A Visit From Miss Read

Hi everyone! I am now into my second week of being all graduated up with no where to go! I've been spending most of my time searching for jobs and filling out applications, both for the summer and for this fall. I think I've filled out about 35 applications! And its only the middle of May! Every single day I log onto k12jobspot.com to see whats available in my area. There is usually at least one opening that fits my qualifications. I hope that's a good sign!


When I left Tree Elementary, I promised the students that I would come back and visit them at least a couple times before school ended. Last week, I had emailed Mrs. Eagle to ask when would be a good time to come visit, and she suggested Thursday at 2:00. So, today I showed up at the school at 2:00... and the kids went wild! As soon as I walked through the classroom door, a bunch of them came up and hugged me, and everyone was yelling, "Miss Read! Miss Read! Miss Read!" Starling and Rosella demanded to know where my dogs and cat were. When I told them my pets were at home, Starling asked, "They're sick today?" (Of course, because why else wouldn't my dogs and cat be at school with me! LOL!) Jay was tapping me frantically on the arm to ask me what kind of makeup the members of the band Kiss wear, and why they wear makeup when they're all men. Martin was shimmying across the room, showing me his new dance moves. Triller was just standing there grinning at me. Towhee was informing me that I was five minutes late. Kite was hugging me from behind in an attack bear hug, and Oriole was asking if I had started teaching my own class yet! And then, they all started handing me thank-you cards they had made for the books I had given them on the last day of school! It was so noisy, and everyone was talking, and  I was trying to answer everyone at once! 


Finally Mrs. Eagle settled them down a little by telling them we could make ice cream sundaes. After that, they had free time. So I got to watch Starling play with the iPad, and I got to answer 50,000,000,000,000,000 more questions from Jay about vampires and Kiss and baseball. 


I also got to play kind of a cool game with Kite and Towhee! The kids learned this game during the school's Multicultural Week, which was the week after I left. This game is an adaptation of a game called Sapo, which is popular in Peru. If you follow the link, you can see what the real game is supposed to look like. But in our class, the kids were playing a home made version. Unfortunately, I didn't take a picture, and I can't find a picture of anything similar online. But I can probably describe it to you! 


All you need is a muffin tin, some small pieces of paper or labels, and some pennies. However many compartments your muffin tin has, you should number that many pieces of paper. For instance, we had a 12-cup muffin tin, we had 12 pieces of paper, numbered 1 through 12. Put one number in each compartment. Set the muffin tin on a desk or table that is about waist high. 


Now, the players take turns tossing pennies at the muffin tin! You will have to decide for yourself how many pennies you'll use for each turn, and how far away to stand. When we played, the kids got ten pennies each turn, and they stood about six feet back from the muffin tin. 


When it is your turn, you take all of the pennies, and you stand wherever your group has decided will be the standing spot. And all you do is, toss the pennies at the muffin tin! You can toss all of the pennies at once, a few at a time, or just one at a time. When you've tossed all of your pennies, you look into the muffin tin to see where they landed. Add up the numbers of the tins the pennies landed in. There's your first score! This is actually harder than it looks. The pennies don't necessarily go anywhere near the numbered compartments. The kids have been playing it every day, and are getting very good at it. But, my first time playing, I scored two. TWO! Only one of my pennies landed in a compartment! 


You can keep playing as long as you want, letting each person's score get higher and higher until you have to stop playing. If you play like that, the person with the highest score is the winner. Or you can decide ahead of time on a goal score, like 100, and the first person who reaches it is the winner. 


I like this game a lot because it combines hand-eye coordination, math, and fun. I'm definitely going to remember it! 


I was kind of sad to leave again at the end of the day. The kids kept asking me if I'd be back tomorrow. Some of them thought I was just back, for good! I had to tell them no, but I promised I'd visit them again. It was so weird going back, as a visitor! I'm glad I did though... I never had such a warm welcome in all my life! 

Saying Goodbye, and a cute chick project

I cannot believe tomorrow is my very last day of student teaching! :(
Since tomorrow we are going to the zoo, we had a little goodbye party in the classroom today. Yesterday Mrs. Eagle had mentioned that she'd bring in a treat for the class, to celebrate. She ended up bringing potato ships and juice boxes, because things tend to go poorly when we give the kids really sugary snacks. They go bananas. (She also brought red velvet cupcakes just for the teachers!) But the sweetest thing ever is that Kite went home, remembered that we were having a goodbye party, and asked her mother to buy cupcakes for the party! It meant a lot to me that she thought of me! You should have seen the cupcakes. They were all different colors, bright colors, like red and yellow and blue and orange and green and purple. The kids sure loved them! And you could tell what color cupcakes most of them (especially Starling and Jay) had, by the colors of their lips, cheeks, and noses! How they managed to get frosting on their noses is beyond me.


The kids all gave me cards that they made. They were so excited to give them to me, and crowded around me waiting for me to read every single one! And Mrs. Eagle and the assistants gave me a gift certificate to a local teacher store, a package of 700 stickers, and some cute notepads, for my future classroom! Also, one of the assistants, who is from Mexico, made me some authentic, delicious flan. I LOVE FLAN! 


I'm going to miss them all so much. I'm sure I've mentioned that before. Remember how attached I was to my preschoolers at Sky Elementary? I've spent four times as much time with the Tree Elementary kids, and a lot of that time was actually teaching and interacting with them, so I think I am at least four times as attached to them! They are attached to me too. Jay may be the one who will miss me the most. He's a lonely little guy, who is always a couple steps behind the rest of the world, because he's usually daydreaming about things like outer space or Superman. I read him his Planets book every day during silent reading, answer his endless questions about outer space (although half the time my answer is, "I don't know!"), sit with him on the bus whenever we go on a field trip, talk to him when he's nervous about going to an afterschool activity or an assembly, help him with his spelling, and more. He's taken to walking up to me and spontaneously hugging me. I think my being gone will be weird for him.


Martin will probably miss me too. Every day when he comes into the classroom, the first thing he says is, "Hi Miss Read!" Even if there are other teachers in the room, for some reason he singles me out. Throughout the whole ten weeks he has asked me, "Are you going to be here on May 4th?" because he knew that May 3rd was my last day and he was trying to get a different answer. Martin is really good with dates. He has everyone's birthdays memorized. 


