Well allrighty then....

I found out this morning I'll be teaching fourth grade. I can't wait! I've already been to Teacher Heaven and started my loading up of stuff that I just have to have. I even sprung for a new EZ Grader as my old one was about fifteen years old!  I'm gearing up to research fourth grade activities and hit up Half Price Books for new additions to my classroom library. So, I guess this closes this blog for now....

A guided reading lesson and a faux pas

  

Yesterday, I was transported back to working with children...for twenty minutes. It went something like this:

I pulled out a bucket first.

Then, I asked the children (all newly minted incoming second graders) what they thought we would read about...."the beach?" "sand" "finding sea shells?" Ahhhh, that led to the next item....

Enough information? No, not yet. I warned them that the next thing might be a little scary........

 Yikes! What is that?! "A scorpion?" (We definitely live in the Texas hill country.) "A crab?" " A lobsterd?"
No, not a scorpion, a crab or a lobster.  One more thing might help and I showed them something like this...

"Ummmm, it's a lobsterd house?" (Sorry, I thought lobsterd was too cute.)
No, lobsters have their own but someone doesn't.....




  Aaaaaah! Now we know...Hermit Crab!

We went on to check out the guiding questions on the back of the book....to differentiate between fiction and non fiction.....and I introduced new vocabulary like marine....nocturnal....(which they already knew and I was so jazzed at that!) and pincers and calcium. That led to a review of the " c followed by e,i or y is soft and makes the s sound". Then came my gaffe....marine. Normally a vowel consonant e means the e is silent and the vowel says it's name...which I pointed out...except, marine is a rule breaker because it's a french word. Well, dang. Maybe in french the i says e? No, it doesn't there either. Oh well, we moved on after I corrected myself and got into silent reading while I went around to listen to each child individually.

Observing one little guy felt like a trip back in time to my daughter's early elementary years. Some reversals and many guesses. As an avid reader, I want ALL children to look to books as great adventures, not huge obstacles to wade through. He's at a great school though and I know he'll get (probably already is) the interventions he needs to be a fluent reader.

The very brief extension activity was to pass out baggies with foam stickers, a shell, photos of hermit crabs and a foam "post card" after discussing the title Hermit Crabs: Robbers of the Deep, having them come up with a new title. Over way too soon.

Normally, I would have had multiple opportunities to observe and assess my students reading levels, aptitudes and interests. For this time, I just went with a thematic book based on the fact that it's summer. A great website for downloading leveled books (by grade, ex: this was 1.4) all the way up into high school, I recommend http://www.learningisland.org/  .   A great way to expand your classroom library and provide for those students whose level is behind or beyond the grade level they're in.

One of many great questions.....

How would you determine that your students understood the concept you were teaching (in Science)? What would you do if a number of children didn't have mastery? What would you do if the whole class obviously had already gotten the concept and you'd just introduced it?

One major thing I think of as far as science is you're going to probably get dirty! Science just begs to be hands on. I use a rubric, which is shared with the students before they begin, whenever projects are assigned. They need to know what they have to do in order to achieve the best outcome. Sometimes, there simply has to be paper work. More often than not though, hands on projects/activities give me a better picture of how well the child has grasped the concept. Through discussion, their insights come through and by using teacher observations, this enables me to get a very clear picture of what they know and to suggest where to go from there on extensions of the idea.

As for kids that struggle with the concept. I will not hesitate to come up with another or two or four or whatever it takes, activity that might appeal to their particular learning style. For some, that might be looking at a video on the computer about the concept, they need to see it before they can do it. For others, maybe it's a topic that they need to read more about in "kid speak" so that it makes sense to them.

What if the whole class shows mastery and I've just introduced the concept? Let the fun begin! We'd be able to go right into extensions/ enrichment activities and possibly even build on that concept to include related ones.

Just what kind of colleague are you anyway?

