom's car has become). And now...now it's full of an aspiring teacher's resources. Someone give me a classroom quick!

On another note, today I was very amused by one of my students. My teacher wrote on the board numbers for fact families (3,9,12; 4, 2, 6; 5, 6, 11....etc.) She asked the students what was in a fact family. One student said three numbers. Good answer. The next student that she called on said commas. Also, good answer. Yes, there are commas in fact families....but actually, wrong answer. Hmm. How can we make that more clear?

I got good Nails and Shoes :)

I teach good social studies. Yea boy! And I make good cookies. Jacqueline wants to be a baker when she grows up, so she would know. She has learned that she wants to work in the food industry (look at those social studies vocab words!)

And, it is imperative that all teachers have good shoes. And good nails. And let me tell you, I've got both!

Christina, the intern in the other 3rd grade classroom, got a bunch of letters from her students as a writing assignment. She was told how pretty and fancy she was and had lots of compliments on her outfits. I'm glad to make it to that stage in the eyes of my students. And I hoped into the good nails category. It's cuz I use Crackle nail polish. Every third grade girl wants it.

My sister Rachel saw my crackle nail polish and asked if it was professional. I told her that I am joining a profession where people wear sweater vests with pumpkins and kittens on them. She didn't ask me about being professional any more after that!

Lots of Updates

Alright, so here's some things I've been responsible for in my classroom. The top is students pictures of themselves along with some information about who they are. The middle is just an example of the technology in the classroom. That is a smartboard (first generation) and we use it to do grammar lessons.
This last picture I am pretty proud of. Today I wrote positive notes on sticky notes and the kids loved it. Some of them wore the notes around on their shirts and others put them in their planners for their parents to see. I will definitely keep the sticky notes up. I can't believe how excited it made them!

On to other news, I have officially kicked the caffiene. The day right after I wrote the post I quit cold turkey. Though, it wasn't too hard seeing as I don't really drink coffee anyhow. I read something online that said to turn the lights on all the way as soon as you get up, and don't press snooze.
Well, I still press snooze, but the light thing really does work!

I don't know how to teach social studies so it sticks. My kids do great during the lessons. But when it comes to the homework they totally bomb it. :( Part of it is they are still learning to read. Actually, I think that's a big part of it. I mean, what else is social studies apart from reading? You need to read questions and be able to write sentences. I try to make the lessons interactive, and for the most part I think they are.... Well, at least progress reports went home today and parents can get on their kids for having such low grades.

In addition to taking over social studies, I am now responsible for taking over writing! AHHH! I've never taught writing before. How do you teach a class how to write? Do you start with what a sentence is? Or do you start with just writing a response to a topic? Or do you start with a project and spend a long time refining it? I think I'll start with the project and do a writer's workshop on it. That should be pretty fun. I think we'll write myths and legends. I read the Legend of the Sleeping Bear Sand Dunes for social studies and I think the kids would have fun writing their own explanations for the things around them. Plus, I can make it so first we learn about brainstorming and then we map out beginning, middles and ends...and you know, just work on different parts at different times. My hope is to have published myths be Halloween...but it may take longer than a month to get these boys to the press.

Well, that's about it. I really do like teaching. I appreciate that it is different every day.

Hand-made Resources

3rd grade social studies focuses on Michigan. I spent the day searching the web for age-appropriate resources to teach what Michigan's natural resources are and how they've been used in Michigan. I didn't find anything that I thought my 3rd graders would be able to really digest.

So, here goes, I made me own (weebly) website.

It's not the best, but it's not supposed to be exhaustive. I hope it does an adequate job though. Any comments?

Michigan's Natural Resources

Being a teacher (so far)

Learning should be an Adventure

That's what I learned today. I've been planning and teaching social studies all week. I don't know if it's the language barrier or if my kids just take longer to learn things than other children. But, I spent 2 days teaching Michigan's lower and upper peninsulas, and the concept of cities, states, countries, and continents. And even still today I had kids tell me that Detroit was a continent. Oh boy...

Yesterday I was a little frustrated with all of the talking all day long and I portrayed that in the way that I taught. I felt as if I went into the lesson on the defensive. "Jose, turn around. Yahir, stop talking. Amarangie, what is in your hand? Put it down! Bryan, stop making noises." That's basically how I talked to the kids for an entire lesson. And it wore me out. I didn't want to do that again today.

