Dinosaurs

A quick story that happened on Friday:

We have this behavior management system at school called PBS (Positive Behavior Support) that centers around recognizing students who are doing the right thing rather than focusing on the students who are misbehaving. I am not completely bought into it, but it seems to work for most of my kids. Part of the system is that we reward students with “Cubs Cash” that they can trade in for prizes, special privileges, etc.  On Friday’s I have a Cub’s Cash store that students can “buy” from with Cub’s Cash.  Well one of my students, A, had apparently been saving his Cubs Cash (80 tickets!) and wanted to buy two toy dinosaurs.

To give you a little background on A, he is one of my sweetest, most eager, yet academically lowest students. He is a refugee from Thailand. His mom left A’s older brother and dad in Thailand to bring  A and his little brother here. They came here with absolutely nothing. Mom understands no English and now that their transition aid is running out, it is clear that they are barely making ends meet. To make matters worse, I recently learned that A had Malaria when he was about 5 years old. The medical care they had in Thailand through the clinic was very poor and he had it on and off for a year. Mom told us that she had to completely re-train A to eat, walk, go to the restroom, everything. We suspect that he has some developmental delays and language acquisition issues as a result of his Malaria left untreated for so long.  

Anyway, I told him that he could only buy one thing, which has always been the store rule. Instead of buying one of the dinosaurs he just kind of walked away with his head down. I wasn’t really paying attention, but when I caught up with what had happened I asked him why he didn’t just buy one dinosaur.  He told me (in a lot less words…he has very little English) that he was saving so he and his little brother could play together. I am not even kidding you; it took everything that I had not to burst into tears.  (And yes, I let him buy both dinosaurs). 

Most kids his age would never have even considered buying something for a sibling. To make the story even more special, I had a few students in the room who witnessed it. Another student, S, asked me why I let him get two things. When I explained to her and the students that were there what it meant to be a refugee, and that A doesn't have toys at home like most kids; they just nodded their heads and moved on. 

Times like these are the reason that I really like working with my population of students. They have so much more empathy and understanding of each other’s challenges than other kids their age (I am sure more than I did myself).  It is hard to explain, but they really just “get it.” There are some things you can try to teach, but I don’t think I could ever teach the type of empathy, support, and compassion that my students have for each other. It truly is amazing.

Morning Meeting

I LOVE morning meeting. It is by far one my favorite part of the day. I love it; the kids love it; and I rarely have behavior problems. Morning Meeting is WAY more fun with 3rd graders. We actually get to do all four parts just about every day. For those of you who are unfamiliar, morning meeting has 4 parts:

Greeting

Share

Message

Activity

I pick a new greeting to share with my students every week. Last we did handshakes (hello important real world skill) and this week we are working on high fives. I will give you one guess about which one the kids like more. For the rest of this quarter my plan is to introduce a new greeting each week. As we learn them they will be put into a jar. After the first 9 weeks we will draw out of the jar for the greeting. I am also really looking forward to having my students teach us greetings in their native languages. My classroom has 6 different languages (not including English) spoken and the kids love to share about their native language.

The share can be anything. So far this year we have done class graphs, shared our starring me posters, read journal entries, and learned about our royal friend. I try to do at least one thing each week in which everyone shares, but on most days 3-5 students share and we celebrate their work with 3 claps or 2 snaps. Shares are usually voluntary/ by sign up and I make sure to tell my students in advance who will be sharing so those students can prepare. 

The message is a short letter to the students that I write each morning. I generally use it to go over the day's standards and schedule changes, visitors, etc. I am hoping to do some activities later in the year, but for now it is a quick way to give everyone a run-down of the day and practice some reading fluency. I also take questions about the day right after the message. 

The activity is some sort of game or small group activity. For example, today we were zookeepers who needed to compare the weight of the different animals we have at the zoo. I put the students into 5 groups of about 3-4 students and they sorted the animals by weight from least to greatest. I love tricking them into doing a little more math or reading! If you are a teacher interested in these cards you can download them here.

My favorite morning meeting moment of this week: "YOU like rollercoasters? Teachers don't like roller coasters!"

Intimidated

1 real week down and I am still loving my 3rd graders. Things are settling down and I am about finished with teaching routines and procedures. I am excited to get to teaching actual content, but I am also admittedly terrified. One of the biggest changes I have observed from switching grade levels is that the achievement gap is so much bigger.

I thought the gap was big with my first graders. I really did. 3rd grade is a whole new ball game. The reality is that some of my 3rd graders are below the level of my first graders from last year. I can compare my first graders from student teaching in a high-performing school to my 3rd graders, and the middle-low of my first grade class would outperform all, but a handful of my 3rd graders. It is scary.

We did a lot of diagnostic testing this week and I have identified our two biggest obstacles for this upcoming year...writing and math. I identified these target areas earlier this week, but I did not grade the diagnostic tests until today. The actual scores made the challenge we have ahead of us so much more real.

