Tis the Season...Naughty or Nice?

Even though we have only been to school 2 full days this week, it's been quite a stressful one. OEPA was in our school on Wednesday, which was also a 2 hour delay, so the entire school was under a lot of pressure to preform well and when you get 60 totally stressed out people in such a tight space things can get 'sticky.' When the noise levels get elevated, patience levels decrease and often teachers who work well together in normal curcumstances can get a little catty toward each other. I realized this week that these types of disagreements are a typical part of being a professional, and handling them in a professional way is important. The weekend will be a good opportunity for everyone to go home and let the anger and stress settle a bit and start fresh Monday morning, which is when I plan to make up my snowday from Tuesday of this week.

Parent Teacher Conference Reflection

On the Thursday before Thanksgiving Break, Watson Elementary had a Parent Teacher Conference that I attended. At first, I was nervous, just like I am in any new situation, because I wasn't sure what to expect. I had heard "horror stories" from my friends in the Benedum Program about Parent Teacher Conferences gone wrong and didn't want anything like that to happen to me. I wasn't surprised when the first parent that showed up was very attentive, listening closely at everything Ms. Karr had to say, asking questions, and reflecting on their child's academics and behavior. Ms. Karr went over the student's scores on the Unit Tests, gave the parents their child's grades for the first half of the second nine weeks, discussed strengths, and encouraged an effort for improvement. Time seemed to fly by as I sat and, mostly, listened to the conferences, every now and then chiming in with a 'word of wisdom.' I was pleased to have been so welcomed by all the parents in attendence, they all seemed glad to meet me, and eager to help improve their student's grades. All in all, it was a great experience.

Last week of full time teaching!

This is the last day of my last week of full time teaching and as sad as I am that I won't get to spend as much time teaching the children, I am relieved that I will no longer have to deal with the stresses of classroom management. I will admit, if I have learned anything through this fulltime teaching experience, it's classroom management. I still don't have the control I'd like to have, but I have greatly improved since my first week. I realized, pretty slowly actually, that it takes a little bit of 'teacher firmness' or "turning on your crank box" as my mom (who teaches 2nd grade) calls it, in order to keep control. At first, I was a little too soft for this group of students and it was difficult to "crank up" my firmness, but as I did the behavior improved. I still am pretty soft with the students, but I think I have gotten better!

I have finished my action research and I am excited to begin the data analysis process. I was a little bit stressed out about it, until I met with Sharon (thanks for the lovely breakfast). She really helped me get started with the process and helped me see that the data I have is good enough and it does tell me something! It's hard to believe that there are only a few more weeks left of my student teaching semester. It seems like it was just a week ago I was e-mailing Ms. Karr about when I needed to report to Watson. I have really felt like I was a part of this school and I will be sad when this experience is over. However, I won't miss not having any walls! :-)

P.S. We got a new student today and I look forward to getting to know him.

Spelling Scramble

Ms. Karr helped me with a new activity this week to help students learn their spelling words, it's called Spelling Scramble. All the spelling words are written on a piece of paper and given to the students. Each word is outlined with a box. All our words this week have a long a, one of them is face. You have the children find the word face and color it red (or whatever color you'd like). You continue this with all the words until every word is colored a different color. After all the words are cut out, assign each student a partner. With their partner students are to cut the letters of the word called out by the teacher and scramble it up. They then trade placesm unscramble the word, spell it as a class, and glue it onto a sheet of paper. This process is continued until all the words are unscrambled. Unfortunatly this week, we did not get to unscramble all the words because it was our first time so it took a while to get into the groove, however, it was still really fun for the students. They really enjoyed playing spelling scramble and wanted to do it again next week. We have an uneven number of students so one student got to play with Ms. Karr. He had a blast trying to "trick" her. He was spelling the words backwards and watching to see if she could fingure it out. I really like this activity, and so did the children. This is one activity I plan to keep in my mind and use in my own classroom. I love how engaged the students were and how much fun they were having. This is a great lesson to show that the novice teach is a facilitator for all learners because students are up moving around (kinesthetic), the words are color coded(Visual), and they are spelling them out loud(Audio.) Thanks Ms. Karr for the great idea!

I'm On My Way...

