How THe Bunny Writing Prompt Turned Out

Hi everyone! Today was my first day back from spring break. It was a great day! The local special rec organization took us on a field trip to play Wallyball. Talk about hilarious! Most of the kids could not hit the ball or serve it over the net for the life of them. But they didn't care... they were all having fun anyways! We played with big rubber balls... the really colorful, air-filled ones that are sold in stores this time of year... so even if they smacked someone right in the face, it wouldn't hurt much. 


Today was also my first day of being in charge of "unit," which is really just a time to do any type of activity that is based on the theme of the week. Today I did the bunny writing prompt with the kids. I shared it in another post, if anyone is interested in picking it up! 


I took pictures of a few of the kids' papers, to show you how they came out, and the level of work the kids are doing. Want to see? This first one was done by Oriole. He used the regular version because, as you can see, he is more or less able to write sentences. 

"One day I woke up, and noticed I'd turned into a bunny! I will hop. I ate carrots. I could jump. I will hop in the woods. I felt happy that it was only a dream."

- Oriole.

This next one is by Rosella. She did the adapted version. I was very excited because Rosella, who can be very distractable and who also often refuses to work, did a really good job on this. I gave her a smiley face and a star when I graded her paper!

"One day I woke up, and saw that i'd turned into a bunny! I felt happy. I said, "I have bunny ears." The first thing I did was eat a carrot. Then I went to jump rope. I saw more bunnies. I ate with them. When I turned back into a kid, I felt happy."

- Rosella. 

The next one was written by Martin. Martin has autism and sometimes has trouble with creative writing, so I think he copied a little off of the adapted version, at first. He also tends to write about the same thing no matter what. For instance, since we went on a field trip today, Martin would have written about a field trip no matter what the writing prompt is. But it's still great work!

"One day I woke up, and noticed I'd turned into a bunny! I felt happy. I am a happy bunny. Happy bunnies are good. I said I want to eat a carrot. I went on a field trip."

- Martin.

Finally, we have the work of Starling. She's such a cool kid! She also has the most severe cognitive impairment in the class, and cannot read or write at all. I read her the text, and she dictated what she wanted filled into the blanks. I wrote her words in marker, and she somewhat tried to trace over them. You can see the trouble she has... but her ideas are great! 

"One day I woke up, and saw that i'd turned into a bunny! I felt happy. I said, "I have a tail!" The first thing I did was go find my dog. Then I went to camp. I saw a wolf. I ate a muffin. When I turned back into a kid, I felt happy."

- Starling

I'm going to try to include a writing prompt in each unit! But one thing I've learned is that it might be a good idea to include some sort of graphic organizer or brainstorming tool. Some of the kids who did the regular version had such a hard time coming up with ideas, it was like pulling teeth to get them to write! Does anyone have any experience or advice about things like that?

In other news, tomorrow Mrs. Eagle is going to be out for the day. There will be a substitute teacher, but for the most part I will be in charge for the whole day. I am so nervous! Even though by now I plan and run all of the lessons, I've never been completely in charge of a whole day before! It will be like a test for me. 

Thanks for reading, everyone! I'll write more soon! 

Spring Week

I am officially on Spring Break! Hooty-hoo! I wanted to share the spring Language Arts activities that I did this week! 


Lets see. On Monday, we read It's Spring, by Linda Glasser. Then the kids had to come up with a sentence about their favorite part of spring. That was the day that the fourth graders were on a field trip and Towhee  was absent, so only Kite, Starling, Triller and Rosella were there. The activity had to be pretty simple for them.


On Tuesday we read Quiet Bunny's Many Colors. I cut out flower shapes from index cards. I colored the backs of them with colors that corresponded with the colors in the book. On the front of each flower I wrote a comprehension question about the part of the story that matched the color. After I read the story, I showed the kids only the backs of the flowers. Each student had to pick a flower and answer the question. I really love this book... its very cute, and it has a good message at the end! 

On Wednesday, we read Spring Is Here, by Will Hillenbrand. This time, I tried a DRTA, or Directed Reading and Thinking Activity. Basically this just means that you keep asking them to predict what will happen next, and also keep asking them to check if their predictions were correct. Most of the kids did really well with it. Since I kept on talking to them throughout the whole book, they stayed really focused. 


On Thursday, we read Hooray For Spring, by Kazuo Iwamura. I did another very simple activity. I made a felt board by covering a piece of cardboard with black felt. I printed out some characters and items from the story, and glued them on pieces of felt. Before I read the story, I gave each student a character or prop. When the character or prop came up in the story, the student had to come and put it on the felt board. At the end, I asked for a volunteer to retell the story using the felt board as a reminder.Kite volunteered, and did the job well! 


On Friday, we did an activity that was kind of unusual. I had actually read about it in a blog. I can't remember which one, but if it was yours, feel free to let me know so I can give you credit for your idea! We read the story, When Will It Be Spring? by Catherine Walters. I covered the book with paper ahead of time so they couldn't see the illustration on the front. Before I started reading, I passed out clipboards with sheets of paper, and colored pencils. I told the students that I wasn't going to show them any pictures, and that their job was to listen and draw what they imagined when they heard the story. Most of the kids did very well with this. Want to see what they drew?