I'm sure Starling and Rosella will miss me, too. Who is going to play the rice bottle game with them during reading? 


I really am planning on going back to visit, though. I sure wish the school had a job opening for a special ed teacher, because if I had the chance, I'd stay! 


Even though I won't be in a classroom for a while, I'll still be blogging. I have a lot of things to catch up on in this blog. In the mean time, here's one of the projects we did during egg week! I found something like it on Pinterest, but it was only a picture and no instructions. Its pretty easy to figure out though. I used fun foam to make it more durable, but you can also use colored paper or card stock. Just cut out an egg shape, draw a jagged line on it in the middle and cut along the jagged line, and cut out the shape of a chick. Decorate your chick however you like, by adding things like googly eyes and a beak. Take a clothespin. On the side of the clothespin that is meant to pinch the clothes, glue half of the egg to the top and half to the bottom. Its best to glue just the edges of the egg halves, so that the rest of the halves stick out past the end of the clothespin. Then turn the clothespin over, and glue the egg to the bottom part of that side. Glue it face down. It works best to just glue his left wing to the clip, so that the chick also sticks out past the end of the clothespin.
If you are using Fun Foam, it will take a long time to dry, and you should really put something heavy on it and then not touch it for about 24 hours. If you use colored paper or card stock, it will probably stick better and dry faster. Anyway, here is what you end up with! 


How it looks when you just hold the clothespin normally:

How it looks when you pinch the clothespin open:

Pretty cute, right? This is great for an egg unit or a bird unit. There's a lot of fine motor work, so you might have to really help some students. Also, I used cheap Dollar Tree clothespins that don't open very wide. If you get regular clothespins from Target or someplace, they'll open wider and make it look even cooler! 


Thanks for reading, everyone! Come back soon!

My Easter Themed Week

Hi everyone! I'm back to report on my Easter-themed week! I already wrote about my Bunny Writing Prompt a few days ago. And now for the rest of the week!


On Monday, for Language Arts, I read the book Quiet Bunny, by Lisa McLure. We read Quiet Bunny's Many Colors during Spring week, so the kids remembered the character. This time, I created stick puppets for most of the characters in the book. Each kid had a puppet to be in charge of. When their character came up in the book, the kid had to make the correct animal noise. At the end, when all the animals make their noises together, all of the kids had to join in with their animal noises!

On Tuesday, we read The Easter Cub, by Justine Korman Fontes. We played the 5 W's game. All I did was take a poster board and divide it into 5 categories... who, what, when, where and why. I wrote questions about the story on the sticky side of Post-it Notes, and then stuck them to the poster board in the right categories. The kids couldn't see the questions. They had to pick a category, and I'd read them a question from that category. Basically, its just a more novel way to do comprehension questions on a book. 

That same day, we did the Bunny Glyph I made last week. The kids who have more difficulties had to get very close, step-by-step assistance from teachers or aides, but all in all it worked out as a great following directions activity! It was a good exercise for the kids because they had to listen, make a connection between the choices I gave and which one applied to them, follow the direction that went with that choice, and then stop and wait for the next direction. I actually took pictures of the completed glyphs so you can see how they turned out! Starling, of course, got a little out of control with hers! If you want the code to decipher their pictures, here it is:

GLYPH CODE

I colored this bunny in a special way, so you can learn all about me.

If his EARS are BROWN, I am 9 years old.

If his EARS are GRAY, I am 10 years old.

If his EARS are WHITE, I am 11 years old.

His EYES are the same color as MY EYES!

If his NOSE is RED, I like CHOCOLATE CANDY.

If his NOSE is PINK, I like FRUITY CANDY.

If his NOSE is PURPLE, I like CHEWIGN GUM.

His FACE is the color of my HAIR.

If his BOWTIE is BLUE, I like READING best.

If his BOWTIE is RED, I like MATH best.

If his BOWTIE is PURPLE, I like SCIENCE best.

If his BELLY is PINK, I have BROTHERS AND SISTERS.

If his BELLY is WHITE, I’m the only child.

If his FEET are YELLOW, I like GYM CLASS best.

If his FEET are GRAY, I like MUSIC CLASS best.

If his FEET are BROWN, I like ART CLASS best.

If the REST OF HIS FUR is BROWN, I like playing outside.

If the REST OF HIS FUR is YELLOW, I like video games.

The FLOWERS are MY FAVORITE COLOR.

Now you know all about me!

On Wednesday, we read a very funny book called Here Comes the Big, Mean Dust Bunny, by Jan Thomas. The story is about some dust bunnies who love to rhyme, all the time. So we brainstormed a whole bunch of rhyming words! 

That day we also played an Easter memory game. A lot of people may have heard this idea. I bought lots of Easter erasers and Fun Foam sticker shapes from Dollar Tree. I put an eraser or sticker in each egg, making sure that I put two of each item in both sets of the game. The kids played it just like regular Memory, but instead of turning over cards, they had to open plastic eggs and see what was inside. Each set had about 26 eggs. The more higher-functioning group (Kite, Towhee, Martin and Oriole) loved this game, did very well with it, and played it twice in a row. Meanwhile, the lower group (Rosella, Starling, Triller, and to some extent Jay) played one game for the whole time, with two adults assisting them, and never got a single match. By the end, we were really coaching them, saying things like, "Remember, the BUTTERFLY is in the DARK BLUE EGG! If you get another BUTTERFLY, choose the DARK BLUE EGG!" And at some point I just started rolling the correct egg towards kids and hoping they picked it up. I wanted everyone to get at least one match before we went home! The lesson I learned? Next time, give the first group the large set of eggs, and make a very small set with about twelve eggs. for the Rosella-Starling-Triller-and-kind-of-Jay group. 

On Thursday, we read the book The Night Before Easter, by Natasha Wing. For this one I used an idea given to me by someone from this blog (I cannot find the comment anywhere right now, but I remember it well.) I told the kids that there were three ways to read a book. (The commenter actually told me about four, but the kids don't really write during Language Arts... thats more of a Unit thing.) First we did a picture walk through the book. (Even though I hate the phrase "picture walk." I have no idea why but it gives me the heeby jeebies! It may be the Asperger's coming out in me... when I first heard the word "picture walk" I imagined a teacher taking a group of children on a cool walk through lots of giant pictures. When I found out it just meant looking at the pictures of the books, I felt sort of nauseous. Ever since then, I've felt sort of sick whenever anyone said "picture walk." I'd rather say, "Look at the pictures." But I digress...)