The chart below is a crop of my writing and math tracker. The top bold score is where TFA expects my students to be at this point in the year. This benchmark assumes that my students will need to make 1.6 years of growth to be on grade level. The second row is my class average.

I know writing does not look that much lower, but students are expected to average a 5 out of 6 points by the end of the year. As I was grading their diagnostic tests, I did not have a student get a score of more than 4 in ANY of the 7 rubric categories. Many of my students cannot form a complete sentence. 

The math diagnostic speaks for itself. The math diagnostic we give is based on the second grade standards. Our kids are going to have to make extraordinary gains to be on grade level. Our pacing guide has us teaching pretty much all of the 2nd grade prerequisite skills in the next 2 weeks. My roommate/ partner teacher (convenient, right?) has similar data in her classroom and we are working together to decide if we should extend our first unit to ensure mastery or move on so we have a chance of teaching the big 3rd grade skills to mastery. It is quite the balancing act.

Right now I am intimidated by my data. Not discouraged, but intimidated. Right now my most pressing challenge is how to present this data to my students and families in a way that will inspire hard work and best effort. The gap, of course, is the reason I joined TFA. I wanted to understand it. I wanted to be a part of the solution. I guess you get what you wish for. 

And finally, in an effort to "lighten the mood" I got a friend request from one of my summer school students this week. I am sure you would be shocked when I tell you that I politely declined her request with, "I would be happy to be your FB friend when you graduate from high school."

Learning and Implementing School Wide PBS

This year my school has mandated that we move to a school wide PBS (positive behavior support) system. I really like the concept behind PBS, but admittedly I do have some reservations. There is a lot that goes into PBS and it has been challenging to implement a system that I am not yet fully trained on. So far I have introduced our school wide expectations (Be responsible, Be respectful, and Give your best effort), school-wide procedures and reward system. I am seeing good results with my students, and would probably see better results if I could remember to keep blue tickets with me.

Here is how I introduced the system to my students:

I started the discussion by talking about why we have rules and expectations (We have rules and expectations so everyone at our school can do their best learning). Then we did a group brainstorm about rules and expectations the students already knew. 

I then told the students that this year at our school there were three words, called expectations, that would help up us all do our best learning. Everyone, including teachers, will be working this year to meet these expectations. 

I introduced the the words responsible, respectful,and best effort. Then I gave a simple, kid friendly definition of each of them. I put up a synonymous word or phrase to help students remember the difference between the words (see below). 

Next we did a sort of procedures that would help make sure we are being responsible, respectful, and giving our best effort everywhere in the school. I modeled with classroom rules and then the students were broken up into groups to do sorts for the other areas of the school (bus, playground, cafeteria, restroom, arrival/ dismissal). 

After students presented their sorts to the class, I put the sorts up on a bulletin board under our key words (expectations). 

To end the lesson I had the students create a tri-fold and give an example of how they can show each expectation. 

Throughout this upcoming week I will be doing a series of character building activities and read alouds. At some point in each activity we will come back to our key expectations and talk about how our we (or the characters in our books) are/ are not demonstrating our expectations. I am looking forward to some great discussion with my students!

Caine's Arcade

This video was shared with me the other day. It has been on my mind ever since. I was in tears by the end of it (its not sad, I promise!). It is a great reminder of the potential of a child's imagination. It is also a great reminder of the impact that adults can have on children's imaginations. Caine's dad could have said not to touch the boxes, thrown away his creations, or even called them stupid. Instead, he gave him the freedom to create and validated his work. This is a lesson I hope to take to my classroom. I want to inspire my students to be creative instead of squashing their creativity. This is especially applicable in writing. A major goal I have for next year is to move towards a workshop style writing block. I want to give my students a chance to write about their interest and learn to express their ideas. You never know...I might have the next Caine in my class!

Update: I actually ended up showing this video to my kids. One of my guided reading groups was reading a story about pretending with cardboard boxes so I pulled it up. They loved seeing Caine's creation and asked to watch it a second (and third) time!

Changing My Classroom Culture: Update

I have been working towards a better classroom culture for the past few weeks. I began the first few weeks with an intensive, 30min a day culture building block. I could not keep up the stamina of it, however, I have still be teaching 2-3 lessons a week. Some are read-alouds, some are discussions, and some are written scenarios.  So the big question is: Is it working? I wish I could say that my classroom was now all sunshine and rainbows, but it is not and I doubt it will ever be. This unit has definitely made a difference--not for the major challenges, but for some. It has helped give me a reference to talk about problems, reduced tattling, and helped give my students away to be advocates for themselves.

Over the summer I will post a full unit and resources, but for now, take a peek at some of the fun...

I think that I will begin this unit in the fall of next year. I did not go as in depth into community and culture building as I should have at the beginning of this year (first year teacher mistake #10000000001). I truly believe that if my students had more of the skills at the beginning of the year that I am teaching now there would have been far fewer fight, hurt feeling, and yelling (from the teacher).