Martin drew a mama bear and a baby bear outside of a house. There are a bird, a butterfly, and a fire somewhere in the picture too. Aside from the fact that the bears were in a cave and not a house, this was a pretty good illustration for the story. 

Kite also drew a house. She had the mama bear inside the house calling the baby bear to come inside. She also drew a fire, snow, and a butterfly, which were in the story. 

Jay didn't even get to hear the whole story, because he was at some related service or another, but he still managed to draw a nice spring scene after he heard the ending of the story!

This is one of my favorites, by Towhee. On the top, he drew all of the things that the baby bear thought he was seeing, and on the bottom he drew the things that were actually happening. This was a very good illustration for the whole story! Towhee showed that he was really listening and understood the whole story. 

Here is another one of my favorites... for a different reason. Starling drew this. You probably can't tell what it is at all, because Starling just grabs colored pencils or crayons and scribbles frantically, the way a very small child would. However, when I asked her, she told me it was a picture of bears. For Starling to grasp that the story was about bears, without being able to see any pictures, was a pretty big thing! 

I think this was a really nice activity to do on the day before spring break.  We might have to do it again sometime, because the kids really liked it! 


In other news, I was observed by Professor A for the second time at this student teaching placement, the other day. She observed me doing my reading group. I was super nervous because my reading group consists of Starling, Rosella and Triller, who are on a preschool reading level or below. We use the Early Literacy Skill Builders curriculum with them. These three kids have a very hard time staying on task. In fact, they have a hard time staying in their seats instead of running around the classroom or laying on top of the table! But this ended up sort of working to my advantage. Professor A commented that my reading group was difficult to manage and that I did a great job teaching the concepts while also managing the behaviors. She said I was so patient and gentle with them, and kept the activities moving so they didn't have time to misbehave too much. In fact, she didn't have anything negative to say this time! I was so excited! 


Over spring break I need to be writing my plant unit, and also putting together a somewhat more informal Easter unit and chick and egg unit. Got any ideas? 

Saint Patrick's Day Language Arts

Hi everyone! I just finished my second week of teaching Language Arts! I think it is going really well. I try to help the kids get into the books and really enjoy the lessons. Sometimes it works. My Skippyjon unit is still considered a big success, in their eyes! This week the kids went to the school library, and they all begged the librarian for Skippyjon books! The school library only had two, and Rosella and Kite were the ones to check them out. Kite was also heard asking the music teacher to buy her a Skippyjon book! LOL! I guess that just proves my theory that Skippyjon encourages kids to read! 


This week I did a Saint Patrick's Day unit, for obvious reasons. Here's what we did. 


Day 1... I read them St. Patrick's Day, by Gail Gibbons, and we made a KWL chart on it. The kids were very interested in the KWL chart. They came up with lots of contributions for the K and W sections. For the L section, after reading the story, I usually let them look through the book to help jog their memory. (On the chart, the clover and rainbow are disguising the name of the teacher's aide whose birthday is St. Patrick's Day!) You may notice that someone asked "Why is he green?" in the W section, referring to St. Patrick. Most of the kids had this misconception that St. Patrick is actually a leprechaun. I tried to explain to them that he was actually a person who lived long, long ago. I showed them the illustrations of St. Patrick, and talked about the parts that discussed his life, to make sure they understood. Then at the end, after we completed the chart, I went over what we had learned. I asked, "So, who was St. Patrick?" And about four kids chorused, "A leprechaun!" Sigh. At least I tried! 

Day 2...We read both Jack and the Leprechaun, by Ivan Robertson, and The Leprechaun's Big Pot Of Gold, by Patricia Reeder Pubank. The Leprechaun's Big Pot Of Gold is actually a board book. When I bought it I thought it might be too simple for the kids. However, there aren't that many St. Patrick's Day books in existence, and I needed enough for five days! So I bought this one. And actually, the kids liked it better than the other book! I think because the cover is shiny, and there are a cute dog and cat in the story. We did another Venn diagram comparing and contrasting the two books. I want to do a Venn diagram every few weeks so that it sticks in their head!

Day 3... I read The Last Snake In Ireland, by Sheilla MacGill Callahan. Its basically a retelling of the legend of how Saint Patrick got rid of all the snakes... but there's a twist at the end!  Before reading it, I explained that a legend is a story that is about a real person, but the story itself has been passed down throughout the years and nobody knows for sure if it is true. I asked them again, "Was St. Patrick a real person?" and, thankfully, they replied, "Yes!" My plan was to read the story and then have them all tell whether they felt the story was true or made up, and give a reason. However, towards the end of the story, five of the eight kids got pulled out to go to Social Skills. (Social Skills wasn't scheduled for that time, but the social worker had some spare time and wanted to make up minutes the kids missed during ISAT week.) The kids that were left were Rosella, Starling, Triller and Jay. Rosella, Starling and Triller are the kids with the most cognitive impairments, and Jay has mild autism and was probably busy daydreaming about outers space when I read the story, so the activity sort of fell to pieces. I showed my power of flexibility and dismissed them to free time!

