Voice is Gone

Ahh, today was such a struggle anytime I had to address the class. If I needed to raise my voice loud enough to be heard by everyone, I just ended up sounding like a 13 year old going through puberty. I shall certainly be resting my voice this weekend. The biggest struggle was science because there was some factual/definition type things that we needed to review, and there isn’t much time to do it in an activity format, so I was having to lead a large group discussion, and just posing the questions was a struggle for my voice. I had to constantly move to different parts of the room and repeat things. Alas, I made it though.

I’m glad that I will technically have five weeks remaining to cover my two week unit because it’s such a struggle to get every subject in every day with all the extra events going on. If my Civil War unit had gone by the time frame that was planned, it would have ended this week. Instead, we won’t even get to start talking about reconstruction until the week after next. It is a bit of an extreme case with social studies being at the end of the day, though.

What brings the subject up though, is that we will be doing benchmark testing all week next week, and that will interrupt class at various times of the day. It will be interesting to see how things play out, especially since Monday is a professional learning day with teachers only.

One thing that I have seen that was pretty cool for the past two Fridays is vocabulary skits. The kids really enjoy doing them, and we get to see what they really think of the meanings of the words they try to portray. They come up with interesting scenarios and portray them in such funny ways that it makes me appreciate the level of creativity they have when they chose to let it show.

No Mentor Day

I had the class all to myself today.  My mentor teacher had to stay out with his sick child so I was in charge of the whole day. I think when it came down to it, the only things that really worried me were the non-teaching issues. I had to make out a checklist of all the other little things to do like attendance, lunch count, Thursday folders, knowing where the Epi-pen is, and getting the kids from place to place on time. Those were the things in the back of my mind causing me to be slightly worrisome throughout the day. Oh, not to mention getting everyone on the right bus when there were bus number changes.

But as I said, the non-teaching things were what gave me the most stress. As far as teaching goes, things went pretty well. It was actually the first time I have led taught fifth grade math, and it was interesting doing it with plans that I had never seen before. I know I probably didn’t do a great job because I couldn’t think of enough critical thinking and follow questions on the spot, but for the circumstances, I think I did fairly well. Also, a teacher who usually pulls kids out for ELT just pushed in and gave me some assistance for that period, which was nice. The kicker though, was that she has been pushing in to lead writing instruction, but she informed me that she had an IEP meeting to go to, and I would be doing her writing lesson, which I got to look at during the transition from ELT to writing.

Another interesting part of the day was that my voice has been growing more and more hoarse over the past few days. So, it was a little tough doing all the lead teaching for most of the day. On top of that, we had an assembly at the end of the day in which the teachers, myself included, performed a play about the character work of the month. My character was “The Proclaimer,” and if the name is as leading as it sounds, I was indeed making proclamations; very loud proclamations. My voice is now shot. It was all great fun and worth it though. The play was hilarious and portrayed the message of “acceptance” very well.

September 28

In an unexpected turn of events, the smartboard was actually up and running today. The projector bulb was replaced in record time! I had already written a slightly revised plan and torn out tons of pictures of mammals and birds from magazines under the assumption that we would be doing non-smartboard learning today. Fortunately, we had the board, but it was comforting knowing that I could make quick revisions and be ready to teach without technology. I pretty much ended up just blending the two lessons together, giving them smartboard videos describing the characteristics of each group of vertebrates we learned about today, and gave them the magazine pictures to pass around. 

The smartboard really came in handy in social studies. My mentor and I were able to have a discussion with the students to set up a video of the Battle of Gettysburg. The video is a perfect set up for a reenactment that we will perform outside on Friday, hopefully.  The video discusses the major objectives of both armies, and the major obstacles that prevented the Confederacy from winning. It just so happens that the terrain behind the school is perfect for discussing important skirmishes within the battle, and being able to reenact those parts of the battle to see what their importance is and how and why things played out the way they did.