 The second way to read the book is just the normal way, for me to read it to them. And finally, the third way, was for them to retell the story to me. Whenever we retell a story, it is really just Kite who retells the whole thing. For the other kids it seems nearly impossible! So I've been trying to get them to practice it often. 

Today we also painted eggs. The kids had been asking to paint eggs, but Mrs. Eagle thought it would be difficult to bring hard boiled eggs into the classroom and then have them transport them home. Three quarters of them would probably forget to take the eggs out of their backpacks for several weeks, and they'd start to rot in there! So I found some Styrofoam eggs at Hobby Lobby, and I brought them in with some paint brushes and neon poster paints. I stabbed each egg with a toothpick and then stabbed the other end of the toothpick into the bottom of a small paper cup, to make a little egg stand. This way the kids could paint all of the sides of the eggs, plus the top and bottom, without trying to turn them around in their hands or having them roll all over their desks. The eggs turned out rather lovely, if I do say so myself!

After that, the kids got to do an egg hunt, which Mrs. Eagle plans every year. They do it in a kind of unusual way... One student goes into the hallway, while another student hides five eggs. Then, when the hallway student returns, he hunts for the eggs while the others give them hot-or-cold hints. Its kind of a problem solving and team building exercise, as well as a fun party game! 

So that ends my Easter week. I had a blast planning and carrying out this week's unit! Next week is my plant unit, and then we start eggs and chicks. 

In an interesting side note... Yesterday I logged onto Blogger and saw that I had gotten 75 views on my Monkey In My Chair post! I was kind of excited, thinking so many people had been interested in the organization. But when I checked my stats, I saw that 65 of those views had come over from a large anti-Obama website! (In case some people reading are not bloggers,this wouldn'tmean that people did a Google search for something and came up with my blog. There would have had to be a link to my blog somewhere on the anti-Obama site, so viewers could come straight here from there.)  I cannot figure out why... I went to the site to see if somehow my post had ended up in some sort of news feed. I couldn't see it anywhere. So, where did all of these anti-Obama readers come from? I guess I'll never know. 

I hope you all have a nice weekend, and a nice Easter if you celebrate it! Thanks for reading! 

Another First Day!

Today was my first day at Tree Elementary School, as an actual student teacher! It actually went pretty well, except for the fact that I have a wicked sinus infection today. I tried all weekend to rest and drink orange juice and take Emergen-C, but I didn't recover in time for my first day! Nothing like making a first impression with a stuffy nose, sore throat, and giant headache! 


I thought I'd start out by formally introducing the children to you. I don't think I ever really did that with the preschool kids... you met Ani, for sure, and maybe Robin and Wren and Pewee and Phoebe and some others towards the end. But today I'll let you meet all eight of the kids I know!


First off there is Finch. The weirdest thing here is that Finch is the older brother of Robin, the preschooler who was always telling me he liked me so much and that I could borrow his Wii! I knew Robin had an older brother named Finch, but I had no idea how old Finch was or that he had special needs. When I saw Finch's last name on his desk name tag, I asked, "Are you Robin's brother?" Finch barely looked up as he said yes. The only thing that caught his attention was when I told him, "Robin says you're great at Wii! He wants to be just like you!" That turned on a spigot of information about all the different video game systems and corresponding games Finch owns. It turns out he's a fifth grader with Aspergers, who is very smart and fully mainstreamed. Aside from being Robin's brother, I don't know much about Finch because he is mainstreamed and is out of the classroom all day.


Weaver, like Finch, is a fifth grader with Aspergers who is fully mainstreamed. I don't know him that well either, since I only saw him today for about ten minutes. 


Martin is a fifth grader who is very sweet and who came up to me and said, "Hi, welcome, Miss Read!" (He might have been reading that off the chalk board, but still, it was nice.) He  loves to check the lunch calendar to find out what he'll be eating for lunch at any given  day in the next thirty days. He also likes to keep track of what everyone is doing and who is absent!


Jay is a fourth grader who is very quiet. The only thing I know about him so far is that he has to stay away from magnets, microwaves, metal detectors, and that sort of thing, because of his pace maker. Also, he likes outer space!


Oriole is a fifth grader who is more "high functioning" than most of the other kids. For instance at calendar time today he was able to run calendar, and talked to the other kids as if he were a teacher and they were the students! 


I have not met Towhee and Triller yet because they are sick. I'll meet them next week, most likely!


Kite, like Oriole, is a fifth grader who is more "high functioning" than the others. She can read and write, speaks clearly, makes jokes, and sort of bosses around the other kids in a big sisterly way. I probably won't get to know Kite that well because it turns out she is moving away in a week!


Rosella is a sweet girl who recently got hearing aids and now has to relearn the sounds of all the letters. She is funny and friendly, although she doesn't talk much! An odd thing I realized about Rosella is that although she can read a little, she is almost completely a sight reader. For instance she has a key ring of flash cards of words she has learned. She will see the word "eight" and read it as "four," not because these two words have any letters in common, but because she knows that "eight" is a number and she can't remember which one. Or she will see the word "grass" and read it as "tree." I'm not sure that even counts as reading!


Finally, Starling is a fifth grade girl who is the "lowest functioning" in the class. She talks nonstop, although it is very hard to understand what she is saying. She cannot read, write, or count, and she is still learning to go to the bathroom without accidents. She is very friendly, and loves school work. She demands all day long to be tested! When I first saw her wearing a puffy, swirly, gauzy black skirt with white hearts printed on it, a hoodie with all different colored hearts all over it, sneakers with tie-dyed laces, and a mess of auburn hair, I couldn't help loving her! 


I think the most challenging thing about student teaching there will be doing all the lesson plans my university requires me to do, when actually the kids mostly do their learning from very scripted programs that already have the lesson plans for each day included. I'm actually going to have to take the scripted lesson plans, and rewrite them into the format my university requires our lesson plans to be in! Awkward.