Day 4... We read St. Patrick's Day Alphabet, by Beverly Barras Vidrine. I had printed out a small picture to represent the word for each letter of the alphabet in the book. Each kid got three or four pictures to hang onto. I brought in a poster board. As I read about each letter, the kid holding the matching picture had to come and stick his picture onto the poster board. At the end, I gave them sheets of St. Patrick's Day stickers and let them decorate it. They loved this! The picture of the poster is at an odd angle, because the only place we could find to hang it was up above the bulletin board, and I had to look up with my camera! 

Day 5... We read The Night Before St. Patrick's Day, by Natasha Wing. We did a simple story map on it, which I didn't take a picture of because you probably know what a story map looks like. The kids were pretty good at identifying the characters, setting, beginning, middle and end. They also really liked the story, and Towhee even noticed it's similarity to The Night Before Christmas. After reading it, I made a pie chart with a "slice" for each person in the room. I asked each student if they thought leprechauns were real, or made up. For the students and teachers who thought leprechauns were real, I colored a slice green. For the students and teachers who thought leprechauns were made up, I colored a slice blue. Want to see the results?

Happy Saint Patrick's Day, everyone! Come back next Friday to hear about my Spring unit! 

My Skippyjon Jones Week!

Hi everyone! I told you I'd tell you more about my Skippyjon Jones language arts unit at the end of the week. It went really well! Personally, I think the Skippyjon Jones books can be a little hard to follow. For instance, I am still not really sure what was going on in Skippyjon Jones In The Dog House... a bobblehead was involved, and a very old chihuahua spitting beans out a window... hmm. But I do also think Skippyjon Jones is a very loveable character. And the kids love the rhythm of the stories. In each of the Skippyjon books there are parts where Skippyjon or his friends, the Chimichangos, burst into song. I always sang these parts, putting the words to simple tunes that I thought were kind of Mexican sounding. The kid loved this, and they'd all laugh in delight and try to sing along! They also loved that Spanish words were involved. Rosella and Kite both speak Spanish as their first language, so they were able to translate the Spanish words for the other kids... and many of the other kids just love hearing Spanish words even if they don't understand them. (They are constantly telling each other, "Sientate ahora!" and "Escuchando!" because they've heard one of the teacher's aides, who also speaks Spanish, saying these phrases to Rosella a hundred times.) By the end of the week, almost all of the kids were able to tell me that the Skippyjon Jones books are about a cat who thinks he's a chihuahua, who goes into his closet and has adventures, and who has chihuahua friends called the Chimichangos. The fact that they could tell me that shows comprehension skills that they don't very easily show!

Here are the language arts activities we did for the week. On Monday we did the context clues activity that I told you about the other day. Tuesday we used the reading comprehension spinners. Wednesday we made a character map describing Skippyjon Jones, which unfortunately one of the kids erased before I could take a picture. 


On Thursday I introduced them to Venn diagrams. We read Skippyjon Jones And The Big Bones, and then we compared and contrasted it with the book Skippyjon Jones In Mummy Trouble that we'd read the day before. I was kind of excited that almost every single kid... including Starling, the student who is the most severely cognitively impaired... was able to come up with either a similarity or a difference. 

Today, we read our final book, Skippyjon Jones Lost In Spice. This time we did a sequencing activity. I made eight sequencing cards. It was a little complicated. I picked eight important events in the book, scanned those entire pages, cropped them and shrunk them down to small pictures, typed a simple sentence underneath each picture, printed them, cut them out, glued them onto index cards, laminated them, and added Velcro circles. I numbered a poster board one through eight, and put the other sides of the Velcro circles under the numbers. After we read the book, each student had to come up, find the sequencing card that happened next in the story, and put it in the right spot on the board. When all eight cards were on the board, one of the students volunteered to "retell" the story in the correct order. Here's our "story board!"

As our final activity, the kids and teachers in the classroom voted on their favorite Skippyjon stories. I made a chart ahead of time, with a picture of each book. I gave everyone one of those little round price stickers, and they had to stick it next to their favorite book. It sort of made a bar graph! Then we figured out which book was the most popular book in the class. 

So that was my Skippyjon week! 
Afterwards, I set out all of the books on a table and told the kids they could read them during free time or Silent Reading. They were all so excited! They all wanted to flip through the books, look for the singing parts. Its kind of crazy when you have eight different kids begging you to read them five different books, all at once, during free time! I think that, for eight kids with special needs, whose abilities range from below preschool to about second grade level, to be excited about the same series of books, says a lot about that series!
So, thanks, Skippyjon! 

A Successful Observation!!!

Hi everyone! I told you earlier that I was planning a Skippyjon Jones week for my first week of teaching Language Arts. Little did I know that my professor, Professor A, would decide to schedule her first observation on my very first day of teaching something! I was so, so nervous... especially considering the fact that my last observation at the preschool didn't go so well.