One thing that I am really beginning to enjoy is becoming a part of the school community. It’s gotten to the point where all of the administrators, the media specialist, the fifth grade support staff, custodians, cafeteria workers, specials teachers, and teachers from other grades all know me. There are many relationships being formed, and it makes me feel much more comfortable about the setting I am in. The best thing is that everyone is willing to help or has a nice thing to say about someone else. Those things, combined with the support many people provide, all combine to make great community at this school. 

And Boom Goes the Projector Bulb

     Today had some interesting twists and turns. To start with, the kids were a bit wired today. At the end of the day, the behavior pocket chart looked like a legitimate rainbow. Most of the problem was transitions and talking at inappropriate times. It was a total group effort. It wasn’t just a concentrated area, or a few lone talkers. With that being said, it was a pretty valuable thing when we did our science lesson today. We made spines out of pipe cleaners, white Life Saver mints, and gummy Life Savers. We first created a spine without intervertebral disks, and made observations with a partner of how it feels, moves, sounds, etc. We then made a spine with intervertebral disks, and once again made observations. After we made a class observation chart, we compared our spines to the model with intervertebral disks. We got up and moved around plenty of times to test if the observations students made held true. Going back to the topic of the students being chatty, it was a good thing because everyone was talking to their partners about observations and wanting to share their observations with the whole class when that came.

      Overall, I think the lesson went well and students made the connection between the model and the function of an actual spine. However, the lesson didn’t happen without any glitches. About half way through the lesson, the bulb in the smartboard projector blew. For one, it’s not an easy distraction to avoid because it’s a bit loud. I will give the students credit for moving on from it pretty quickly, however. The main problem lay within my mind. It happened during the student work period, and I knew I had about a minute long video that shows how a human spine works, and we weren’t going to be able to use that to stimulate our summary discussion. Luckily, I was able to transfer into an alternative summary where I highlighted the main functions of the spine, and how our models are relative examples. I also remembered some information that I would have totally left out had we been able to watch the video.

     The greatest worry I had about the smartboard blowing was for social studies. We are going to spend a few days on Gettysburg, and today I was going to show about a twenty minute intro video…yeah, that wasn’t happening. Luckily, I have brought in a text set, and I have a book that is especially about Gettysburg that I had ready to read. However, even more luckily, my mentor teacher’s first degree is in history, and he was able to give a great introductory lecture to lead us into Gettysburg. Even though he didn’t mean to, where he left off today will be a great lead into our outdoor reenactment that will take place tomorrow.

Monday, Monday

     Another Monday come and gone. Each day really seems to go by more quickly as I pick up more subjects. About the only thing slowing the day down is the scratchy throat I have, and the water bottle I did not have today. Having to stop for a bit to close my mouth and let the dryness subside can really throw me of kilter when I’m in front of the class trying to make a point. While on the topic of being in front of the class, I’ve been finding out I’m not very comfortable when writing on the board, especially the smartboard. I really can’t stand the feeling of having my back turned to the class because I feel like it takes the class and my self out of any flow we might be in. Also, I have terrible handwriting, especially on the smartboard. And when it comes to board writing, writing on the smartboard is a whole other level of uncomfortable because it is really low, and I am really tall. Also, you have to figure out how to write without blocking the kids from seeing and having your shadow cover up where you are writing. Luckily, I try to keep the situations that require me having to write out information to a minimum.

     It’s still hard trying to get the timing right in social studies. I had every intention of getting finished a couple minutes early today so that we would be able to have a ticket-out-the-door. I ended up taking it right to the bell again. I hate that I haven’t been leaving time for summary/closure. I’ve found that they are able to recall the more important points or the overall importance of a topic if we are able to have a good closure session.

     One thing that has been quite bothersome that was really prevalent today is the lack of effort from the new student who arrived about a month ago. He has the typical “too cool for school” attitude, but for the past few days, it’s like he’s been trying to intentionally throw it in everyone’s face. He maybe completes one assignment per day if you combine the little bit he willingly participates in from each subject. I try to focus a lot of attention on him in all types of group or individual settings, but as soon as whomever is working with him walks away, he quits. He’s perfectly capable of handling the work and he doesn’t have a short attention span. It seems to be more or less a refusal. Hopefully we can get to the bottom of what makes him tick and not tick.