The thing I am most looking forward to is the one week unit I have to plan. This is the one area in which I will really be able to use my creativity and have some fun! However, I am not sure what kind of unit to do. Can anyone help me think of something! This would have to be a one week unit in which they would do about half an hour of learning each day for five days. It would have to be something that would be interesting and relevant to all of the kids, from Starling and Rosella who are learning on a preschool level, to Oriole and Kite who are learning almost at their regular fifth grade level. I thought of doing something seasonal, like a St. Patrick's Day unit, but I think the actual teacher may already have that one covered! Does anyone have any ideas? I'd love to hear! 


Alright, everyone! I need to go take some cold medicine and go to bed. 

Finally Some Good News!

Hi everyone! When I last wrote, I was frantic because I had not yet gotten my next student teaching placement, and because my professor had hinted that something might be wrong with my application. Well, the good news is here... I got a placement! It seems like a great one, too... only 20 minutes away from my house, in the same school district where I've already student teaching in. Unfortunately, the district isn't great about keeping up teacher or classroom websites, so I have absolutely no information or details about the placement. I only know that it is an ELS class, possibly containing some fourth graders. But I have to wait for the teacher to email me with more info. I sure hope she emails me soon... I'm at the edge of my seat here! 


Meanwhile, today was my last day at Sky Elementary. I had already planned out how I was going to try to make it a special day. Quite a while ago I ordered some inexpensive Scholastic books, enough for each child to have one. I just looked for the sales where they sell four or five books in a bundle, and ordered several bundles! I picked out a book for each of the kids, and wrote a personal note to them inside telling them that I'll miss them, etc. I wrapped them up, mostly so they wouldn't be fighting over who got which book! Also I stopped at the grocery store this morning and picked up oatmeal cookies from the bakery, and two bouquets of flowers for Mrs. Wing and the teacher's aide. 


Mrs. Wing also did her best to make it a special day! She let them listen to a CD and play rhythm sticks in the morning... something I have never seen in my whole five weeks there! This was the first time they got to do any sort of music and/or movement activity! She also brought some brand new containers of playdough, and they got to play with it. I got to read them a fun book, If You Give A Cat A Cupcake, after calendar time. (They are the best audience for reading to... they all applaud at the end!) And they got to watch a movie, Leapfrog's Letter Factory, while they ate popcorn and cookies! I think it may have been the most fun day ever for them! Even though Ani complained that he didn't like the rhythm sticks activity... he thought the music was too loud, we should have turned it down, and no, standing further away from the CD player or putting earplugs in his ears would not have been acceptable choices for him, and we'd better never do such nonsense again! (I think Ani was a little cranky today!)


Mrs. Wing treated me to lunch, and she gave me a class picture with most of the children in it, and the kids who can write their names all signed it. I will keep it forever! 


All day it felt like just an ordinary, regular day. Even though we were doing fun activities. I mean it felt like a fun day, but not a day in which I would be saying "goodbye forever" to the children I'd grown to care about. Its so weird that on Tuesday, they'll show up at school and start going through their day without me... and I'll be at another school, trying to get to know a whole new group of kids 


At the same time, I'm excited... This is where the real student teaching begins! If anyone teaches fourth grade special ed, please holler out your blog url to me so I can start doing some research! 

My Broken Heart On Valentine's Day

I don't have good news. Things are going horribly awry. 
I may have mentioned before that I don't yet have my placement for my ten week student teaching assignment, which begins one week from today! Five weeks ago when my professor decided to pull me from the student teaching assignment I'd been placed in, she assured me that I'd have a placement when the time came. It hasn't happened.
Yesterday my professor (I'll call her Professor A, so I don't have to keep saying "My Professor!") came to observe me for the second time at my internship placement. She had told me ahead of time that she wanted to observe me doing a whole group lesson. Well, the only whole group activity they do in the preschool class is Calendar, so I told her I could do that. Our calendar time is very basic, with no songs, rhyming, sharing, or other "nonsense." You just take attendance, tell them the month, the day of the week, the date and the year, and then the kid in charge of weather comes and does the weather, and finally you read a story. For this particular calendar session, Mrs. Wing also gave me a little Valentine game to do, involving counting different colored hearts, I guess to draw Calendar out a little longer so Professor A would have more to observe. 
For the most part, Calendar went well for me! For the first time ever, Ani actually said, "I'm here!" during attendance! All of the kids are supposed to say, "I'm here," but Ani usually just raises his hand. He said it, and I took that to be a great sign! Calendar went well. The weather went fine. The story was great. The game was a little haphazard because Mrs. Wing had just given it to me fifteen minutes ahead of time, and some of the pieces included were different from what was in the description that I was given to read... but it still went well. Calendar ended, and Mrs. Wing came over to describe to the kids what their cut-and-pasting activities for the day would be. 
So. Professor A wanted a short conference with Mrs. Wing, and they left the room while I ran Mrs. Wing's cutting and pasting activity for her. I was actually feeling pretty good about things, especially when Robin told me in his slow motion way, "You did good, Miss Angel!" 
Then Mrs. Wing returned to the room. Right away I felt like something was weird, because of the way Mrs. Wing said, "I think your professor wants to talk to you in the other room." 
I went into the other room. Professor A was all friendly as she told me that she thought my calendar time went well. Then she went on to say that she thought I looked too much to Mrs. Wing for direction and that Mrs. Wing stepped in too much for behavior management and for helping with the Valentine game. She said, "It doesn't seem like you're ready to really lead the class! Remember, during the ten weeks, it goes very quickly. By the fifth week, you'll be responsible for all of the teacher's responsibilities!"


First of all, this is internship, so I never thought I was supposed to be completely taking over. On the calendar we were given in class, it said by the fifth week we were supposed to have "shadowed" the cooperating teacher, interacted with students as directed by the teacher, and worked on our individual projects. Not "take over the entire class!" I swear on my soul, I've been doing everything according to that calendar and the syllabus! I've done my best not to step on Mrs. Wing's toes, and to be more of a helpful sidekick than a takeover teacher!


Second of all, Mrs. Wing hasn't really seemed open to my "taking over." Even when I tried to handle small things, she often stepped in to do it her way. She's a very experienced teacher with her own way of doing things. I pointed this out to Professor A, and she even agreed, saying that she herself was like that as a teacher, and that it can be hard for teachers to accept someone else doing things differently. 


Third of all, I pointed out that when we had a sub for a week, I did feel able to take over and do more things with the class, because my help was more needed. I assured Professor A that I thought that, if I was given the chance, I could lead a class.