I talked to Mrs. Eagle about how nervous I was, and about some of the things that Professor A criticized me about at my last observation. She suggested some ways that I could make sure to manage certain kids' troublesome behavior... :;cough cough Rosella cough cough:: and gave me some last minute hints. She also suggested that we would talk ahead of time about what the kids should do afterwards, so I could successfully transition them to their next activity at the end of the lesson. And finally, I decided to bring stickers. These kids are suckers for stickers!

Professor A showed up, and the kids greeted her exuberantly. There were only six kids, because Jay is still sick from when he went home early the day of our field trip, and Martin went home early today after ralphing in the garbage can in front of the whole class. (Of course the kids told Professor A that story right after they told her their names!)

I asked them all to go to the carpet for Language Arts. Rosella started acting up and refusing to sit down, but I took Mrs. Eagle's advice and started praising all the kids who were sitting down, and Rosella took her spot! I introduced Skippyjon Jones. I read it to the kids with as much feeling as I could muster. When I came to the Spanish words, I stopped and asked the Spanish speakers in the room (Rosella and Kite) what the words meant, and they were proud to translate.

My lesson plan was on using context clues. So I had used highlighter tape to mark some of the tougher words in the book, and I had made corresponding word cards. Throughout the book, when I got to a hard word, I would stop and ask the kids what it meant. I tried to model using context clues to figure out what a word meant. For instance I would say, "Skippyjon is wearing a mask because he wants to be incognito. What does that mean? If you're wearing a mask, do you want people to know who you are?"

After finishing the book, I had the kids take turns picking a word card. We would then find the word in the book, I would reread the passage, and they were supposed to figure out what the word meant. This was extremely hard for them, even though we had already talked about the meanings of every word. I had thought looking at the pictures might jog their memories. But it was very tough. For instance Oriole thought "enraged" meant "beans," just because he saw the word "beans" on the same page. I tried to give them multiple choices, such as, "If someone has stolen your beans, how do you feel? Glad, or angry?"

Finally, I transitioned them by showing them the mini-book they were supposed to make, giving them their stickers, and sending them to their desks.

By that time, my mind had gone blank! I was just surviving minute by minute! But Professor A was smiling as she asked me to go to the teacher's lounge with her.

There, she actually complimented me! She said that she loved my lesson plan. She said she loved the way I read the book, and that my love for the story really came through... that even Mrs. Eagle and the aides were leaning forward in their seats and listening to the story! She said, "You must have a really strong background in children's literature!" (Uh,,, I took the one children's literature class the university requires, just like everyone else... but thanks!) She said that I seemed very happy and that the children seemed happy too. She said, "I think you're really coming into your own here!"

This from the lady who, three weeks ago, said that my chances of ever getting a job interview were slim and that I might do better as an aide.

I'm reading all five of the picture book Skippyjon books this week. Next week I'm doing St. Patrick's books. The week after that I am doing books that were made into movies... I found out that Shrek, Night At The Museum, and Mars Needs Moms were all originally picture books, as well as the obligatory Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs and Where The Wild Things Are. One thing I wanted to ask you guys is for language arts activities that can be done while kids are sitting down, like during a story time. We have comprehension spinners, which I've used a few times already. I've also planned in  two Venn Diagrams, a character mind map, a story map, some sequencing cards, a KWL chart, and a discussion on whether a legend about St. Patrick is true or false. Are there other activities you can do that don't involve worksheets? We don't have a smart board. I do have a small white board to use by the story area, and I can make some things as well. Any suggestions? I need to plan five more weeks of Language Arts activities!

I look forward to hearing from you! You all always have great ideas!

Student teaching With A Substitute Teacher

Hi everyone! Today was such an odd day!
First of all, you'll be happy to know that Phoebe was back at school today, after missing about two weeks! (If you missed the post and don't want to go read it, Phoebe caught strep throat, which somehow spread to her heart and caused her to go into heart failure last week.) She was nervous about coming back to school. When you're four, two weeks is forever! So her mother dropped off some bags of mini donuts for her to pass out to the class, as a surprise. I was so glad to see Phoebe alive and well... I was really worried! She reported that she had a "rash," (scarlet fever connected to the strep) and was in the hospital, and that although she didn't get to play with any toys, she did get to watch Barbie movies!
Mrs. Wing was out, so we had a sub. I'll just call her Ms. Sub. In one way it was a good day for me because, without Mrs. Wing there, I was able to see how much of the schedule I'd learned and how well I'd gotten to know the kids! I was able to help the sub out a lot, which was kind of a good feeling. And Mrs. Sub was a nice person and everything, so it was all good. Except...
Well, many of my readers (LOL or should I say a fraction of my 8 readers) are teachers. So you have probably had someone fill in for you when you are not at work. But have you ever worked with a sub? When I was an aide in a school I worked with many subs, and I know there are about four different ranks. First of all you should know that being a substitute teacher is a hard job... its like every single day is your first day of work, and everyone expects you to already know everything. So you get the freaked-out subs who are sure they are messing up everything at all times. (I'd probably be that type, if I tried to be a sub!) There are the good subs that are great at following the teacher's sub plan to a T and get everyone through the day in one piece. There are great subs who not only follow the teacher's sub plan, but add some of their own charm (like teaching the kids a new song, or doing an extra art project, or playing games during recess.) And then there are the subs who are like, "I am an awesome teacher, and clearly you are doing everything wrong, and while I'm here I will give this classroom a total makeover!"