Test Day

     I’ve been teaching the American Civil War for about 2-3 weeks now. I am learning a lot about little time there is for social studies. We’re only about two lessons in on the second third of what’s supposed to be a 3 week unit. It’s going to take at least three weeks of lessons to teach the material, especially if we want to do active things and projects instead of me just being a presenter, but it’s looking like it could take about 5 weeks to have enough opportunities to get in all the information.  The reason is that, whenever there is some kind of extra activity, such as DARE or 4-H, going on, it takes place in the afternoon. Well, science has recently been entered into AYP consideration, and science becomes the main subject of the afternoon if one or the other time slots are going to be filled. The point I’m making is that there is little time for social studies, and it’s making it a little tough on me to get to do as many lessons as possible that they are going to be highly interested in regardless of whether or not they are initially interested in the topic. For example, I had to completely nix a picture walk that I had planned out for them, but it got cut because we had a morning field trip that ran into the afternoon, leaving us time for science only.

     About this day in particular, I felt bad for some of the kids. They had three tests today, one of which I am accountable for because it was science. Some don’t mind taking tests, but I know it’s miserable for others.        So, to have three in one day can definitely be disheartening.

     For the science test, I used a test that the other fifth grade teacher generated. I don’t believe I will ever do this again. I’m not saying she wrote a bad test. That’s not what I’m saying at all. I can just see clearly now, that if a test is going to be written for your kids, you should definitely be the one to do it. And now that I look back on it, the thing I regret the most is that this test could have been a great opportunity to do a different type of formal assessment than just pencil and paper. I really wish I had brought in some plants, had the children classify them one on one with me, and made sure to figure out some way to assess all of the vocabulary within that. I think it would have been very possible, and probably been a more true assessment.

The Wheels on the Bus Go Round and Round

     Yes indeed, today was field trip day. Aside from the usual loudness on the bus, the trip was a fun time for all. More importantly, it was quite educational. We went to the Sandy Creek Nature Center to build on our past unit of micro-organisms and our current unit of macro-organisms. Our class began the day inside where we got to have a short lecture about micro-organisms, and then break into groups and do centers. I was quite happy with how we impressed the person leading the lecture with our ability to accurately answer her questions that she had not given us the answers to. The students did an exceptional job with the centers as well. There were five centers: Dissecting microscopes, cause and effect sort, two different microscope stations where they viewed micro-organisms (they got to make their own wet mount slides at one), and one more station that I did not get to see. I was in charge of the dissecting microscope station, and I noticed that all the kids were really enjoying it, and they were doing a great job of exploring the specimens they were given. By the way, don’t look at your fingernails under a microscope…you won’t like what you see.

     The second part of the trip was a hike. We have been learning about classifying plants for the past few days, so this was a perfect time for the kids to practice classifying and for me to do some informal probing. All of the kids in my group were able to find non-vascular plants, vascular seed bearing, and vascular non-seed bearing plants that have spores instead. One student even identified some mushrooms as fungi so we talked a little bit about fungi and why these mushrooms were on the dead logs (because they are decomposers). What really impressed me was some of their abilities to classify some plants. I showed them a few different plants during the hike, and they were able to classify them. For example, I held up a small branch that had pine needles on it, and one of the students classified it perfectly: vascular, seed-bearing, gymnosperm. After he classified, another student even pointed out that that kind of plant is called a conifer.

     Overall, the field trip was a good reinforcement and chance to see things in the real world for the kids. It was also a great chance for me to get to see how their learning is progressing without having to do a usual classroom activity.

Long, but Good Day

The length of this day includes extracurricular activities as well. I was only at the elementary school til 5.

     I had a lot of fun and learned a lot of things during my lead teaching periods today. To start, I made my own story to present during the mini-lesson for reading today. The kids loved the story and were able to identify the character’s conflict and resolution, as well as motives, with great accuracy. I think if you have the creativity to make a story that reflects a literary component you are teaching, and you can make the story interesting, it is a great mini-lesson tool. However, I will always want to keep authentic texts involved.