Anyways. That wasn't the worst of it. Professor A then went on to say that she had looked at the long list of schools that had denied me placements, and was alarmed. She said, "There must be something wrong with your application or your resume, or maybe your transcripts! Something is making these people dislike you right away! Maybe you should have gotten help from the writing center at school."


I told Professor A that writing has always been one of my strengths, and that I never thought to seek help from the writing center. This center is more for students at my school who can barely write at all. I think I can write on a college level. The A's I receive on every single term paper or essay I turn in should prove that! (I'm not bragging... its just that I have loved writing since childhood. And since I often do poorly on tests on subjects like science and history, I depend on those essays and term papers to bring my grades up! 


Professor A continued to say that there must be something wrong with my application, or possibly something in my transcripts that people weren't liking. (The transcripts could be part of it. I get a lot of As, but I am not a straight A student, especially in mathematics, history, science, and that type of thing. I have plenty of B's and C's mixed in. My grade point average is 3.4.) She then told me that it would take a special person to be my cooperating teacher for the ten weeks, and that they would really have to work to find someone who would take me. She added that I might even need to stay in student teaching for an additional week or two. And, as I was crying internally (not outloud... on the outside I was just sitting quietly with my heart in in my hands) Professor A went on that she knew about a teacher who retired recently and that 800 people applied for her job. She said my chances would be slim for even getting an interview, if I was being rejected just for student teaching! She said some people were better off working as aides, and that she thought I was on the level of an aide because I was doing about the same types of things that Mrs. Wing's classroom aide was doing. 


Ever since then, it has been torture for me to be in the classroom. I still adore the children, of course. I made little Valentines goody bags to bring to them today, and some of them gave me Valentines as well. I love when Ani talks to me. It makes me feel like he feels safe around me, and that's a big part of being a teacher. I love when Wren asks me to play with her, every single day. I love how Robin loves to have long conversations with me when he's supposed to be working, and how even Ibis, who rarely talks, will sometimes whisper to me that he watched basketball with his dad yesterday.I love how they are always so excited to show me their shirts when they take off their jackets... they always have such great, colorful shirts! I love how even the small little 3-year-old special ed kids, in the afternoon class, who are just learning to talk, can say my name now... and sometimes just say it over and over for no apparent reason. I love how they'll hold my hand in the hallway. I love how I can make them laugh when they're about to cry. Today in the afternoon gym class I was trying to teach two little kids named Noddy and Pitta how to play catch with the gym balls. They were supposed to be taking turns tossing me their balls, and I would throw the balls back to them. Suddenly I was being pummeled by ten gym balls, because all of the kids wanted to play catch! I somehow got them all lined up in a row, and got them to wait until I said their name before they threw their ball to me. They were all giggling like crazy! We spent the whole gym time this way. Usually the teachers spend gym time sitting against the wall and talking while they watch the kids. Usually I do to... its a nice, relaxing break in the day. But I have to admit I had fun playing catch with the kids today. Even though Kokako pegged me in the face, like, five times!
I do love the kids. But it is still hard to be there. Because I just want to be at home, in bed, bawling! I want so badly to be a teacher, and I've put four years into it, including having to spend lots of money and having to ask my parents for lots of favors (such as letting my dog and cat and I live with them since student teachers aren't supposed to have jobs so I'd have no way of paying rent!) I've come so far. SO FAR! Especially considering that I was once a kid who was told I would never go to college at all, and would have to be in a special home for disabled people. Frown! Its so hard to be teetering at the edge of success, and then have it snatched away!
Please, if you are a praying person, I could use your prayers! And if you are not a praying person, I could use your positive thoughts! 
Okay, now for a funny story to lighten the mood. Today the kids got to exchange Valentines. They had white lunch bags to collect their goodies in. A lot of them included candy with their Valentines. One kid even gave each friend a small heart-shaped box of chocolates! Mrs. Wing stapled the bags shut, and the children were told that they should not open the bags until they got home and had their parents' permission. Anyways. The kids also got brownies and chocolate milk at snack time as a special treat. By the time they lined up to go home, lots of them were pretty hyper! Pewee, in particular, was in rare form. He was actually spinning around and laughing at nothing! I asked Pewee if he'd eaten too much chocolate. He said, "no." I told him, it must have been his invisible twin brother Lewee who ate his brownie! Pewee laughed like a maniac. 
An hour later, there was a call from his mother. Apparently, on the bus ride, Pewee cracked open his bag and ate all but two pieces of his candy! He was sick to his stomach! 
Okay. That doesn't sound so funny. I don't mean to laugh at a kid who got sick to his stomach. But if you knew Pewee...  the cutest, funniest, three-year-old trouble maker I know...you'd be laughing too! 
Happy Valentine's Day, everyone. Thanks for listening. 