Mrs. Sub subs at many different schools in the area, and she actually knows Ani's older brother. Before the kids even got off the bus, when Mrs. Sub noticed that Ani was in our class, she said, "Ani's brother always comes in with a scowl on his face!" I told her that Ani was the same way, and that he also often refuses to talk to anyone or do any work. So Mrs. Sub decided that today she was going to totally fix Ani. She spent the whole day talking to Ani and trying to get him out of his shell. She actually pulled him onto her lap and started tickling him at one point when he wouldn't listen to her about something... Ani looked flaming mad... and when he didn't want to play catch in the gym, she stood behind him and moved his arms so he had to catch and throw the ball. And things like that. For a while I was a little irritable about it, but I figured its just one day and a little extra attention for Ani couldn't hurt. But the thing about it was she was doing it with an attitude like, "I will be the one person to reach this child that everyone else has failed to reach!"
Also, all through the afternoon class she kept translating everything she said into Spanish for this one little kid, Chickadee, who is Hispanic. The thing is, Chickadee is three and has a developmental delay and a speech delay, so he doesn't really speak much of any language. But his mother was raised in the USA and they speak English at home, so Chickadee understands both languages equally. But she just assumed that, because he was Hispanic, he needed to hear everything in Spanish. If anything, he just looked a little confused.
Mrs. Sub was good in many ways, however. She'd make a great preschool teacher if she had her own class!

Another Ani story for you... Did you ever have a little kid who asks you permission for every single motion he makes when he's doing work? This is Ani whenever we work on an art project or do any type of school work. For all the scowling and refusing to participate Ani does the rest of the time, when he's sitting next to you at the work table he's so uncertain! Today, for instance, we were making these paper plate tambourines. You give the kids two paper plates stapled together except for one opening. Then the kids fill the opening with dried macaroni noodles, You staple the opening shut, and then they get to decorate it. Yay, a tambourine! When it was Ani's turn, he would just ask me for every little thing. Like, asking permission to put each individual macaroni noodle into the opening. "Do I put this in?" "Yes!" "This one?" "Sure, put it in." "This one?" "Put as many as you want in!" "This one?" "Yep!" The same went for decorating. He'd ask permission to pick up each individual  marker, and to make each individual mark. Each time, with this nervous look on his face. I tried telling him, "You're the boss of this project, Ani. You can put anything you want on it." Still, he was so nervous about making any moves. I've seen him be like this before when working with Mrs. Wing and with the aide, and today with Mrs. Sub, as well as with me whenever I work with him at anything. Its almost like he's afraid of getting yelled at (or worse) if he makes a wrong move. But on the other hand, this same little dude will refuse to sit with the other kids, refuse to answer a question at circle time, refuse to put away the Legos when he's not done making a fire hose (which he likes to do pretty often for some reason.) One minute he can be so talkative (well, talkative for Ani) telling you all about how he went trick-or-treating on Halloween The next minute he can be scowling and glaring at you because you told him you like the motorcycle picture on his sweatshirt. The next, he can be asking you permission to put a single bead onto a string. And the next, he can be standing with his arms crossed and his head down because he doesn't want to play with a ball in gym class.When he opens up to you, you can tell he's this sweet, sweet little boy who is desperate for approval and acceptance. But then when you ask him to let someone else have a turn with the fire engine, he acts like you just called him a rat bastard! What gives?
This was the first day of my third week, by the way. Third of five. I can't believe it is almost halfway over!

Miss Read Is More Fun Than Time!

Today was my last day doing field work in Mrs. Jones's class at Ash Elementary! It has been an awesome semester helping out there, and I wanted to give the kids something to remember me by, so I made these "Encouragement stones." I got the idea from two different blogs... First Grade Frolics and Create-Share-Inspire. These teachers made alphabet stones for students to manipulate while doing word study activities, and there are some worksheets that go with them. You should check it out!


I adapted the idea by getting a package of motivational stickers with encouraging words on them... you know, the kind teachers stick on worksheets and on kids' hands! I also bought some large "puddles" (the flat glass stones sold at the dollar store), and I had some sparkly Modge-Podge handy. I just stuck the stickers onto a piece of plain paper, cut them all out, put Modge Podge onto the flat side of the stones, and placed the stones on top of the stickers. When they were dry I turned the stones over and Modge Podged the flat side also, so the kids couldn't peel the paper backing off. 