I will take "D" for Differentiation for 1000 Please

This past week was probably the best overall week I have had so far. While far from perfect, I was really able to put in place some differentiation strategies for my students. Gone are the days of whole-group hell and in are the days of independent, partner, cooperative, and skill groups!

My students adjusted really well to the changes and really showed me that they are more capable of independent learning than I have been giving them credit for. While I have not given the majority of my assessments for this past week (thanks to a snow day), I am confident that I will have data that is at or above this past quarter's data. We shall see.

Break Down of the week:
Low point- being called into the principals office after Monday's surprise observation and told that I was "not awful."

High Point- Being observed by the director of my TFA region and receiving both positive and constructive feedback with more to come.

My goal for this upcoming week is to build routines that will continue to give my students opportunity for peer-scaffolded and independent practice. I also am hoping to get back into the habit of posting more resources and units on my blog. I get so much from teaching blogs and I want to do my best to contribute to this community as well.

My first "snow day"!

It's all about the data: Semester Review

My first semester as a teacher ended right before winter break. Since I took the majority of winter break for relaxation, family, friends, and a very good football game, I am just now getting to really look at and analyze my data! The nerd in me REALLY loves looking at data so this is a fun post for me.

First up, my running record levels. Running Record Reading levels rule pretty much everything at my school (DIBELS and DEA coming in 2nd and 3rd respectively) so running records are always the first thing I look at. I use my running record levels to determine my guided reading groups, student partnering, seating and beginning next week my word study instruction. Here is a look at the reading growth my students have made:

Running Records Growth

TFA Benchmark Goals

I am proud of the progress my class has made, but there is definitely room to grow. I have a few all-star students who have grown over 10 levels so far and several students who are on pace to make at least a year's worth of growth. What worries me is that I have a few students who have shown little or no growth. 

My other major concern is that only 7 of my students (less than half of my class) are reading above the first grade benchmark for this time of year. This means that despite growth being made, they are still reading below a first grade level. One of my driving goals for this year is that my students will make 1.5 years of progress (or grow 15+ levels) so that they are adequately prepared for second grade. This is seeming like a long shot for many of my students which is really frustrating. 

Once I had the data I realized a few things. While I am proud of my progress (especially considering the amount of time during the first semester I had to spend on classroom management and routines), I have a lot of work to do if I am going to meet my Big Goals. The teaching methods I have been using need to be revamped.

I am spending to much time teaching to "the middle." The middle is typically a safe place to teach to, but if you look closely at my data you will see that my students are divided into "high" and "low" groups. The low group consists of students who are all under a level 5 reading level. Students are actually supposed to enter first grade on a level five so these are students who have not yet mastered kindergarten reading skills. When I teach to the middle I alienate these students or find myself asking them the lower-order questions so they can feel successful. My higher students are not being challenged enough and often answer questions so fast that they students who need to think about it cannot get a chance ("wait time" is difficult in a first grade classroom b/c inevitably someone will whisper of shout out the answer). 

With this divide in mind I have decided to revamp my schedule so that I am spending more time working with small groups of students who are working on specific skills. I have dedicated my math block every Wednesday to be an intervention hour. I will have my students playing math enrichment games, using an online program called https://www.xtramath.org/, and meeting with me in small groups. My table will be a combination of math re-teaching and hopefully also time to address some reading skills my students need. I am also going to try to work with some of the third and fourth grade teachers to have a few student volunteers in my classroom to help my students with AR testing and even tutoring a few students.

I am also going to divide my word study instruction into two ability level groups. As I was doing report cards I realized that my low group (the below 5s) did not pass a single spelling test this entire quarter so I am going to go back and re-teach some of these skills as well as do some vowel sound remediation with them. My higher group will start word study independently while I teach the low group. The word study routine is something these students have mastered so I think they will be able to handle it without the lesson first and then the two groups will switch. I built in a 3 minute transition time so that I can check the high group's work in between sessions. During this same time I have one student who will be going to a kindergarten classroom to get additional reading support and one student I have developed an independent word study lesson for.

This student is so high that even when among my other high readers she is not being challenged. So starting this week she will be going to a second grade classroom in the morning for reading and then during word study I have her set up on http://www.spellingcity.com/ with her own differentiated word list based on the Words Their Way spelling inventory. I have created a checklist so she can study independently and on Friday I can give her an online quiz. 

Click here for a copy of the differentiated spelling checklist. 

So begins a new 9 weeks. I am trying a LOT of new things. Right now my only concern is if I can handle the preparation and time involved with setting up so many new systems and procedures. It is a new year and for me it is really a "now or never" type of thing so ready or not, here I come!

If you met me 1 year ago

If you met me 1 year ago, I would talk your ear off about teaching.

If you met me 1 year ago, I would smile when I talked about our students.

If you met me 1 year ago, I could tell you about how I wanted to implement a reading workshop and a writing workshop.