Now, on to science. Science was my favorite part of the day. I learned that deviation from the plans can be such a wonderful thing when appropriate. This past Saturday, I went to the botanical gardens and found a plant I had never seen before. So, the teacher in me said, steal this one and that one over there so you can show it to your students since we are learning about classifying plants. So, I brought in the two examples, and we did some inquiry thinking for our activation. Well, the activation turned into a 30 minute work period where they made their own inferences on paper, and we discussed them as a class, supporting and refuting with evidence. This was the first time this year that the kids have gotten to do any real inquiry based exploration in science, and I am really happy that I got to make it happen because the kids had fun and learned a lot about what it means to really consider something. They did a great job, and some of them had fantastic, accurate inferences with support.

     Social studies today was a lesson in time and clear directions. The two being related in this instance. The students were supposed to rewrite the Missouri Compromise of the Compromise of 1850 in their own words, as if they were part of congress in that time. Apparently my directions were not very clear, and looking back, I can see that. My mentor said that he understood what I was asking of them, but it probably needed to be explained in a little more detail for them. I will say that the unclear directions led to us getting one-on-one time with just about every student, thus getting a good opportunity to check for their understanding of the content, and help them understand anything they did not about the compromises. I’m quite the glass half full type person though. Needless to say, the social studies lesson ended unfinished today, but tomorrow is a new day!

(A) Good Friday

     Today was a fantastic Friday. There was no strife among the kids, and all of their energy was pretty focused. Everyone seemed to have a little extra pep today, but we all didn’t let it get out of hand. I suppose it had something to do with it being Friday and not 100 degrees outside. All of the kids were pretty attentive during math and ELT, excited and inquisitive when working on their narratives in writing, worked hard on their center work during reading, and were on the ball and engaged in science and social studies. I was really impressed with what all this class can accomplish in a day.

     During our science lesson, it was a constant exchange between the students and me. We first made a chart of how to classify plants, and they did a really good job of working out how that’s done after watching the video yesterday. We then moved onto viewing different plants, classifying them, and supporting how we classified the plants. We had 18 pictures of plants and got about 16 different willing volunteers to classify a plant each time. It was exciting having everyone involved, and more importantly, wanting to be involved. After some practice classifying, we moved onto seeing some examples of angiosperms (naked seed bearing plants) and gymnosperms (enclosed seed bearing plants). Each student got a pine cone and an apple and got to make their own inquiries into which was which, and why they are the way they are. They really enjoyed this and got a good understanding of the difference. Just in case they have trouble remembering, they can refer back to their mnemonic: You shower naked after working out at the gym (gymnosperm). But, unfortunately, Angie doesn’t have hot water at her house so she showers in clothes (enclosed angiosperm).

     Three of the five groups got to present their abolitionist or abolitionist event today in social studies. They had complete freedom of choice of how to present, and so far, everyone has chosen to do a skit. Hey, it’s what they love to do. Their skits were creative. It was hard to get the message by watching some of the skits, but the kids did a great job of briefly explaining the real event after the skit so everyone could understand.

Thursday, September 15, 2011

     We had a School Improvement Leadership Team (SILT) today. I really got to see a good picture of what’s going on behind the scenes in school. I got to find out where a lot of the decisions about programs used, assessment tools, formation of school improvement teams, and community coordination are made. Representatives from each grade and/or subject shared what’s going on in each area and what’s coming up. I got to see what happens when there is a clear split on a decision. There was an issue of whether or not to have a mandatory vocabulary probe, and obviously some wanted it and some did not. So, seeing an apparent difference in opinions, the Principal called for a hands raised vote, and the matter was settled.

     We watched a National Geographic video to activate our plant classification unit. I had the kids keep a chart with sections for Plants, characteristics, and how they are classified. Most of them enjoyed the video, but man was it stressful for some of them. I didn’t even say anything about taking up their chart, and some of them were completely worried about missing something. I guess it’s good that they want to get the information, but I figured the video would be something fun and different instead of a burden.

     My reading group met today and everyone had completed their job for the first time in a couple of days so we got to have really good sharing time before we went into reading and discussing the ensuing pages. These kids make great inferences and have wonderful interpretations, and man, oh, man, can they come up with some exciting (to say the least) predictions. Their imaginations sure can run nice and wild when making predictions. It’s fun stuff!