Today I gave them to the kids, and said that they were to look at whenever they wanted a little bit of encouragement. I was worried the kids might think they were useless, but the kids all absolutely loved them! The sticker package I had bought had almost enough variety for every kid to have a different sticker, so they were having a lot of fun comparing them. They also were doing things like spinning them  on the desks, and they came up with different ways they could use them. Some said they would use their stones as player pieces for games, some said they could turn them into magnets, some said they would add them to their rock collections, etc. I'm definitely going to keep this idea in mind... although it could be a choking hazard for really young kids or some kids with special needs who stick things in their mouths!
I didn't know it, but the kids also had a surprise for me, too! They gave me a little set with a book of quotes about teachers, and some rubber stamps. I promised the kids that I will bring this with me when I get my own classroom, to remember them by! 

Plus, they all wrote me very heartfelt letters. 
Some quotes from the letters...
"Thank you for teaching me all a bout time. Thank you for teaching me that the hour hand needs to travel with the minute hand. Time is fun but you are more fun than time."


"...One time you asc if we went to Sixflag. I said no. Then you said someone at Sixflag tride to ges her age and she was rog. Thats when we learned about estemat. It is a good ges. If I ges there are 100 cheldren in my class that is not a estemat." (That boy remembered everything about the first lesson plan I taught!)


"...You are veree nise to me you are cole and you help me in your games like the clok game. I had fun wet you."


"I had a really fun time with you playing the clock game where you showd me the clock and we had to tell you what time it was. I wish that you never left. I am prettey shore that our class will never forget you because we all like you."


"You are so much fun to do clockes. One time you play a game with us and you are so nice to me." 


"... I think you are one of the best substitute teachers." (I wasn't really a substitute teacher, but thanks!)


"Thank you for teaching us shapes and sizes." (I never taught them about shapes and sizes! The little guy who wrote that had a lot of trouble understanding time. Maybe because he thought I was talking about shapes and sizes?)


"Your storys are great. Estamating yor age was vary fun."


"Thank you for teaching me different things in math. My favorite was the grouge sale."


"The things you have done are amazing." (Wow!)


Kristie, the little girl I've mentioned before who is in special ed because of behavior problems,  was absent the day they wrote the letters, but hurried up and made me her own special card just as I was reading the other letters. Here's what she gave me...

Finally, the teacher took a picture with the entire class and me together. I will treasure it forever!
I was so lucky to get placed in this class. Mrs. Jones really pushed me to get out of my comfort zone, and she wasn't afraid of giving me real criticism. In the handful of observation placements I've been in before, I've mostly heard "That was good," but Mrs. Jones gave me really specific things that she thought I needed to work on, as well as things she thought I did well. I hope I can keep in touch with her as I progress through my student teaching experience next semester!


I'm really going to miss those second graders. 

Miss Read Teaches Again!

Today I taught my second lesson plan. Again, I was given a chapter out of the teacher’s edition of the math book, so I basically knew exactly what materials I’d be teaching. But this time I had a little more freedom to plan it how I wanted to. The lesson was on estimating money.

            I started out by telling them a true story of how, at Six Flags, there was a game where a lady would try to estimate your age by looking at you. If she guessed wrong, you’d get a prize. When the lady tried to estimate my age, she guessed way wrong, so I got a prize! I then gave the students the chance to estimate my age. First, I reminded them that estimating was not a wild guess… they’d have to make smart guesses and use the information they had. The students guessed anywhere from 16 to 90!

            Next, I told the students that we could also estimate money. I had drawn pictures of several objects on the white board, and wrote prices next to them. I told the students to pretend they had a dollar, and wanted to buy at least two things from the garage sale, but they wouldn’t have time to add the prices up to get the exact totals. They’d have to estimate. I then gave them the chance to come up with combinations of items they wanted to buy. Then I’d add up the total, to find the exact amount, and see if they were correct. The students were all doing this really well, so I decided to make it a little more complicated and asked them to name three things they could buy! Most of them did really well at this, although I suspect some of them really were adding in their heads instead of estimating.

            Finally, I closed by asking them to come up with other situations in which they might estimate. The kids came up with all sorts of answers, from guessing a dog’s age, to calculating the number of stars in the sky, to guessing how many candy corns were in a jar in order to win a prize. A few came up with answers such as, estimating how many states there were in the USA or how many days there were in a year. I asked those students if they knew the exact answers to those questions (they did) and I pointed out that this meant they were not really estimating. I think most of them had a good idea of what estimating was by the time we were done!

            To tell you the truth, this lesson went so quickly, and I thought I was doing horribly! I couldn't wait for it to be over! I was actually a little relieved that my little friend Kristie was absent, since it cut down on the distractions. Still, I was shaking, and I thought Mrs. Jones was probably so disappointed in me. But at the end, she actually came up to me and told me I did wonderfully! In fact, she said that although she usually doesn't take student teachers, if I need a student placement she would love for me to come be her student teacher! (My school doesn't allow us to choose our own placements, plus I need to be in a special education placement... but still, it was flattering!) Its so weird how I can think I am doing terribly, and in real life I'm doing great. 