If you met me 1 year ago, you meet a well-rounded person.

If you met me 1 year ago, you would meet someone who was tired, but not exhausted.

If you met me 1 year ago, you would be meeting a person who believed in herself.

If you met me today, I would want to hear about something, ANYTHING, other than teaching.

If you met me today, I would sigh when I talked about my students

If you met me today, I would tell you that I don't understand balanced math, balanced literacy, or Reggie Routman Writing.

If you met me today, you would meet someone who does nothing but work.

If you met me today, you would meet someone who is no longer sure of herself.

If you met me today, you would meet someone who is working tirelessly to get better.

If you met me today, you would meet someone who is frustrated by a lack of progress.

If you met me today, you would meet a perfectionist who is no where close to perfect.

If you knew me 1 year ago and met me again today, you would not recognize me.



Sorry to be depressing. It has been a long couple of weeks. I have been putting off posting on here (and sending out my monthly, well let's be honest bi/tri monthly, update to family and friends) until I could be a little bit more positive. I'm trying to be more positive. I am really trying to be more positive, but let's face it--optimism has never been one of my strengths. I can say optimistic things, but in my head (and most likely out loud) they are sarcastic. I am a realist, and the reality is that I am not happy. I just don't know what to do about it. It seems like the harder I try, the more frustrated I become. I wake up every morning and think about how many hours it will be before I get to go back to bed. I cuss my students out under my breath at least five times a day and I am currently at the top of the school's gossip list for crying during an evaluation meeting and half of the day on Friday. Things have to get better. That is not optimism. That is reality.

I have been challenged by my MTLD to write down at least 2 positive things that happen each day. So I am going to try it.  My new label, "life on the sunny side" should have a daily update about good things happening in my classroom. So here it goes...

(1) Today we made it through everything we had planned. I even had time for a pencil raid, recess, AND a word game!

(2) Based on my suggestion, our literacy coach helped us truly integrate science and language arts in our plans next week. This means that I will actually get to teach some science. We have millipedes, pill bugs, and terrariums to build!

Bring it on 2nd 9 weeks. Bring it on.

For the majority of my life I have been a student. Now, I am a teacher. I live and breathe by the school-year calender. In all honesty, I do not think in calendar years... I think in school years. I can tell you what grade I was in when things happened, but the year? Give me a second to figure out what grade I was in and then I can tell you the year. I do not have New Year's resolutions in January like the rest of the world. I have them in August.

As with most New Year's Resolutions, my school-years resolutions usually fade away. The ambitious goals I had are gone. The goals of how to improve my life, my health, and my education are gone. They are replaced by day to day routines, the monotony of every day life.

My teaching goals are a lot like my school year resolutions. The excitement and enthusiasm I had is now gone. It has been replaced by a daily routine--a cycle of going to school, bringing work home from school to do, eating and sleeping. My routine for the past 9 weeks was exhausting. It was not at all sustainable. This routine caused me to question myself and my career more than a few times.

Towards the end of my first nine weeks I made a bargain with myself. I will give teaching 4 years of my life, putting everything I can into it. It took my 4 years to become a teacher and I should give it at least that much time before leaving the field. After 4 years I will re-assess. My roommates and I joke that we need to find careers that you can leave work behind at 5 o'clock and not worry about it again until 9am the next morning. We joke because we know that we are not the type of people who would be happy in a career that we could just "turn off" when the work day is over. We could make teaching that kind of career, but we would not be the best teachers. We care too much about our students. We hate the work, but love it at the same time. The reality is I do not know what else I would do.

So if I am not ready to give it up, I have to get better. I have to find more of a balance in my life. I have to find it now, not later. The great thing about school year resolutions is that the school year is broken into pieces. My life used to be measured in quarters, not it is measured in 9 week cycles. My goals for the next nine weeks are...

- Find a balance in my life.
- Regain my passion for teaching. I want to enjoy spending time with my students. I want to have funny stories to tell. I want to enjoy waking up and going to school again.
- Help my students grow at least 2 reading levels. So many of my students did not show growth in the first 9 weeks. This is unacceptable. We all need to improve.

I can't say that tomorrow will bring the enthusiasm that comes with the first day of school, but I am using it as a fresh start. I need a fresh start. I can't wait until next August rolls around. Late-October will have to do. I have had a week to prepare for tomorrow and even though there are plenty of things I would like to have accomplished over fall break, I am as ready as I will ever be. Bring it on 2nd 9 weeks. Bring it on.

Reading Growth

My running records are finished! Let me say that one more time in celebration...my running records are finished!

As excited as I am to be finished I have mixed feelings about my results. Here is the break down...

Running Record Data

X-axis: Students
Y-Axis: Running record level
Blue series: entry level
Red Series: growth, current level

7 students showed no progress
7 students showed expected progress (1-2 levels)
6 students showed significant progress (3+ levels)

I am working really hard to get past the fact that my students have not made the growth I hoped for. My big goal translated into running record language is that all of my students will reach a level 18 by the end of the year. I honestly am starting to doubt that this can happen, but it is too early to give up on my students. I need to create a plan.