There is something I've told my students that rings true for teachers as well. Our kids are with each other more of their awake hours than with their own family. Be it before school, walking and watching at playground duty, at lunch or after school, these adults are our daytime family. They are the only adult voices you're going to hear during the school day usually except for parent volunteers. And, They.Get.It.  They know what it's like to experience that high of witnessing a child experience their own eureka moment and the low of having a child give up.  We share about our personal families, commiserate when the kids have been stuck inside for indoor recess for a week due to rain and raid each other's ideas.




Cathy was the other third grade teacher at St.Gabriel's. We both were part of the founding faculty when the school opened. I know that when my new principal told me that the other teacher had taught in Catholic schools for twenty three years, I was basically prepared for nun shoes and someone who would insist on things being done the "old" way. I couldn't have been more wrong! Quiet yet what a dry wit! She was heaven to work with! These days, she's retired and taking care of her grandson while her daughter and son in law work.
Cathy and Percy, her husband, are our son's godparents. While I was teaching at St. Gabriel's, we traveled to Ukraine to adopt him.

 I worked with these folks at Koennecke. It took a little while for us to learn each others style and personality. As you can see though, we got pretty comfortable. Keith is now a middle school band director.  Nothin' quite like being woken up by tuba! And yes Keith, it was about 6:30 a.m. and the walls were vibrating between the cabins!

 Betsy and Angela, two of my Steiner Ranch Elem. cohorts, at our daughter's wedding in 2006. We started at the same time...survived the high ropes course (I was the first to climb that 50 foot pole and jump off at Newks only because I knew if I watched others, I'd chicken out!) We were three of the six who had a second grade lock in to raise funds for CAMP camp http://www.campcamp.org/   which my own daughter had been to years before. How I ended up staying the night with the boys from two classrooms, I'll never know! But I'm sure if you talked to those kids now as high school sophomores, they will tell you we raised a lot of money for CAMP by reading and even had the Round Rock Express mascot come to read (or at least nod and make motions while I read for him because dogs don't read.) Even more importantly, they could tell you about our field trip to CAMP where they experienced a temporary disability for the obstacle course. Except for my Caleb who uses a head array to propel his wheelchair and to communicate...he was our inspiration to choose CAMP camp for our grade level pay it forward project.

This is Lisa, an Aggie through and through, she agonized with me while waiting to see if we would be blessed with another child, this time by open adoption. She comforted me when the first two matches fell through and drove with us as the videographer to Waco to meet our new daughter, Hannah. She and her husband Wiley, are Hannah's Godparents. It's pretty fitting that Hannah took her first steps to Aunt Lisa.

I guess what it comes down to is that as educators, we are community, we are family.

TAKS.....the only four letter word allowed in school!

 I can tell you that amongst the middle school set the acronym stands for:


Torturing
All
Kids 
Severely   

                          (No, this is not torture but it's the closest thing I could find.)

 


It shouldn't and doesn't have to be that way. I certainly have not created the idea that teaching test taking strategies and skills can be tolerable and even fun. Learning testing skills can be fun.
It's like Mary Poppins and the spoonful of sugar. There is not one child I've ever taught that would have been on their knees begging,"Oh please, Mrs.G., just one more lesson about inferencing...please?"  But, you let them think they're in on some big conspiracy, like maybe there's this person, who happens to live in the basement in downtown Austin where they create the TAKS tests (that came from a child, not me) and whose sole goal in life is to trip kids up by making one answer choice that is pretty close but not exactly right. And, this person thinks we don't have the skills we need. What's that you say? Oh, you know all about the most logical wrong answer? You know how to cross out and circle your proof and check your topic sentences?  Well, I guess this class is just too smart to fall for those tricks, huh? 