Running Out Of Steam

Today marks the last day of my second-to-last week at Sky Elementary. Although I definitely love the children, I have to admit I am running out of steam. Its getting hard for me to drag myself out of bed each day, force myself to take a shower, put on my usual corduroys and sweater, pack a lunch, eat a healthy breakfast, part ways tearfully with my dogs and cats, and drive myself to "work." 
I guess part of it is because, as an "intern" and not a student teacher, everything I do is really mostly the duties of a teacher's aide. I don't have any real responsibilities, like lesson plans or assessments or special activities, to think about. I just show up. do calendar time the way I have been told to do by the teacher, and then do whatever center activity I've been given to do. Always cut-and-paste. The kids cut-and-paste, cut-and-paste, cut-and-paste! Cut-and-paste pictures of vegetables onto a picture of a plate. Cut-and-paste farm animals and zoo animals into the correct categories. Cut-and-paste paper hearts into the correct order by size. Cut-and-paste the parts of a bird onto a piece of blue paper. Cut-and-paste the letters of their names. I'm surprised they haven't developed carpal tunnel from all that cutting! 
Not to speak poorly of the teacher. I like her a lot, she's been very nice to me, and she is kind and loving with the children. But she's been a preschool teacher for 30 years. Probably 30 years ago preschool was all about cut-and-paste... but now there are so many more ways to teach children, so many more ways we could be enriching their lives! 
Plus there is the fact that I still haven't found out my placement for my ten-week assignment. Which starts in one week. Where will I go?
And then there is the fact that I was just informed in "seminar" that, with an LBS1 certificate (which is what I will have when I graduate this spring) all I will be able to be is a resource teacher. An LBS1 certificate apparently doesn't make you highly qualified enough to have your own special education teacher. The professor cheerfully said, "So you'll be a support person! You'll help with homework!"
Help with homework? I don't want to help with homework? I want to teach! 
The professor in my seminar says there is a test you can take in order to be considered highly qualified enough to have your own classroom. But its a hard test. And besides, she can't remember what the test is. UGH! 
This information might not even be true. I have been looking at job openings in my state, and the qualifications just ask for an LBS1 certificate. So... you never know. I guess I'll just hope for the best, right? But the prospects of just helping kids with homework is enough to make me want to curl up in a ball on the couch and refuse to leave the house again. 
Oh well. Lets think about more cheerful things. 
Ani has been getting more talkative every day, has been playing with other kids (especially Pewee), and has even been seen smiling! 
Robin comes up to me every day and tells me, in this sleepy, slow-motion way he has of talking, "I like you, Miss Angel! I like you so much!" 
Quail, a precocious three-year-old who probably doesn't really need to be in the "at-risk" program, swears that at night he and his sister wake up and turn into werewolves!
Rhea allegedly kissed Wren twice on the bus the other day, and has asked her to marry him. Rhea was lectured about keeping his lips to himself , but Wren didn't seem bothered at all. She cheerfully announced that she was going to tell her mother that Rhea kissed her. "I think Mommy will be happy, because she kisses her boyfriends all the time!" Wren declared.
After I read a story to the children about police officers and what they do, Teal raised her hand to contribute, "If you drink alcohol the police will come take you away!" 
And when we were learning about the five senses and I asked the kids what they use their noses for, Pewee replied, "Sneezing!" 
They are wonderful, sweet, funny kids. A lot of them are underappreciated by their parents. The school projects we send home go in the trash. The library books we send home go unread. They are exposed to alarming situations. Yet they show up at school, just happy to play with blocks and color with crayons like ordinary preschoolers. I wish I could do more for them! 
But, one week from now, I will be gone. 

Day One, Week Four... Update!

Hi everyone! You haven't heard from me for a while... I was sick all last week and was basically just dragging myself home from student teaching and falling right to sleep, waking up to work a little bit on my major project, and then sleeping again! I am feeling a little better now so I thought I'd take some time to update. 
Today begins my fourth week of my five week internship at Sky Elementary! I am almost done!
Last week I had my first observation by my professor. I worked 1:1 with kids at a sort of mundane shape matching file folder. I had already warned the professor that this wasn't my lesson plan or anything, and I'm glad I told her because the professor later basically told me the file folder game was silly and not challenging the kids. The best thing that happened during the observation, ironically, was that Ani acted out and didn't want to work with me! The reason I say it was the best thing is because the professor wrote down that I handled it by giving Ani a choice of where to sit, and gave him lots of praise during the activity. So it actually looked good for me! 
Something odd that happened... Remember Phoebe, who had strep that spread to her heart? (She's fine now, thank goodness!) This week she is on vacation with a family member. I think they went to Disney Land. Her little brother Pewee, who is three, came to school, though, and was his usual happy but mischievous self! 
The day went along as usual. At lunch time we put Pewee and the other AM kids on the buses to go home. We had our our long lunch break. We went out to get the PM kids off the buses. And there was Pewee, with a big smile on his face, getting off one of the PM buses! Apparently his mother had never showed up at the bus stop to pick him up. After failing to get ahold of Pewee's mother or any emergency contacts, the bus driver brought Pewee back to school for safe keeping.
Having to come back to school after sitting on the bus for an hour can be traumatizing when you're three! So we gave Pewee a hero's welcome. We all told him we were happy that he came back to visit us, and we introduced him to the afternoon class kids. Since Pewee hadn't had lunch yet, Mrs. Wing scraped up some random lunch food for Pewee to eat in the class. He got to have a granola bar, several chocolate chip cookies, half an apple, and a carton of chocolate milk. LOL! Pewee good-naturedly went to gym class with the afternoon kids. Then he came to the library with us, where he laughed at having to hear the librarian read the same story again! The whole time he had this amused grin on his face. It was probably so weird for him to see the same classroom, and the same teachers, but all different kids! 
Meanwhile, the office was frantically trying to get ahold of someone for Pewee. The thing that made the situation a little shady was the fact that there is a restraining order against Pewee's father. Because he's abused them in the past, he is only allowed supervised visits with Pewee, Phoebe and their siblings. So there was always the possibility that the father could have done something to the kids' mother, and that could be why she didn't meet Pewee at the bus stop or answer any phone calls. The office staff decided that if they couldn't find Pewee's mother by 1:30 they would call the police.
Well, at about 1:15 they managed to get ahold of Pewee's mom! She had had a court date, and had lost track of time. Instead of calling the school or the bus company to let them know that she wouldn't be there to meet Pewee at the bus stop, she had just assumed that Pewee would spin his way back to school and that somebody somewhere would take care of him. After answering her phone and explaining the situation to the office staff, she actually asked, "So, do you want me to come get him?" 
Uh... yeah, probably, that would be thoughtful! We're sure Pewee would appreciate it! 
Have I mentioned how I've grown to love these kids in the past three weeks? I can't believe next week I'll be getting ready to say goodbye! 

Who Is At Risk?

Hi everyone! I've just survived my fourth day of interning in the special ed and at risk early childhood program at Sky Elementary School.* I have to say, I'm really enjoying it! I love being with the early childhood kids. They are sweet, and fun, and funny! They try so hard at everything, and are so fascinated by things.

I have a question I would love for someone to try to answer for me! , I was meaning to ask my cooperating teacher about this, but it slipped my mind! The particular kids in this class do not have serious diagnosed special needs. Most of them are there because they've been identified as being "at risk." I am not exactly sure how a child gets identified as being "at risk" as opposed to having an actual special need. Its a little confusing to me. The morning class kids are all identified as "at risk," and some of them also have a label of speech delay, autism, developmental delay, etc. These kids get some extra services. For instance, the school has to provide a free snack to them. The afternoon kids have speech delays, autism, or developmental delays, but are not considered to be at risk. I've been trying to Google it, but every website I've found seems to skate around defining what puts a child at risk. One website gave examples that the child may have a teenaged mother, a mother who abuses drugs or alcohol, or a parent with a severe emotional disorder. That could be true. Of the kids I know of who are identified as "at risk," one lives with his parents and three siblings in a motel room because his father lost his job. Another child has to go to the nurse any time he comes to school with a bruise or other injury, no matter how mild, because the family is being investigated for child abuse. Another lives in a kinship foster care placement but does not get much actual care or attention there. But if a child's home situation is what puts him "at risk," how would they get people to sign kids up for the program? Would they say, "You seem to be doing poorly at this parenting business! We have a great free preschool program for your child!" My question to you more knowledgeable teachers is, what is the difference between a preschooler with a speech delay or developmental delay, and an "at-risk" preschooler?