I only started looking at my data today, but I am already trying to think of ways to improve.

My lowest students (0-3's) need decoding skills. I need to incorporate more work with blending and segmenting to help them better decode words. I also need to reinforce practicing word work and sight words.

My middle students (4-8s) have mastered basic decoding skills, but need to be more careful readers and make sure that the words they are reading make sense when you look at the text. We also need to continue to build fluency. Some of theses students REALLY need to practice being aware of what they read. Students need to be more detailed in their comprehension answers.

My high students (10-12s) are on the right track. I need to really build higher order comprehension skills, retelling skills, and help them "chunk" larger words.

So what am I going to do about it:
I think that a more consistent guided reading routine will be really helpful. We have only had 2 full weeks of guided reading and I think that having a consistent routine (and my new guided reading groups based on new levels) will spark a lot of growth.


I really want to create more interactive centers for my word work center... I have been mostly doing worksheets at the center and many of the students that I really need to reach with these skills are those who do not have the independent skills and/ or attention to complete them on their own. Hopefully more interesting centers will allow for more genuine practice. The question now turns to what...

I also really want to build more lessons on decoding into my whole group instruction. This is really difficult because my students are on such different levels that When I teach to the middle I have half of my students that either have no idea what I am talking about or get the answers so fast no one has a chance to catch up.

Better use my parents/ family resources: I do not think I am fully keeping in contact with my parents. I think that some of my parents are more of a resource than I have been utilizing. I need to create more individualized reading homework and work with parents to make sure it is done and done well.

Incorporate more student response activities: I have been doing too much teaching whole group. I really need to create time for more independent work so that I can pull small groups of students for intervention. I really would like to get to the point where I pull 1-2 skill groups each day beyond guided reading.

Create a more print rich environment. My students really have taken ownership of the print I put up in the classroom. It is amazing how much I see them look and talk about it. I would like to slowly add in more print for my students. My first step is moving and beginning my word wall, but I would also like to put up our daily schedule, introduce a birthday chart, and add our related arts to the calendar.

My mind is going a million miles a minute and I really need to reign myself in. The more concrete actions I can get done, the better. I want my students to grow as learners more than anything in the world, but I also have to become more aware of what I can manage and prioritize what will help me get the closest to my big goal. I have been getting caught up in all of the little things which I really don't think is the most beneficial for me or for my students.

I will do my best to be better about updating my blog in the progress. Hopefully the reflection will help me grow as much as it did when I was student teaching :)

"Miss Prinzo, I'm learning. yeah?"

I started guided reading last week and I am really enjoying the time I spend with my students. I have some huge challenges ahead of me trying to get my students up to grade-level and guided reading is one of the few times I can provide differentiation and individualized instruction. One of the biggest challenges with my Read reading group (my non-readers) is getting them to understand how letter sounds are blended together to make words. We have been reviewing our district's sound cards each day and I realized last week how dependent my students were on the picture. Many of my lowest students were not even looking at the letters to make the sound. On the suggestion of one of my teammates I covered up the pictures. Today the red group went picture-less. This was a HUGE moment that I had been building excitement about all last week. My students really did a great job. After getting her first sound card (students get to hold the card when they get the sound right) one of my students' goes...

"Miss Prinzo, I'm learning. Yeah?"

After I confirmed that we were infact learning, she told EVERYBODY that that they were learning.

"We're learning. Yeah! You learning! We learning."

Her excitement was contagious... the red group left guided reading with huge smiles because they were learning! Here is to investment being student generated!

I'm a first year teacher...failure comes with the position!

I  am going to cheat a little bit on blogging and pretend a discussion board post from class i s really a blog post. Discussion board post or not, it pretty much describes my life right now.

I am a first year teacher in my first quarter of teaching. Failure comes with the position!

In all seriousness,as a new teacher I have experienced more failure than success. I could give you hundreds of instances of when I have made the wrong decision, turned in something late, said the wrong thing, set the wrong tone, or taught an impossible-to-understand lesson. What I am slowly realizing is that failure comes with the territory of being a first year teacher. It is really easy to become defeated by each of my little failures. It is really easy to absorb this negative energy. It effects me and it effects my students. What I have realized is that it is not the failures that matter, it is my response to them. How do I fix the problem? How can I re-teach a lost lesson? How can I prevent mistakes from happening again? I am trying to use failure as a learning tool, but it is one of those things that is easier said than done!

Falling forward...inspiration from my grad school professor:

Jumping up and down, stomping feet in frustration!

Doesn't this sound like the temper tantrum of the century? Welcome to my Friday. We were in our 3rd test of the day and my students would NOT be quiet. I narrated. I reminded. I changed stars. I turned of the lights. I rang my bell. I stood on my chair.I counted. Nothing was working.

So what did I do?

