Are You Going To Adopt An Angel?

When I was a little kid my parents would always let me pick out an "angel" from the Salvation Army Christmas tree to buy gifts for. I still like to do this each year, but it can be hard to find a tree! I never seem to find them when I'm looking for them!
You can actually sign up online now through Salvation Army and JC Penney. Here's the link. You can search by town, gender and age, Then you can either ship the gifts to a Salvation Army site or drop them off!
Just thought I'd let you know. Happy giving!

Miss Read Takes The Test!

Hi everyone! Those of you who are special ed teachers probably had to take three tests, before you managed to get certified. You had to take the Basic Skills test before you even started a teacher education program. Then, before you could student teach, you had to take the LBS1 test. Finally, somewhere during student teaching, you had to take the Special Education Curriculum Test. 
I was scheduled to take the LBS1 test on November 12. I had no idea what would be on it, but I did know that, if I didn't pass, I wouldn't be allowed to student teach in January. So I went on Amazon and looked for a study guide. I found one called the Special Education Learning Behavior Specialist 1 Teacher Certification Exam Guide. I bought it. I studied my brains out! I took the practice test in back, made flash cards for all of the questions I didn't get right, studied the flash cards, did the practice test again, and repeated this process until I was getting them all right all the time! Even so, I thought, I might just be memorizing the answers in the study guide, and this might not help me in the real exam! I was so nervous.
And then yesterday, I went to take the exam. 
And...
absolutely nothing I studied for was on that exam! Nothing! 
There were no questions about semantics, pragmatics, syntax and morphology. Nothing about the special education referral process. Nothing about ratios of reinforcement schedules, locus of control, or methods of teaching reading. NOTHING!
Instead, it was all sort of hypothetical situations. 
Just to give you an example (this is not a real question that was on the test, but just something I'm making up that would fit in nicely on the test if they ever ask me to help write a new version)...


Amy is a fourth grader with a learning disability. At a Parent-Teacher Conference, Amy's parents tell you that they'd like to work with Amy on her reading skills and they are wondering if you have any tips. What do you tell them? Choose the best answer. 
A. Say, "I went through school to learn how to teach children like Amy. I'll handle the teaching, and you can handle the parenting, thank you!"
B. Give Amy's parents a list of words and ask them to drill her on them each day before dinner.
C. Recommend that Amy's parents take her to the library to choose books that are on her reading level and interesting to her, and then read together at home, with the parents reading one page and Amy reading the next; and talk about the story together. 
D. Tell Amy's parents that, because of assistive technology, there is no real reason for Amy to worry about working on her reading skills. Computers can read aloud to her anything she needs read! 


Which would you choose? 
Basically, I wasted a lot of time studying for a test that was really more common sense than anything else. I mean, there really isn't a way you could have studied for that test, because they were all hypothetical questions and scenarios! 
For anyone about to take this test, here is my advice: Relax, and trust your instincts! 
Now, maybe all that stuff I studied for will show up on the Special Education Curriculum Test? I guess I'll have to wait and find out! 

Building My Classroom Library

Hi everyone! A few semesters ago I took a class on teaching reading, and the teacher said that we should already be building up our future classroom libraries. When I was taking the class, the teacher would bring in the Scholastic book order catalogs, and we would get to order Scholastic books through the school. But after that class ended, I couldn't do that anymore! I have bought a few books through Children's Book Of The Month Club, but they are more expensive that way... just about as expensive as buying them at the regular book store!
Then I got the idea to visit library book sales. I checked out this website called Book Sale Finder. You can choose your state and see all of the upcoming library book sales in your area from month to month. A library in a neighboring town happened to be having a book sale starting today, so I went over there this morning.

Even though I love books, I don't often visit book sales for my own reading pleasure, because the books tend to be entire collections of romances or mysteries that people donate. (Not genres I'm particularly interested in.) But the children's section is an entirely different story! First of all, kids outgrow their books a lot more quickly than adults do, so there are tons of awesome, gently used books. A lot of them were Scholastic books, as a matter of fact! There were also a ton of books that were pulled from the library's own shelves. And the prices? Couldn't be beat! The paper backs ranged from ten cents to a quarter, and hardback books were fifty cents. I spent about ten dollars and got about forty books!

There is another book sale at a different library next weekend, and I'm planning on stopping at that one, too. By the time I actually start looking for a job, I should be vcry well-stocked in books. I'm going to use them all, too... I plan on following my reading professor's practice of reading aloud to the kids several times a day... for instance reading a math-related book before math, a social studies related book before social studies, a fun bookafter lunch, etc.

What books do you recommend? Are there any books that your classes particularly loved?

Will Work For Nothing!