Today, we became expert map readers! It went a little something like this:

Boys and girls, you didn't know it, but all week long I've been training you to be expert map readers. You know all about Michigan and now it's time to go even bigger. Today, boys and girls, we are going to become such expert map readers that we will be able to look at any map and know exactly what it means...

And that's how it went. I feel that it was much more affirmational of the skills that my students already possessed. And not only did my students feel affirmed, they felt invited on an adventure with me.

You see, when it comes to 2 o'clock in the afternoon, kids are tired of learning. And social studies was always the subject I appointed to take naps during. (Maybe that's why I'm having such a hard time teaching it!) But as soon as I approached the classroom with a fresh, positive attitude and a hint of mystery, it seemed that they responded very well to it.

The only drawback though is that I still have to hold their hands while going through lessons. I have to not only model, but model step by step. There has got to be a way to wean students off of needed so much help. They are only 8, but next year is 4th grade, and they don't get their hand held through the lessons in 4th grade. I want to teach them to think critically, but at this point they just don't seem ready for it yet.

I hope it comes soon.

Hello Folks,

It's been awhile since I've given a pretty good update. So far, so good.
I got a Spanish learning program (actually, Rosetta Stone). It's really sweet and top-notch. I feel like I have so little time to do the program though between student teaching, the gym, homework, and trying to have a social life. My goal is to get through Lesson 2 this week and I usually listen to the supplemental CD a couple of times in my car throughout the week.

My student teaching experience is going well. I do believe that the teacher read-alouds are my favorite thing to do. And I really do think that I rather be an elementary school teacher in a self-contained classroom (have the same students all day) than a specialized science teacher (get all of the school's students every day). I like being able to work with the students for an extended amount of time. I like being able to set goals with them (academically and behaviorally) and see them succeed or at least get closer to the goals.

This week, and from here on out I suppose, I am in charge of Social Studies. 3rd grade SS consists mostly of Michigan and Michigan's history. We are starting by learning to read maps. Stuff like the compass rose, map keys, longitude and latitude. Today we went over the state of Michigan (UP and LP) and the 5 Great Lakes. We went over this stuff last week, too...and they still don't have it all down. I'm hoping that the homework I made up and assigned will solidify some info for them. Tomorrow we move on to cardinal and intermediate directions. I plan on using all 45 minutes to teach them the ideas and language associated with direction.

We also started literacy centers this week. I am in charge of the guided reading. We read a short story and then do some language and comprehension questions surrounding the story.

Here's my problem: It is too early in the morning. And most of the time I'm still sleepy until after lunch. Sometimes coffee gives me really bad stomach aches. Today it didn't, but it didn't taste good either. I have a couple of things I want to try. First, I want to accept that maybe I do like coffee and it does help me to really wake up in the morning. Secondly, I think I want to make coffee at home instead of waiting til I get to school to make some. At home I have milk that I can add to the coffee, and sugar. At school, there isn't any milk to add and coffee with just sugar tastes quite terrible. Another thing I could do was get hooked on tea....or stop by the gas station every morning to get a Pepsi zero. But, I don't want to rot my teeth away. Basically, I don't really think there's any good solution. How in the world can I wake up without adding a bunch of caffeine to my body? I pray for energy every morning...

I'll put some pictures up eventually of what I've done in the classroom and with assignments. I will be happy when I get my own classroom one day.

I hope all you lovely people are doing well. Seek Jesus first. I'm trying to do it myself. Word.

Read Alouds

Today I found out that I love reading stories aloud. Previously, I thought I hated it.
Nope.
It is indeed love at first sight...er...um...word.

It is so cool to get all of the kids captivated in a story, making predictions, connections, and putting themselves in the characters shoes. I read Yurtle the Turtle and the first couple chapters of Holes. Can't wait til next week's read aloud time. :)

My life from my Camera Phone

My mentor teacher asked me what we could add to the little people so that the students could write about themselves and personalize it. I went online and googled "open book graphic" and found the outline pictured above. I printed it and then cut out some lined paper and glued it on. We'll make copies and put the person somewhere around their book. (Of course, they will decorate their own little people to look like themselves.) I really like the way it looks!