Went to the back of my classroom and jumped up and down as hard as I could so I would not "go off" on them. It surprisingly worked. My classroom was still not silent, but my frustration was back to a normal level. Sometimes even the teacher needs a break.

This teacher definitely needed a break. She also needs a more effective management system.

I have some tricks up my sleeve for Monday so we will see what happens. Good night!

3 WEEKS!?!?!? Classroom Management in the real world.

I have been a real-life teacher for three weeks now! Three weeks! Things have been crazy. I spend most days in a sleep-school-eat-work at home-sleep-school-eat-work at home routine. There is usually a lot more school and work at home than sleeping and eating, but things are slowing down.

Do I love it? Yes

Do I hate it? Yes

Do I want to be doing anything else? absolutely not.

I definitely had a rough start to my school year. I quickly became aware of what veteran teachers call the "honeymoon" phase and have been dealing with a lot of management and discipline problems. During my student teaching, I thought I had developed pretty good classroom management skills, but there is nothing like doing it when you are on your own. Week 2 was really rough, especially the day after we had a substitute ( my team had a mandatory professional development day to attend). Monday of Week 3 was absolutely miserable, but the rest of the week has slowly gotten better.

What were my major problems:
-- Bathroom Breaks--we had three days in week 2 that our bathroom break after lunch took over half an hour. (This doesn't include the day I had a student throw-up all over the bathroom). This was teacher-torture for me. I slowly made some improvements to increase our time. We started sitting in the hallway, I banned the students from the sinks (we use hand sanitizer), figured out which students cannot go into the bathroom together, and I now wear a clock to the bathroom...just call me Flavor-Flav. I mark with a whiteboard marker on the clock how long it should take us to go to the restroom and I told my students that if we could get to 10 minutes we could have an extra recess (and it would be well worth it). My clock also makes a handy dry-erase board to record student behavior and do review problems on.

--TALKING! My students are little chatter boxes which, when talking with some of the other EL teachers, seems to be common among EL students. So I got rid of my tables and we now have rows. I have have also gotten a LOT stricter and BMC like crazy when I am trying to get my students to listen. This is definitely a work in process.

 I also put a lot of effort into our noise level system and used a suggestion from my MTLD to talk about listening with our whole bodies. This helps students to realize that talking is not only disrespectful, but hurts the speaker's feeling.

Our 7 minutes of lost recess on Friday also seemed to help (all of my students except two talked for 7 straight minutes while at the bathroom on Thursday so on Friday they sat and watched other children play at recess for 7 minutes to know what it felt like for me to wait 7 minutes). I am normally not a fan of taking away recess (and I still gave them the same amount of time to play), but it really seemed to help at our future bathroom breaks.

I also do group drinks at the end which for some reason takes less time then each student doing it on their own after they get out of the restroom. Like I said, it is a work in progress, but I am working on it.

--Bullying: I have a bully in my classroom. Surprisingly, it is a girl and she NEVER does anything in front of me, but enough students have told on her/ I have heard enough things when my back is turned to realize something is wrong. This has thrown me for a loop and I have started to re-think my "work it out yourself" strategy I have been telling my students. I have a new game plan for Tuesday and hopefully it will create some positive results.

--Pushing/ physical touch: A lot of my students push and hit. It is becoming quite a problem. I really think that the root of the problem is an inability to verbally communicate their feelings. This is something I really need to work on with my students. I have talked to the guidance counselor about addressing it in guidance class (my students go once a week as a special) and I am going to try this Peace Maker Activity from First Grade Parade to emphasize how we can be nice to each other and how we work out our problems.

I also noticed that a lot of our pushing occurs in line so I moved my line up fish (fish taped onto the floor with student numbers) farther apart. My line now stretches and zig zags all of the way across the room, but my students now will no longer be as close to each other. I made this change on Friday before I left for the weekend so we will see what happens!

My teaching is getting better, my management is getting better...or I am getting more tolerant. Hopefully things will continue to change for the better. I signed up for two different observations from TFA over the next month and will probably have my teacher environmental evaluation next week. I signed up as extra self-motivation and hopefully my students will be on their very BEST behavior!

My Classroom Management Inspirations. All he needs is a dry-erase marker.

My First Full Day

Today was my first full day and I have to say it was LONG! My students have a late lunch and related arts the last period of the day. This equals a ridiculously long day for me! I am really going to have to put some management in place because I will have to check folders and stuff them while keeping the students engaged. I will also have to make sure to print and set out everything I need for the entire day each morning--making sure I have easy access to it. Right now I am using my kidney table as home base, but that's definitely not going to work when we start small group activities.

I am pretty tired so here are a few highs, lows, and points of interest for today:

Highs:

Many of my students are very kind and responsible for their classmates without me teaching it. I have had zero instances of pushing or line cutting and it is very clear that many of my students watch out for each other. I have one student (one I can guarantee I will be writing a lot about) that many of my girls take care of.