Hi everyone! With less than a year left of my undergraduate special education teaching program, I've been thinking that I need to do something to really make my resume and portfolio stand out. I've always loved doing community service... I served a year with AmeriCorps, spent several summers volunteering at a summer camp for children in foster care, volunteered for a while reading to children in a homeless shelter, and currently volunteer with dogs in a rescue organization. All of my volunteer work with children was many years ago, and the dog thing probably won't make much of a difference when I try to get a teaching job. So, I decided, I should try to get a volunteer job again, doing something involving children!
The most sensible choice would be to volunteer at an afterschool tutoring program. However, for the life of me, I can't find any around here! The ones that I have been able to found all insist that they will only take volunteers over the age of 55. Why is that, do you think? I agree, its awesome for senior citizens and retired people to take advantage of their extra time and do volunteer work. But why only them? Do the school districts believe that, if you are under 55, have no children in the school, and still want to volunteer in a school, there must be something wrong with you?
I searched for other volunteer opportunities. Two places I was very interested in volunteering are a local organization that serves people with special needs and children in foster care, and a drop-in center for children and adults with Down syndrome. However, I contacted both of these places quite a while ago, and they never replied. They are very well-known places, and I'm sure they have their fill of volunteers.
I looked up the homeless shelter where I used to volunteer many years ago, but found that they had actually moved to another county. Weird! There is a second, similar homeless shelter i my town, but their website does not list any volunteer opportunities. I emailed them anyways, to ask if I might be of service.
I applied at the YMCA and at two youth mentoring programs near by. I hope one of these places will contact me! I have heard from several sources lately that getting a volunteer job these days is almost as hard as getting an actual, paying job. Organizations have their fill of people, and some even find volunteers to be a pain in the butt. What many of them really want is money! Kind of a shame. But anyways...
Do you have any ideas for other places I might look for volunteer opportunities? Or other ways that I can make my resume stand out from the others? Any advice would be appreciated!

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. :)

Observation at Renaissance School

When I was a kid, there was a school in my town called Renaissance Care Center. It was kind of in a run down building on the edge of town. I always heard it was a school for kids with behavioral disorders. But although, as I got older, I had many friends who were in, or had been in, "BD," and had even attended special schools, I never knew anyone who went to Renaissance. When I became an adult and started looking for places to work, I was warned against applying for any jobs at Renaissance. It was said to be a school for "the worst of the worst." I was told that the police were always there, and that the teachers there were known for improperly restraining out of control kids and even abusing them.


So, when I got the news that I was going to be observing at Renaissance this semester, I was a little nervous!


When I mentioned it to others in my class, they made horrified faces like, "Oh, no, Renaissance? Really? Be careful!"


It turned out that Renaissance is actually a company that runs multiple schools for special needs, in various states. The Renaissance School in my town is no longer listed on the company's website, and I think it may have been shut down. The Renaissance School I was assigned to go to was in a neighborhing town. Still, I was a little nervous. Until I got there!


I was greeted by the principal, a friendly lady who gave me a tour of the school. She seemed proud of it as she showed me every classroom, explained the school-wide behavioral support system, talked about all of their special events and field trips, etc. Instead of a Time Out room, they have a small room with no door, painted to look like the inside of a fish bowl. Kids can go there to just chill out, instead of as a punishment. The kids who are on the highest level and have the most responsibility have their own clubhouse, a room where they can watch TV and play video games during their free time. They even have a stable with horses for therapeutic riding, and a dog and a cat who take turns spending days at the school for pet therapy!


As we walked around the school, I saw lots of artwork and colorful posters. In one classroom, a wall was decorated to look like a game board. Kids could move their markers one space on the board whenever they turned in their homework. When they landed on pink spaces, they got small prizes or privileges. When they completed the entire "game," they won a gift certificate!


In most of the classrooms, the kids were cheerful and said "hi" to me. In the hallway, a teenaged boy came up, shook my hand, and said, "Hi, I'm Matt! Nice to meet you!"


Finally, the principal asked me which room I'd like to observe in. I chose the youngest room, which was mostly for children with autism. I figure, I'll move to the older rooms when I go back. In the room I was in, there were only about five children, and each one was working with his own teacher or aide. One first grade boy was being observed by a teacher from his home school district, to decide if he was ready to transition to his home school's somewhat less restrictive classroom for children with autism. I watched as the boy's teachers from Renaissance asked the prospective new teacher tons of questions about her classroom. They wanted to know, would he have some extra support when he first started in order to make the transition easier? Would he have breaks throughout the day? Would there be anyone willing to take him for walks in the hallways if he needed them? What kinds of therapies were offered? Would he eat lunch in the cafeteria with the entire school, or in the classroom? Would there be someone to help the children with autism at lunch, or would he be on his own on the playground? It seemed like these teachers wanted to be very sure about letting the little boy move on to a new setting. They discussed how, since this boy was doing so well at Renaissance and was probably capable of succeeding at the home school, he should be given the chance to do so, but at the same time, he'd still need a lot of support and they wanted him to have it no matter where he went to school. I've seen situations where teachers were eager to convince a prospective new teacher that a student was ready to transition, because they just wanted one less student to worry about. This was definitely not the case here! The teachers felt like the boy's future success in a new classroom was as much their responsibility as his past success in their classroom had been.


I no longer feel nervous or worried about doing my observations at Renaissance School. In fact, I've added this school to my list of prospective schools to send my resume to, once I graduate. I guess the moral of this story is, never believe anything you hear about a school, until you see it for yourself.