The Day That the Lights Went out in Georgia

I got my first experience transitioning from three subjects in a row today. I went from my reading group, straight to science, and then to social studies. We made the transitions fairly smoothly. My goal is to keep them under two minutes and with minimal talking and moving around because as soon as one person starts talking or moves to another table, it catches like wildfire. We’ve been doing well on the time, but the noise can tend to start up sometimes. They received an x in their transition box for one transition, and that got their cooperation for the remaining transition times.

The most exciting, as in interesting, thing that happened today was that I had to readjust the science lesson immediately as science was about to begin. I came in from the hallway with my reading group as it was time to go into science, and my mentor teacher informed me that the bulb in the projector had blown. We are learning about plants and I had found an interactive sight where you can label the parts of a plant, and it tells you what those parts do once you have labeled them. I also had pictures of vascular and non-vascular plants to sort. Well, that wasn’t going to happen. Fortunately, I had brought in some leaf samples to look at in addition to the plans. Also, the other fifth grade teacher had brought in some moss. So, I retrieved some microscopes and set up a mini lab session instead. We looked at the non-vascular moss first, read a page from our book and created Venn Diagrams for non-vascular and vascular plants, then observed the vascular leaves so that we could see which had veins (xylem and phloem) running through it.

We’ve began a new piece in writing, and I have high hopes for this piece. We have finally covered all of the 6+1 traits of writing, and thoroughly gone over organization and ideas. The students were given the option to use a prompt or make their story completely from scratch. Some children showed me what they have so far in order to get my opinion on how their pieces have started and I believe there are going to be some great pieces. I am also going to write a story, organizing my ideas by time, in a way that will hopefully show the kids how you can use typical organization, but still be original with it. I want to do this because I have learned that students writings can have creative, original ideas (sometimes not), but be displayed in a very bland manner.  (My story will be about my Monday, but my Monday begins on a Friday.

Here's the picture used for the optional prompt:

Science Pick-Up

     I picked up science to go along with social studies and reading, starting today. It was a pretty interesting situation because I am using the other fifth grade teacher’s plans for this week. The way it is set up here is that my teacher plans for social studies, and the other teacher plans for science, and then each teacher makes any needed differentiation based on their own student’s needs. I thought about going ahead and making my own plans, but I thought it would be a interesting experience to see how that system works. So, I suggested that we do the normal system for a week of this unit, and I would take over planning for the second week so I get planning practice as well. It was certainly quite a different experience. The plans and the activities are good, but I sometimes found myself at a loss for words for just a couple seconds every-now-and-then. When reviewing the plans, I would think, Okay, this is the point that she is meaning to get across, but a couple times during the lesson, it would occur to me that something else may have been intended as I see things playing out. It’s good practice for adjusting on the fly.

     We started our activity for learning about the abolitionist cause of the Civil War today. I have separated the class into five groups. Each group will learn about their topic (John Brown, Nat Turner, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Abraham Lincoln’s election, and The Dred Scott case) from resources I have found for them, and they will present what they have learned to the class, essentially becoming the teachers, in any way they choose. They are going to have a couple of days to research and prepare presentations on their own, involving the teacher and me only when they feel necessary. I was a little wary of this activity since they have been showing their immature sides for the past couple of weeks, but I must say, they really stepped up and became diligent researchers during their work period today. They were going to town with their highlighters (a little too heavily in some cases, of course) and telling their group members about important things they were discovering. I was impressed with their level of maturity and the interest many of them were taking in their topics. I’ll be honest, I knew this would be a pretty tough task to make the connections by themselves when I planned this, but they are showing very positive signs of being able to put it all together on their own. Tomorrow is always another day, though. I’ll just keep the faith anyway.