We voted on our class "team" name today. It was a close race, but the peanut butter fish, the electric fish, and the fish with big tales could not stand up against the "Rainbow Fish."

Lows:
Did I mention today was LONG??

On a more serious note...One of the forms we are asked to collect from each child is an application for free and reduced lunch. It is also the form that our school turns in to receive our Title1 funding. I got about 10 forms back today. Of the 10 families returning forms only ONE of my families has a household income of more than $1000 (and all 10 families have one working adult). To put this in perspective... I make  about $34,000 as a new teacher. My first paycheck will be more than most of my families will make in a year. This realization was a huge reality check for me. I knew my students would be low income, but I had no idea that it would be this low.

To make me feel even worse almost all of my students brought in school supplies. The first grade general supply list (which I had absolutely no part in making...) costs about $20-30. For a lot of my families this equates to 5% of their income. I actually feel guilty about taking their supplies. One idea I had was to use any of the extra materials to make a take-home summer kit for my students. This would not only relieve my guilt about much of the unused supplies, but also be a small step in eliminating the notorious "summer slide."

Point of interest:
We had a new student join our class today. He happens to have the same first name as another student...and the same last initial. To make this even more fun...I have a really hard time pronouncing my new student's last name!

Extreme Classroom Makeover

I am back! It has been a LONG couple of weeks. We had TFA orientation,  MNPS new teacher orientation, a 2 day staff retreat, 4 PD days leading up to school AND classroom set-up!

I have been working non-stop. Over the past few weeks I have been been following a sleep-work-eat-work schedule with very little free time. Now that school has officially started, I am trying really hard to find a balance and get back into a routine---one that includes time away from school! I have a trip planned back to Akron next weekend, and even though the drive is going to suck I am so excited to get a way and talk about something that is not school or work!

I hope I don't sound like a complainer, because I really do love my job so far. My co-workers have been extremely supportive and I feel VERY welcome at my school. And...the hard work really does pay off. I inherited one of the least student-friendly environments possible, but my portable is starting to look and feel like a classroom! I have gotten a lot of compliments from staff members on my classroom which has really helped validate the work that has been put into it.

Here is a picture of my classroom as it currently stands (functional, but not finished) and below that is a link to the transformation process.

and the transformation: http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.1990449207394.2100739.1428270161&l=9142d892b7&type=1

Thursday was my first day of school and it went REALLY well. My students are adorable. I am still working through some language issues and really need to take some time next week to talk to students one on one. I think after next week I will have a better idea of what strengths and challenges we will have....now I just have to do some planning to make next week happen!

Schools Shopping...Deals for teachers!

School shopping has officially taken on a new meaning in my life. Something comparable to hell. That might be a slight exaggeration, but the fact of the matter is that school supply shopping is downright stressful. I have spent almost all of my allotment of money and am now starting to calculate how much I will save by returning non-necessities or finding different supplies at different retail venues for cheaper (composition notebooks are a great example of this).

Here is a basic list of supplies I have bought:
-class set of crayons/ crayon holders
- table sets of markers
- 1 glue/ student
- Ziplock bags-all sizes
- 1  folder with fasteners/ student
- 2 folders with no fastners/ student
- 1 composition notebook with "primary" paper in it (space for picture)...my splurge/ student
- 1 wide ruled composition notebook/ student
- 10 3-ring binders for teacher use
- 6 Discovery Kids Nonfiction books
- class set of dry erase markers
- 2 teacher multi-pack of dry erase markers
- Thick pencils for beginning of the year use/ student (helps with handwriting, needs sharpened less frequently)
- Skin-tone construction paper for student self portraits
- Crowns for King/Queen of the week
- number line
- Bulletin board borders (3)
- sheet protectors
- 1 set of 8 sharpies
- table boxes
- 1 pair of scissors/student

I still need:
- White board cleaner
- mailing labels
- containers for classroom library
- electrical tape
- duct tape


A little bit of good: I am starting to get the hang of what goes where. There are also a lot of very generous teacher deals this time of year. Here are a few that I have found...

- Office Max: bag day. They gave us a large reusable bag and 20% off of everything that fit inside. They also had a small teacher care package that included a couple of sharpies, a planner with monthly coupons, and some free samples. They also have a teacher rewards card that give you $5 back for every $75 spent.

- Staples: the up the limit on sale items to 25 (instead of 3 for regular customers).

- Walmart: best prices on general school supplies

Also, a few shout outs..

-the guy at Office Depot who received a free backpack from his purchase and donated it to my classroom.
- the cashier at Office Depot who gave me two more backpacks other customers had left.
- The manager at Office Max who called another store and arranged for me to pick up a few extra composition notebooks with primary pages so I can have a class set
-my mom for making cushions to my childhood rocking chair that I am putting in my reading area along with the two beach chairs she bought me.


It has been a long week of shopping and setting up my classroom, but today I really felt that it was starting to look like a classroom. There really is a light at the end of the tunnel!