Earlier today in my MSU class we were asked to write/draw/etc. about ourselves. Here's a snapshot from that:

I think I should go into stick people art. I think I'm pretty good at it! ;)

Alex gave me a crayon highlighter yesterday. IT. IS. AMAZING. You have no idea. It's a crayon. And it's a highlighter!!! We have to wear name-tags in my MSU class right now. Do you like mine?

And yeah, we have to look all sweet and spiffy for our classes. We were told that now we are graduate students, and graduate students must be professional. So, yeah, I'm a professional. What now boy!

Today I am heading to the library to find some resources for learning Spanish. On iGoogle I added some Spanish widgets. One gives 3 Spanish words of the day and the other introduces words and pronunciations along with phrases. I am going to get this down!

Alright, time to pay attention in class again. Shh! Don't tell!

Yo no hablo español

One day down. Some crazy odd number of days left to go.

It wasn't a terrible day. I survived. And I'll try it all over again tomorrow.

I feel like I got very blindsided today. I guess I didn't really know exactly what to expect. My mentor teacher had told me that I wouldn't really need to know Spanish in her class. SOOOO not true. None of the parents speak English! All of the students walked in this morning and my teacher begins greeting them in Spanish and giving them instructions in Spanish and then talking to their parents in Spanish. I just smiled and nodded at all the kids as they walked in. I didn't want to be the odd one out.

But in the classroom I suppose Spanish isn't really used. A couple of times my mentor teacher would give directions in both languages when she wanted to make sure each kid completely understood what she was saying.

There is one boy, we will call him Josue. I'm not really sure how much English he knows or if he is just acting like he doesn't know much English. I couldn't get him to say anything to me in English today but if I asked him a question in English he would respond to it in Spanish. Sooo, I just don't know about him.

The day was pretty slow. Like I said, my mentor teacher hasn't assigned any roles to me yet, so I basically just sat there as she explained the classroom rules and expectations. Every once in a while I would get to hand out papers or books. I spent around 30 minutes making copies of some math review practice. And after the students had taken a math assessment I was the lucky one who got to grade them. I feel like I spent the majority of today as a teacher's aide and that is not what I'm supposed to be doing in the classroom. I'm hoping it changes into something more significant from here. We will see.

We did have an impromptu 3rd grade staff meeting after lunch. Because my school only goes to 3rd grade they only have to worry about 3rd grade MEAP vs. 3-5th grade. So the meeting was to discuss how to get better scores on the MEAP test. Some interesting points were brought up. At first we were going to look at last year's 3rd grade testing scores and teach more heavily on the areas that needed attention. Then my softball coach (aka science teacher for the school) mentioned that the students that took the MEAP last year are gone and that we need to look at the needs of the students who are the current 3rd graders. That to me is a very important observation. There's no reason to teach based on previous student's scores because each class is completely different from the next and has different strengths and weaknesses.

Overall though, I was really tired from not doing anything engaging all day and can't really remember what the meeting was all about. Boo.

Also today, my teacher said she had a class and left school an hour early. I was stuck doing pretty boring alphabetizing worksheets with the class. Josue kept talking to me in Spanish and I kept talking to him in English and telling him to say it in English. It was pretty hopeless. I had to figure out through trial and error exactly how dismissal goes to leave school. I think I have a better grip on it now.

It was just a silly day it seems. I didn't do anything fantastic. I wanted to do something fantastic.

And then, to top it off, I went to get my oil changed and the stupid guys were totally trying to take advantage of my ignorance pertaining to cars. I wanted to kick them in their faces. But I didn't. I got my oil changed and ignored all their pleas to fix a million other things on my car.

Being home has been refreshing. I talked to Alex on the phone. I played with Zeke and Emily. I ate dinner. I cleaned my room. I did laundry. Yes, productive and refreshing indeed. It really is true what they say about absolutely needing a hobby if you're going to be a teacher. I need to find a gym pronto to hook up with and escape to after school is over. Google search, here I come.

Adios! Buenas Noches.

And so it begins

School starts in the morning. I've spent the whole weekend in Tennessee. We drove through Friday morning and drove back Sunday night. I'm pretty tired. I still need to get some clothes ready for tomorrow. I'll worry about the rest of the week when I get home tomorrow afternoon.