            At the end of class, the teacher and I were talking, and I mentioned that in our class we learn more about teaching using a problem solving approach. Mrs. Jones said that she liked that approach also, but the school now follows a Guided Math approach, which means that they start with a short, fifteen-minute “math message,” which is what I had just taught, followed by work stations that should be no longer than twenty minutes each. The rationale behind this is that the Internet and other media has changed the way people think, and that we now need to switch tasks every twenty minutes in order to stay engaged. I mentioned to Mrs. Jones that I felt like using this approach with young children was actually encouraging them to have short attention spans, instead of helping them learn to focus on something. Mrs. Jones agreed. I think a problem solving approach is a better way because you can focus on one topic (for instance, fractions) but also have several short activities (such as an introduction by the teacher, a problem-solving activity, sharing, and wrap up) so that students stay engaged. Math centers could also be incorporated, but I think more problem-solving activities and opportunities are needed.

        If you're a teacher and you use Guided Math, I'd be very interested in hearing your thoughts on this! Whether you agree with me or not, I'd love to learn from you! Please leave me a comment. 

      Cutest moments in class..: 

             During Independent Reading time, I asked a little girl named Ainslie, one of the children in the class who has special needs, to read aloud to me. At first, she was reading a story about a girl and her father baking a cake... and she kept interrupting her own reading to explain to me that she bakes all the time, with her older sister. She'd be reading, "Then, stir in the eggs," and then she'd look up to frantically tell me, "But don't get any shells in the mix! Be very careful!" or "They're putting the pan in the oven, but I'm not allowed to touch the oven. An adult needs to do that." I jokingly asked her if the picture in the story was of her. She made sure to tell me it couldn't be her, because her family included four children and three adults... the adults being her mother, her father, and her sister who was thirteen. LOL! Next she read a book called Amazon Alphabet, which had a different rainforest animal for each letter. A lot of the animal names were hard even for me to pronounce,  I did know what a kinkajou was, having seen one at the nature center last summer! I also knew that macaws, true to the picture in the book, do like fruit. Ainslie looked at me in amazement and said, "Whoa! You know so much!"

 One little girl from another second grade class saw that my name badge had the name and logo of my university. She came up and told me, "My older sister goes to that university!"
      "Really? I asked her. "What is your sister studying to be!"
       The little girl proudly replied, "A business woman!" 
    
      One little boy kept interrupting me today to show me printed photos of his dog! (How did he know I adore dogs?) 


I have really enjoyed being in Mrs. Jones's class. I think second grade just might be my grade! I'm not going to see them next week because my university has Thanksgiving break all week, and the week after that will be my last week in the class. I'm going to miss them a lot! 

           

Miss Read Teaches Her Peers

Hi, everyone! Today I had to do a peer teaching assignment for one of my classes. Peer teaching, in case you never had to do it or forgot about it, is when you teach a lesson as if you are teaching children, but the "students" are your adult classmates who are also studying to be teachers. We were each assigned a chapter in our text book about teaching math to children, and we had to design a lesson based on what we learned in that chapter. My chapter was on ratios and proportions. 
Since next week is Halloween, most of the people did lessons with a Halloween theme. Mine was no exception. I planned a lesson involving taking a trail mix recipe for five people, and increasing it to serve 25 people (supposedly for a classroom Halloween party that afternoon.) 
To introduce it, I told a fictional story about teaching my little cousin to ride a bike, and that my little cousin felt so unsafe riding a two-wheeler, he asked for a bike with ten or fifteen wheels to be extra safe. Everyone laughed and we discussed that bikes have two wheels, and that the number of wheels increases in proportion to the number of bikes. 
Next I gave each group a mixing bowl, a set of measuring cups, and one of the five ingredients needed for the recipe. The original recipe was written on the board. Each group had to come up with a way to convert their portion of the recipe to serve 25 people. 
This is the way we are taught to do lessons. Instead of just teaching, we are supposed to give the class a problem to solve, individually or in small groups, and then have them share the different ways they found of solving the problem. Afterwards we can show them our way of solving the problem. 
Towards the end of my little activity, I realized it went a lot faster than the other lessons had seemed to go, so I improvised and added a few lessons. I asked them to reduce the original recipe to serve one person, which was a lot more difficult and required more brainstorming from them. They had to share how they came up with the answers for that, too. 
Finally, I came up with random proportion problems, and whichever group came up with the answer first could come get some of the delicious trail mix first. 
When my lesson was over, I thought I totally bombed. But the other students had to fill out peer critique sheets, and when I got mine, almost every single person had given me an A+ and said that my lesson was great! They commented that I kept everyone engaged and challenged, and that I taught them a new attention getting method (I used Mrs. Jones "Ready set, we're the best" call and response thingie.) One person even said that my lesson was the best one in the whole class!
The good news is, I'm getting more actual teaching experience in this math class than I got in all the rest of my education classes combined. What do you think of that?