Friday 9-9-11

     Usually, a support teacher comes into our classroom and lead teaches the writing lessons. She was out of town today so my mentor teacher and I took over writing. I felt like it was a really good experience in co-teaching. We have been doing a form of co-teaching all year so far, but usually one of us (whoever planned the lesson) still stands out as a lead teacher. Because we were working off of someone else’s plan that was not there, we were both able to carry a fairly equal amount of weight in instruction. We were teaching a lesson in editing, specifically the job of the “Grammar Guard,” who looks for grammar mistakes during editing. We were able to go along with the plan prepared for us, and because we were working well together, being able to feed off and build off of one another, we were able to stray away from the lesson with success whenever necessary. Frankly, it was fun being able to share the responsibility. I can see how it could be a miserable experience if two instructors do not complement one another and have two totally different views about a particular topic or how that topic should be addressed. However, my experience was not that. We bounced ideas off of each other, we didn’t interrupt, and we were even able to pull off some impromptu roll plays when performing grammar guard duties.

     While I’m on the subject of teamwork, I think this is a good time to talk about the overall fifth grade team at my school. I feel, and have even heard them state during meetings, that the fifth grade team works really well together. During data team meetings, as well as other team meetings, it’s been brought up that the fifth grade meetings run more smoothly than other grade levels, specifically because fifth grade home room teachers, support staff, and special education teachers work so well together. Having a collaborative can certainly make the overall process more effective, but when the collaborative works together well, it can be a powerful thing. I really enjoy the fact that, for the first two thirds of the day, there is more than one teacher (not including me) in the classroom or pulling out. Actually, during reading, there are three teachers every day, myself not included.

Day Two of Social Studies

     Yesterday, the social studies lesson went great for the full time. The kids were engaged, excited and were absorbing the material. Today, they were only into it for about half the lesson. The activation went really well and carried over into the work period. But the excitement and engagement did not last for everyone. There were still plenty of kids engaged in discussion, but my goal is 100% engaged and %100 excited about what’s going on. I believe when that’s happening, the child is going to have the greatest opportunity to learn.

      The main focus today was the Missouri Compromise and the Compromise of 1850.  I used an activation strategy of making a personal connection by giving them a scenario. The school has acquired a new gym and the fifth grade gets to decide what to do with it, but only if both classes agree. My class came up with fun uses, and then I informed them that the other class wants to use it for more ELT. That led into our discussion of the compromises and slavery, and how that could have aided in spurring the American Civil War. It is all new information for them, and the concept of connecting these compromises and the dissolving of them can have been a cause for the war is a tough concept to see. So, I found myself doing a lot of talking, which is not what I was wanting. In that is where I believe I lost a few kids. I believe it does require a little extra direct instruction from the teacher when trying to explain or inform about completely new content or concepts, but I know I talked too much this time. I believe next time I have a similar lesson; I will have to have another activity somewhere in the middle to break things up if it is a subject that requires a little background information from the instructor.

    On a positive note, I have started something that I believe will be a good thing. We will do ticket-out-the door from time to time. I am going to have them continue their TOD on the same piece(s) of paper, and respond to each one. This way, I will have a running conversation with each child as we explore different ideas together. I’m hoping this will be as powerful as I envision it can be.

First Day of SS

     Since we had the extra long weekend, I kept feeling like today was Monday. So, it will be interesting to see what it feels like when Friday rolls around.

     I started my Civil War unit in social studies today. I believe I got them stimulated. I wanted to have something that they can relate to while going over the causes of the civil war so before we got into discussion (little did they know, they were discussing the issue already) I told half the class that they would be doing the homework of the other half all during the civil war unit. It got pretty heated, but under control. Once they all expressed how they felt about it, I was able to connect to the issue of slavery and economics. They were able to see what the appeal was to the slave states and the moral issue that the abolitionists were fighting for. I gave them another example of a student running a pizza shop and all the costs that go into it, and how the owner could make so much more money if she didn’t have to pay for labor. Now, the real beauty of this discussion was that I didn’t have to do much talking. Most of my talking came from restating ideas and asking why. The kids were making the connections themselves. At the end of the lesson, when we summarized, I asked “Was slavery and economics related? Explain.” I asked three different children, and received 3 unique, but equally correct responses. The gist of the three answers was that plantation owners wanted to have slaves because they knew they could make more money that way. I was thoroughly impressed with their discussion capabilities and critical thinking skills.