One year I had a student named K. She was very competitive and her inner warrior could not stand the thought that anyone could possibly think she'd fall for their sneakiness. Well, she didn't. In fact, when the scores came back, she'd earned a perfect score on both reading and math. I knew she was very smart but she'd also taken the longest to take both sections, much longer than even with regular class work. She was pretty confident though when she'd finished and she let me know she'd written plenty of notes to the person in the basement. Here's an example of what she said she wrote," I can't believe you thought I'd fall for that one!"  I do bring K up, (even when I had her little brother ) though not by even first name, to my students as someone who wanted to do their very best and so she took plenty of time to be careful. 

I have found that when you create word problems or grammar exercises with your students' names and things that are popular, it is connectedness that pays off. Again, like any good teacher, I'm not the first to think this up and have no hesitation whatsoever of  "stealing" someone else's idea or sharing my own. We are that village raising these children.

You teach so you can have summers off, right?

If only I had a dollar for every time I've heard that one. If you teach like you should, you will need the summer to recharge, refresh and research for the next year!

Teaching is like rolling several vocations into one. Yes, you're a teacher but you're also a counselor, judge, police officer, nurse,strategist, statistician, event organizer, secretary, researcher, and yes, entertainer. Children today have (some literally) cut their teeth on the remote! The days of the Charlie Brown teacher droning are over (at least they should be).

I was asked about behavior management in my class. I do have alternate things I implement but first you have to plan and deliver lessons that are interesting and exciting. Bored children will do things to occupy themselves so it's up to me to prevent that. Can I "be on" all the time? No, there will always be times for work that has to be done, that isn't entertaining but is necessary. The trick is to provide intriguing lessons frequently so the students know,"Yeah, I have to sit right now and work on this but later, Mrs. G., will teach us something cool."

And food, yep, it's definitely a crowd pleaser.

Welcome, now please give me a job!

It occurred to me that I needed to do something to stand out from the crowd. So, here it is. I've wanted to be a teacher since my own third grade experience with Mrs. Elma Desmuke. She was cutting edge in education before the term was even invented! We were hands-on before hands-on was a buzz word. I don't really remember particular things from my other elementary classes but I remember so many concepts that she made learning all about fun! I have wanted to be THAT teacher since then.


Some examples of how I've worked towards that goal:

Presidential research for President's Day

My students chose a president that they wanted to learn more about. From there, they began research and completed a web quest. Their research needed to include little known facts that would hold their target audiences' attention. They also prepared a "frame" with a "start" button that students pushed in order to bring them to life. The frame was simply a long piece of bulletin board paper with the center cut out and details drawn along the edge that showcased moments in that president's history. Kindergarten, first, and second grade classes along with families were invited to our "Hall of Presidents".

Winterfest, A Celebration of Light is a play I wrote several years ago. It shows  holiday celebrations around the world from October through January. I've added to the play when there have been students whose cultural background was not already in it. (One year, I added the Phillipines, Scotland, England, Kazakhstan and Romania!) My students have performed in the community and other classes have participated as well.

Algebra...it's not just for the big kids anymore! Using a hands-on equations kit, I've had students as young as second grade (they were my PACE math students at Steiner Ranch) love solving algebraic equations! By manipulating the pawns, number die and their balance, it became concrete and they begged to do more. I made sure to share the program with the third grade PACE math teacher so they could continue the next year. http://www.borenson.com/

Wow, talk about Way Back "When"sday!! My second year to teach we were in the former Kress Five and Dime store in Oak Park Mall in Seguin. (Our two 4-6 campuses were being remodeled so over 1,000 4th through 6th grade students were taught in the mall that year.) The gulf conflict was going on and my class wrote Texans Love You letters to share their appreciation and support for our troops.

Sometimes it takes awhile to know if your students "get" the concept you're trying to teach. Preparing for learning about Texas symbols, I shared with the class what the three colors stand for. The students were to use examples in their world that stood for loyalty, purity and bravery. One particular student, Sed, was used by several students but as a symbol of different colors. He happened to be a child who demonstrated positives on a daily basis. I was overwhelmed that six year olds could share their insights so eloquently. And yes, Sed's parents heard all about it!