Miss Read's Big Day

Hi everyone! Today was the day that I was scheduled to teach my lesson on estimating time to the second graders at Ash Elementary. I was so nervous! Throughout the past few days, I studied the Xeroxed copies of the teacher's edition, took notes, and wrote out a script on index cards. I practiced teaching the lesson, working on the kitchen chalkboard at my house and using my dogs as stand-in students.
But even with all that practice, this morning I was so nervous, I could have puked! I thought seriously about calling in sick. Mrs. Jones would have to give me a new lesson to do, and this time I would really, really, really practice and study! To top things off, last night I couldn't fall asleep until one in the morning because I was so nervous. This morning I woke up at 5 and couldn't fall back asleep. So, running on four hours of sleep, I was sure I would fail! I had to talk myself into going.
The day started off poorly when I got lost on the way to Ash Elementary. I don't know how! It was the first time I had tried to drive there without checking my Mapquested directions. (I am horrible, horrible, horrible at directions, by the way! Even with Mapquested directions, I frequently get lost going to unfamiliar places.) I thought I remembered having to go down one main road and turn on a certain back street... and the back street did connect with that main road... but I was supposed to drive further down to the second main road. So... yeah. Luckily, I had left early, so I still made it on time!
Then, Mrs. Jones asked me to make copies of worksheets for a whole unit of math. This involved taking about ten double-sided worksheets and making single-sided copies of them, and then putting the whole thing together and making 92 copies of them, in four groups of 23, one for each second grade class. Of course everything went wrong... first I punched Collate instead of Group, so the first 230 pages came out in an A, B, C, A, B, C pattern instead of A, A, A, B, B, B. Rather than separate all of the pages into piles I just threw the whole thing away and started over. Then the machine ran out of paper, and then it got jammed about 90 times, and then people kept coming in and asking if they could use the machine for just a minute, and one person changed it back to Collate, which I forgot to check when it was my turn again, so the copies came out ABCABCABC again and I had to throw that group away, and then more paper jams, etc, etc, etc... So it took me about an hour and a half to make the copies! I was sure Mrs. Jones would think I was a total loser!
Then, after snack time, it was my time to give my lesson. Mrs. Jones said she'd leave it up to me to get the kids' attention (they were all eating snack and taking a conversation break.) I nearly died on the spot!
I decided to stick with Mrs. Jone's method of getting attention by saying, "Ready, set?" Sure enough, they chorused, "We're the best!" and quieted down.
They had to do a warm up exercise where they had little fake clocks, and I would say, "Show me what time you get up in the morning," and they would put the correct times on the clocks and hold them up. I was walking around the room to check, but I was so nervous, I was barely looking at their clocks! I was shaking!
Then I launched into my lesson. I started out by telling them a story. I drew a large clock on the board, and said that when I was a kid, my brother and I had a clock like that in our room, but my little brother broke the hour hand off the clock. I erased the hour hand. I asked them, "Do you think we couldd tell the time with just the minute hand?"
They shouted, "No!"
I told them, "You're right! We would know it was something-fifteen or something-thirty, but we didn't know what! Then my mom fixed our clock for us, so we had our hour hand back. (I drew it back on.) But guess what my little brother did then? He broke the minute hand off of our clock! (I erased the minute hand.) Do you think we could tell time with just the hour hand?"
"Actually, there is a way we can tell. We can estimate the time, using just the hour hand," I told them.
And I won't give you a whole script of the rest, but I went through it pretty easily. Even though I was shaking most of the time. I had to go through estimating time using just the hour hand, estimating to the nearest five minutes using both hands, and writing in digital formation.  I called on kids (even though I didn't know half of their names and had to say, "Kid in the stripes!" and things like that), got everyone involved, and made sure to call on Kristie a few times. (She actually seemed to be paying attention this time, maybe because having me up at the board instead of Mrs. Jones was a strange and new occurence.)
I was so glad when it was finally over! It was like a giant weight had been lifted off my shoulders!
After the kids went to lunch, Mrs. Jones showed me the notes she had taken, and she said she was very impressed! She told me that, if I did this well when my professor came to observe me, I'd blow him away! She really loved my story about my little brother breaking the clock, because she said it drew all the kids in and made it relatable to them. She was glad that I tried to involve Kristie. She said I seemed very nervous at first, but that the kids didn't notice. (Isn't it weird how little kids just assume adults know what they're doing?)
I also worked with small groups on Tell Time Quizmo, which is just like BINGO. I would show them a card with a clock on it, we'd all look at it and figure out what time it said, then they'd see if they had the matching time on their BINGO card. It went really well, and by the end, the kids were really impressing me with how quickly they were figuring out the time. (The kids who I work with are the kids who are way  behind the rest of the class in learning time telling.) Kristie was in my group of course, and even she did pretty well! They keep asking if there are going to be prizes if they win. Luckily (or unluckily) nobody ever gets BINGO because there are about four million calling cards and only four or five kids playing!
So... that day is over! I am so proud of myself for actually going, and getting through it, instead of calling in sick. :)