At any rate, it could be that early childhood is the grade level for me. I've worked in a preschool program before, for children in foster care. And I taught a preschool curriculum at home to the children I used to care full time for. Whenever I am at the classroom, my mind is wild with things that I would do if it were my classroom. Not that the teacher doesn't do a great job! Mrs. Wing is awesome! Its just that I can't help envisioning my classroom! I think to myself, "I would do finger plays and rhymes with the children during morning circle! I would have music playing during play time and snack! I would open up a computer center and a science center! I would have specific activities in each center! To get the children to spend some time in  different centers, instead of just living in the block center the way these kids seem to, I would give them a weekly 'passport' and have them collect stickers for trying new things! I would do more open-ended art projects with them! I would do movement games with them in the gym instead of just having them bounce balls every day!" I think the thing I like best about preschool is the teacher's freedom to design her own lessons and activities, instead of sticking to a prescribed curriculum like teachers at some schools have to do. In some schools I've observed at, for instance, a fourth grade teacher cannot do an activity with her students unless she's talked about it at the grade level meeting and all of the fourth grade teachers have agreed to do the same activity, in the same way, on the same day at the same time. In preschool, it seems like the sky is the limit!

We got to go on a field trip yesterday, to the grocery store. The preschoolers got a behind-the-scenes tour. Every department gave them food! Those children ate so much! French fries. Cookies. Cheese. Meat. Oranges. But when we got back to school they still asked, "When is snack?"

Here is a cartoonized picture of my new little friends in the special hats the grocery store manager gave them, so they could pretend like they worked there! All of the hats but one were smashed by the time we got back to school, of course. But it was fun for a while!

On a lighter note, here is a funny moment...  The teacher was teaching the children about the letter C. She was trying to get them to come up with words that begin with C. Mrs. Wing suggested, "What about cup? Do your parents drink coffee in a cup?" Rhea piped up, "No! My Daddy drinks liqour!" In case we didn't hear him right, he repeated it about ten times!

Thanks for reading my post! I'd love to hear what you think, about the at-risk question and about anything else.

Miss Read Raises Her Hand

Hi everyone! I made it through my very first day of student teaching! Well, of interning, anyway! I am tired and happy. The day went great! It also went very quickly. Its a preschool program with a morning class and an afternoon class, each of which is two and a  half hours long. In that two and a half hours, not much happens! 


In the morning the kids start the day off going to the bathroom (always important when you're three or four years old and just took a half hour long bus ride!) Then we take them to the gym, where they basically just run around bouncing balls for half an hour. There isn't really a gym program or organized activity or anything. After that, they come back to the classroom and the teacher reads them a story. Then they have "Choice" time. During this time the teacher and aide pull small groups of children to work on little projects, while the others play freely. Today the teacher was testing kids on their progress, while the aide and I helped kids cut and paste penguins together. Snack comes next, and then it is time for the kids to bundle up and go home! The afternoon class is the same thing but with a much smaller group of kids. 


During lunch hour, there was a staff meeting, which I had to go to as well since I am pretending to be staff! The meeting was about the PBIS program that the school plans to adopt starting next school year. I'm pretty familiar with PBIS, because several of the schools I've observed at use it. So when the principal, who was giving a power point presentation, asked a particular question, I raised my hand. 
Yeah... I raised my hand. When I retold this story later to my mother she said, "Ugh, you raised your hand like you're still in elementary school," but she totally missed the point of the story and found the one negative part. 
I didn't really raise my hand, anyway... just kind of waved slightly since nobody else was saying anything! 
The question was about the part of PBIS involving schoolwide celebrations. The question was whether kids who had been getting multiple "majors" and "minors" should be invited to schoolwide celebrations. Nobody answered. That's when I made the giant mistake of raising my hand, before I could stop myself! Suddenly I felt like running from the room because everyone was looking at me, but I replied to the question, "Yes, because that way the kids are included as part of the school community, and can feel proud of what the entire school is doing, instead of feeling like outcasts." 
The principal responded with, "Yes, that's exactly it, and thank you so much for being brave on your first day here!" He later thanked me again for participating on my first day. 
So, the good news is, I was noticed in a positive way by the principal of the school, I showed him that I knew and understood the PBIS concept already, and I showed him that I was already willing to participate in a staff meeting . I think these are good things, especially since, at the end of the semester, a letter of recommendation from a principal will look great when I'm applying for a job!


But the bad news is, of course, I raised my hand. Ugh!