Sharing Relay with my students

One of the things I have learned this year is that it is important to let the students get to know you. In my other practicum experiences I was very distant about my personal life with my students. I would answer questions when they came up, but I never really shared with them. We spend a lot of time learning about our students' lives so it only makes sense to help them get to know their teacher beyond the classroom as well. My mentor teacher really provided me with a good example of how to share her personal life with students while still maintaining a professional separation between school and home. Following her lead, I began to share more about myself with my students. One of the major aspects of my life outside of the classroom is volunteering with the American Cancer Society as an event chair of Relay For Life at the University of Cincinnati.

My initial, very ambitious plan, was to host a mini-Relay at Fairview so students could experience a Relay did not happen. I just didn't have the time or energy to put the plan into action. I did, however, work with the school to invite families to our event and I did a special art project with my students in honor of the Cancer Survivors at Relay For Life.

Though my students knew I volunteered with Relay, they did not really understand what it meant. Before the art project I spent a few minutes talking with my students, in first-grade terms, what the American Cancer Society was and how we were able to help. My mentor teacher and I really worked hard this year to help the students realize how their actions contribute to others' feelings. This activity was a perfect reinforcement because we were able to talk about how good the Survivors at Relay would feel knowing that 20 students were thinking about them and were willing to share their art work with them!

Using our Fun Friday time and X-group's Friday center time my students tissue-paper collaged over top of Relay logos, signature phrases, and (in conjunction with our theme) the word 'hope' written in all of the different languages children in our classroom speak (8!). We had a lot of fun using the tissue paper. I was really impressed that all of my students were engaged and not a single student asked if they could keep their artwork. After they finished tissue papering, I trimmed the pages, glued them onto black construction paper, and connected them to make a banner to hang at our Survivor dinner. It looked AMAZING:

Our banner hanging at Relay!

After the event I brought in pictures from the dinner to share with the students. They were so excited to know that their artwork was put up on a real college campus!

I am not going to lie, this project was probably more for me than the students. It was important for me to connect two of my biggest passions. It also helped me begin to brainstorm ways that children can contribute to their community without even leaving the classroom. This is something I hope to continue. Maybe a monthly or quarterly activity? I will have to think about it!

For those of you unfamiliar with Relay For Life visit our event page:http://main.acsevents.org/site/TR?pg=entry&fr_id=32694 or watch a video about what Relay For Life at UC is all about: 

Wrapping up my Sociocultural Psychology of Immigrant Children class

Below is my final photo-journal entry for my service learning class. In the post I reflect upon not only the class, but how I feel a teacher should best work with children who are immigrants and children of diverse backgrounds. 

A photo I took from a Dr. Seuss illustration. I think it is a pretty good depiction of my  route to Nashville (and current mental state!)

Headed to Nashville in a little over a week!

What have I learned?


One of the things that I like about service learning (and really all service opportunities) is the opportunity to learn from people outside of the "ivory tower". Learning comes from doing, seeing, and interacting. I enjoyed working with the children at AMIS. Beyond learning about the children, I learned a lot about the Cincinnati Public School system. AMIS is the fourth CPS school that I have been involved with. I have seen the 'good, the bad, and the ugly' at all of these schools. All have improvements that need to be made---some more than others, but at every single one of these schools one thing was the same---there were children who needed and wanted to be supported, treated with respect, grow and learn. How do you do that? One of the things I have learned through our coursework and through working with CPS student is to learn about them.

In my last class today our professor said, "A teacher that I would trust to work with students--a teacher that I would hire--is one who can show and demonstrate a respect for children. It is not enough to say you love children. You have to respect them." I believe this directly relates to what we have learned this quarter. We need to respect children who are immigrants. We need to believe that they can learn and be as successful as any other child in this country. We need to respect the families of the children--even if their values and beliefs significantly contrast with our own. We need to respect the culture of the children we work with and most importantly we need to SHOW the children we respect them by listening, trying new things, and supporting them in any way we can. As a new teacher I know that there will be times when I will be under a lot of pressure to perform, to show significant progress in my students. I cannot let this pressure compromise what I believe to be a fundamental part of learning--an open classroom environment. For this reason I really identified with the Igoa text. It was easy to see how much work she put into creating a classroom environment. She let the children learn and open up at their own pace. She knew that children, especially those making the transition to a new country, needed to work at their own pace. This is a lesson that I will apply to my first year (and hopefully throughout my career).

Ironically, the very first page of the Igoa book (in the praise section), sums up alot of my learning in this course--the idea that children who are immigrants are individuals from complex backgrounds. To find out about them is to learn about many aspects of their lives--as we said in class, "What ISN'T important to know about working with immigrant children?" Jim Cummins presents my thoughts on this quite eloquently:

" ...at some level, all teachers of immigrant/culturally diverse students must become researchers if they are to teach effectively since no theory can supply the answers to the range of issues teachers are faced with in our increasingly diverse schools."