I don't actually know what I'll be doing tomorrow. My teacher hasn't assigned any specific tasks for me to do besides watch. I'm dreading the watching. I know I need to watch and observe because that's half of learning, but still I have done a lot of that in classrooms and it gets really boring really quick.

Alex's mom gave me an English/Spanish picture dictionary and went over a couple of phrases that will be helpful to know. I think I'm halfway fluent by now ;)

Besides school I have quite a few other things to do. Rachel T started asking me about running the Turkey Trot with her on Thanksgiving. I haven't run a 10k for a couple of years, but I told Emily she'll have to start training with me tomorrow. I need to find a good place to run around my house here. There's a track in Dearborn, but there's got to be something closer that's still safe. I don't know. I'll have to look around. But I have to start running soon or else I'll be doing a turkey crawl instead of a trot.

Buenas noches mis amigos. I hope you all had a great labor Day weekend. Have fun at work in the morning :)

Como Abrazas A Un Puercoespin?

Alright, so I was gathering up my mail and I found a book from the Cheerios box! And to my grand luck, it was in English AND Spanish!  So this is me trying to read/speak Spanish. I couldn't read the whole thing on camera though because photobooth cuts out audio after 60 seconds, so it's a quick snap shot of my amazing skills:)

Mixing things up because I'm pretty good at it

 This is a view of the blocked windows that I was given the task to unblock.

 Here we have on the left a file cabinet that I displaced, maps taped onto the white board, and some computers against the whiteboard. I moved all of these.

My blank canvas :)

 Alright, so here you can see that I moved the two random computers back to back with the other two random computers. I hope my teacher likes the move. They seemed in the way against the white board. I have also decorated the bulletin boards and moved the maps.

 Here is where I managed to move the taller bookshelf. Ignore my bike, I rode it to school today and kept a close eye on it. I don't know if I'll ride it to school anymore. I don't really like the possibility of rain or flat tires and I really like getting to school in 5 minutes instead of 20. Also, I like the option of driving places after school like the gym or store. So, I think I am trying to talk myself out of riding the bike.

Open windows. My principal still wants those other shelves lower than the window sill. Hmmm.

Oh! And here is the beginning to the bulletin board at the door. I need to put welcome in Spanish as well and then I'll add "to room 209" or whatever the room number is.

Yup. That's all I got folks.

Who am I working with?

Hey all,

Here's another blog from your favorite AmyO :)

I reported to my school on Monday. There are a million last minute changes that happen in DPS days before students come to school. Apparently my principal didn't find out that the school had been changed from a preK-5 to a preK-3 until way late and she is still not sure exactly what staff will be in her building this year. That being said, I walked into the school on Monday without being assigned to a mentor teacher. I sat down with my principal and we chatted about the type of person I would like to be placed with and so on. We walked around the building a little bit to meet some teachers and finally it was set. I am in a third grade bilingual classroom.

Hola. Haha. That's about as fluent as my Spanish gets. Let's see what else I got... Como esta? Esta bien. Buenos dias! Buenos noches. Uno, dos, tres, quatro, cinco.... El bano. Enchilada.

Yup, that's about all I got! I am excited though. I would love to actually learn Spanish and I know that Cafe Con Leche around the corner has English-Spanish conversation hours. Anyone know the best and quickest way to learn conversational Spanish? I want to get on board with this. I've been living in SW Detroit too long to not know the majority language any longer.

Oh! Guess who I saw at my school? My best friend from middle school's dad...also known as my softball coach. I forgot for a hot second that he worked at my school. He is the science teacher for the upper grades. I'm excited to see what he's got up his sleeve and to learn how to teach science from him. He's also basically fluent in Spanish. Go figure. I'm like the only one who doesn't speak it. Lame.

Today my mentor teacher wasn't in the building, she was out on an in-service bilingual professional development day of some sort. I was left to fend for myself and get the classroom ready for students. I managed to put some sort of color in the room, but I'm having trouble figuring out how to decorate the high ceilings. I have no posters. I have nothing. I'm not even a real teacher yet. But! I did figure out a way to get two huge cabinets away from the windows.

I'll be sure to let you know how everything goes from here on out. And I'll post all of my sweet teaching ideas :) (I sure hope I have some sweet ideas to throw out there every once and a while).

Adios mi amigos. Much love. Amyo.