Bad News

A while back I wrote about finding out that one of my student teaching placements was at my dad's elementary school. I was really excited about it, partly because I am very close to my dad and it was going to be cool to be placed at the school where he was once a student, and also because I read on the school's website about the cooperating teacher and the students and the types of things they did. I was really looking forward to it!
The other day I went to visit the classroom. I never wrote about it, because I've been a little sick lately. In fact, when I went to visit the classroom, I was in the beginnings of a cold, and was kind of hung over from the cold medicine I'd taken the night before in order to stop sneezing be able to breathe comfortably enough to sleep. 
So I went to visit the classroom, feeling a little under the weather. I'm also shy and sort of nervous around new people by nature, and often seem a little awkward because of my Aspergers issues. I had this feeling that the teacher and aides didn't really like me, but I thought I was just being paranoid. I also had a feeling that the meeting didn't go extraordinarily well. The teacher kept asking me to tell her about myself, and I stammered a little as I told her about what I've been studying and about my previous work as an aide at a special education school. I sat in on an SRA Decoding Strategies lesson she did with two students, (I was surprised the kids didn't pass out from boredom! How dull can you get?!?!?!) When that lesson was over, the teacher asked me if I wanted to stay a little longer and observe, or if I felt like I had seen enough. But since I was feeling so run down, I told her I had to go but that I might like to come back again for another visit. As I left, I just didn't have the best feeling about the whole thing. But I shook it off, figuring that by the time I started student teaching there, I would have more confidence because I would have just completed my first five weeks at the other school.
So anyways.
Today I got a call from my supervising professor at my school. She said that the director of special education at my ten-week placement had called her and expressed concern that I didn't have the background necessary to student teach there. My professor claims that the school usually chose to interview possible student teachers before accepting them but that they hadn't interviewed me because it had been sort of a last minute placement, and that they usually chose to work with graduate students instead of undergrads. She said that they thought I didn't have enough experience using the different curriculums and programs used by the school, and that they actually wanted me to take another class somehow before I started student teaching. My professor claimed that it was her choice to withdraw me from that placement, because she felt that the cooperating teachers had a negative attitude about me and were already expecting me to fail, 
As I heard my professor's voice over the phone I nearly burst into tears! First because I had been so excited about student teaching at my dad's old school. But also because it seems like I did fail already! I was kicked out of a student teaching placement, after one meeting. In all of the orientations I attended and handbooks I had to read, I was told how rare it was for a student teaching placement to be withdrawn, and that if it wasn't a dire emergency you just had to deal with whatever you got. So although the professor makes it sound as if she chose to withdraw me from that placement because of the attitudes of the people at the school, I feel like it must have been my fault. I went in there, and I was nervous and uncomfortable and tired, and I stammered and stuttered and didn't sparkle the way they always tell us we need to do if we ever want to get a job in this economy. 
I feel so dejected! 

Miss Read Visits A Classroom!

Hi everyone! The other day I got to go visit the early childhood classroom that I will be student teaching in for the first five weeks. It didn't start out so well... I was already so nervous about going there, so I got up super early to get ready, found the directions on Google Maps, and left myself plenty of time to get there. Google Maps said it would take me ten minutes, so I left twenty minutes before I needed to be there. And the directions were wrong! They led me to a place that had a similar address, on a street with the same name, in the same town... but on the other side of the town. I had to pull over and try to use the not quite dependable GPS system on my cellphone. So I was twenty minutes late! Not the best way to make a good first impression! At least it didn't happen on the actual first day of student teaching. The teacher, Mrs. Wing, was understanding and barely seemed to notice I was late, so that part was good. 
I spent the time just observing. The kids were so tiny... and that was just the morning class! Mrs. Wing explained to me that the afternoon class children were even younger. The children can start preschool when they are two or three years old, and stay in preschool until they are five or six and are ready for kindergarten. 
When I was in Mrs. Jones's class I felt sure that second grade was going to be my grade... but now I'm already falling in love with early childhood! That's always how its been for me. Whenever I start working with a new age group, I start thinking that age group is awesome. For instance, back in my days as a day care worker, I thought I'd be uncomfortable working with tiny babies, until I got assigned to the baby room and learned that the babies were so adorable and cuddly and fun! 
Ihile I was there the kids had "choice time" where they got to play in whatever areas of the room they felt like. Meanwhile the teacher and aide sat at different tables, and called children over to do little assignments with them. They were doing a snowman theme (although ironically there hasn't been any snow here) so at one table they were making a little snowman counting book with number stamps, and at another table they were pasting sequencing cards about making a snowman. 
One thing I noticed was that Mrs. Wing has a really hurried, brisk way about her. I can tell she definitely loves the children and loves her job. I can tell by the way that she smiles at them, touches their heads, and talks to them. She would say things to me like, "Pewee tries to get away with things because he thinks he's so cute... which he is!" However the way she talks to them is also more hurried than I'm used to. Its hard to explain... just not as gentle and upbeat as I would expect an early childhood teacher to be. Of course this was only in an hour and a half of knowing her, so my impression could be all wrong!
I am interested to see how my five weeks there will be. Interning is different from student teaching. As an intern I will be mostly assisting, and I'll have one major project to do. I kind of hope Mrs. Wing will let me get more involved than just observing and hovering around the room listlessly though... I would love the chance to plan some activities or something! We'll have to see how it goes.
Thats it for now. On Tuesday I have to go meet with the teacher for my ten week student teaching placement, and then next Tuesday I start my internship! 

I Got One Of My Student Teaching Placements!

Hi everyone! I got an email with good news today! I got ONE of my student teaching placements! (We do two... one for five weeks and one for ten weeks.) My ten week placement will be in a special ed classroom for second through fifth graders. Interestingly, it is the same elementary school where my dad went to school! 


When I told my dad that I was going to be student teaching at his old school, his first question was whether a certain teacher (we'll call her Mrs. Brown) was still there. It would be pretty unlikely... she'd have to be about 90 years old! Anyway he asked about her because when he was in first grade he had a crush on her. On the last day of school he and a friend wrote her love letters! The next fall, as a second grader, my dad found her in the hall and went up to her to say hi... and she ignored him! My dad says she broke his little heart. Seriously though, there is a lesson in this... someone who is 57 years old remembers how hurt his feelings were when he was ignored by a teacher when he was 7 years old! I guess as teachers we really have to be careful about what we say and do, because you never know what will stick with children for their whole entire lives. 


I've already sent an email to my cooperating teacher, introducing myself and offering to come in to meet with her sometime before my placement there begins in February. In the meantime, I've already started doing some cyberstalking! I went to the school's website and checked out the teacher's classroom website. I was really impressed! It looks like its a very small class (just boys) and they do a lot of experiential learning and using the students' interests and talents as opportunities for lessons. The classroom has a blog. One boy was apparently interested in learning about radios, so the whole class got to learn about how a radio station worked. They learned about disc jockeys, engineers, programmers, etc. The student even made his own radio commercial! I have a feeling I'm going to love being in that class. 


Now all I need to wait for is news about my January student teaching placement! 

Student Teaching Orientation

Went to student teaching orientation session today, where...
a professor serenaded us with African American spirituals accompanied by his guitar,
and then told us that, as student teachers, we'd be less important than pond scum...
got told that, during student teaching, we are not to eat lunch in the faculty lounge with regular teachers (not because of any real rules, but because supposedly we should not expose ourselves to gossip)...
and then found out that I still don't have a student teaching placement for next month! 
Good times.