     We filled out behavior evaluations today. It was a basic 1-5 rating for different areas, and you total the numbers you circled at the end. It was very revealing to actually sit down and think about the behavior of each child. I think it was an even more powerful experience having someone to consider and discuss how to score the kids. I feel these kinds of things are really good to have multiple perspectives for. Even if each evaluator agrees for the most part, it’s still good to have that support and confirmation before scoring a child.

Professional Learning Day

     We had our first Personal Learning Communities (PLC) day today. I apparently had no idea what it would be like. I suspected a couple of meetings, but I have learned that it can mean a whole day of meetings. With the exception of a lunch break, we constantly had meetings from 8:00-2:00, and one more from 2:30-3:00. I had plans of completing two weeks of science planning today. I wanted to do this with the other fifth grade teacher since it is her subject to plan for, and I would like experience with collaborative planning. However, we didn’t even have a chance to get together until 3:00, but she is coming down with a cold and has prior engagements. So, I’ve learned not to plan on “planning days” to be actual planning days. I was able to stay late and plan my next reading group, finish week two of my upcoming American Civil War unit, and knock out this journal entry. And, I am currently eyeballing two stacks of homework, wondering if I should comment on those now or in the morning. I think I will do them in the morning so I will have something to do while waiting on students to arrive.

     Though today was not what I expected, I still learned a lot of new things. There were professional matters such as, goal setting and getting a retirement fund started, but those were not the things I enjoyed most. What I enjoyed most were two demonstrations given by two different teachers. The first was a writing workshop; this workshop was in the mode of learning different activities to use in our writing classes, not an actual writing workshop writing time. Although, we did participate in some of the activities we learned about. The other demonstration was on a strategy I had never heard of, “Touch Math.” It seems to be a great way of representation, and then transferring from representation to abstract if you are familiar with the C-R-A method of math. If not, it’s the method of giving students experiences with concrete objects, and then transitioning to representation methods (pencil and paper), and eventually to abstract thinking where students can analyze more complex forms of problems, sometimes involving mental math. Here is a link to a page for "Touch Math":

http://www.touchmath.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=freestuff.welcome

     Oh, I also was not informed that we didn’t have to be at school until 7:45…I arrived at 7:05.

Friday, Fun...scratch that...Interestingday

     I believe this is the first time I am writing about a Friday. Man, is Friday its own day. All the kids are a little excited for it to be Friday, but it’s also the last day of the week, and everyone is a little tired. So, from what I can tell, emotions run high. Fortunately, this class is a pretty friendly class in general so there were no student-student conflicts (I will come back to that though).

This first statement will be short because I will not disclose any personal information about the situation. What I will say is, parents, know that your kids know what’s going on in your lives so try and be extra considerate of them.

     The next story is certainly one of those “elementary school stories”. One of my students managed to tie her jacket around her waist and a pole at recess. Now, if you know anything about knots, you know that when stress is put on many knots, they get tighter and tighter. This was one of those knots. So, as everyone is lining up to go inside, I see one remaining…tied to a pole by her jacket. It was quite the site. She managed to wiggle out of it, but the jacket remained around the pose, tied in a knot. I eventually had to be the one to untie it.

     Now, back to the student-student conflict topic…there have been no direct conflicts, accept for one solid kick to the shin, this year. However, someone showed my mentor teacher a name tag that had some pretty mean things written about another student. I’m not going to go into many details in this situation as well. However, I will say that it looks like a “frame job,” and I feel bad for the two students being framed because, even if they didn’t really like someone, they are considerate enough, when on their own, to not hurt someone’s feelings in such a way. I think someone showed the kid today, thus leading to more emotions on a Friday.

     I’ll now speak of myself because, after all, teachers (ST in my case) have feelings too. In accordance with paragraph two, there was definitely a lump in my throat at one point today. On a more cheerful circumstance, another teacher was considerate enough to put in a good reference for me with the Assistant Principal. It made me feel very good about myself, as well as, very grateful to be in the situation I am in, working with the wonderful people in this situation.