I believe it was Paul Simon who wrote the lyrics "I'm on my way, I don't know where I'm going." As we finish up this week, I realize that starting next week I'll have taken over every subject except math. So, I am well on my way to full time teaching. However, I am unsure of what to expect in the weeks ahead. These are the same thoughts I had the very first week, and every week thereafter. I have made it this far, I've had my good days (like when Germaine finially started to understand that the vowel sound in CVC words is in the middle), and I have definitely had my bad days (like when Michael threw up all over the place while Mrs. Karr was taking a note to the office----By the way, I handled that suprisingly well!)
Action Research is well on its way too. When I interview Hayden tomorrow I will have completed my first round of student interviews and so far, I have not seen any sign of the students using quick images, or start with/get to to help them answer number sentences. But they are using the dot configirations to represent numbers!
Yesterday was a difficult day for me. Ms. Karr was working on the 5 year plan so I had a substitute. I have nothing against substitutes, however, the never act as good when a substitute is here as when Ms. Karr is here. The sub kept telling me not to worry about it because this is a tough group, but I frustrates me because I know this group of children can behave and act appropriatly when they want to be. That just never happens to be when there is a sub here.
One last thing before I sign out-- the incident of the skanky sock must be shared! Just before we were about to play tap and clap with our spelling words today, just after we came back in from the bathroom, there appeared a dirty smelly sock underneath Damarian's desk. I would have never noticed had Thomas not raised his hand to ask me, "Where did that sock come from under his desk?" Ask he points to Damarian. I asked Damarian if the sock was his and it didn't surprise me when he said no. I thought to myself, dumb question Ms. Burns, what kid in their right mind would claim this nasty thing. So I did what any 'good teacher' would do. I picked it up and threw it in the trash can. Problem solved! Not another word was spoken about it. Needless to say, there is a kid running around this school somewhere with a skanky, unmated sock!

First Graders Make Me Smile

This morning after we read this weeks story, we were using the sequence cards to retell the story before we took our story test. I said, "Boys and girls I want you to turn to the next page and look at the pictures at the bottom." There was about a 3 second pause before a little voice at the back of the room said, "Whelp, I looked at 'em Ms. Burns." She did what she was told, she looked at them and she was done. I laughed to myself and said, "Great Lilly! Then can you tell me what the picture says happened first? What did the fox and her kit do."


Another funny one! I have a little boy who has problems with pronouncing ch, instead he pronounces them sh. I borrowed his chair to have something to sit on during carpet time. Afterwards, all the students went back to their seats, except for Micheal. He stand there and says to me. "Ms. Burns (he also has trouble with his r's) I need my "shair"" Me, not having any idea what he is talking about replies, "you're share of what honey? I don't know what you are talking about." He points to his chair, which I am still sitting in, and says with more much more force..."No, my shair!" AHHHHHH-HAAAAA......You're chair! :-)

Action Research Begins...

With much help from Ms. Karr and Sarah Steel I finally did get my action research woes figured out. I begin implemting all three of my daily routines this week, as well as my first timed test. Another form of data I figured I could use for my action research is recording what the students say are way to make 30 (or whatever the date is) Today is the 30th so we talked about what we knew about 30, including but not limited to ways to make and write the number. Everyday this week, except Tuesday because it was a planning day, I wrote down what the students told me on a poster and copy it onto my data collection form. I was very surprised today during this part of our daily routine. It started when we were writing 30 tally marks since today is the 30th. We counted by fives up to thirty, I asked the students how many sets of 5 we have, and I wrote 5x6=30 and explained that 6 sets of 5 equals 30. I acted surprised that they just did 2nd grade math and moved on to even or odd. When we got to the "Ways to Make" part of the routine, Tre raised his hand first thing and kept it up until I called on him. When I finally called on him and asked "Tre, what do you know about 30?" He replied, it's five times six. I was very proud of him, because most of the students were saying number sentences like 28+2 and25+5. It goes back to the chapter of Sharon's book that I read about transfer of learning. I experienced it for the first time since my full time student teaching!
Another boy asked why we only have 28 days of school when today is the 30th. I just said, "I wonder" and let him figure it out himself. He finally raised his hand and said, "I know, it's because we only count the days of school when we are in school, but we still count the date even if we aren't." Despite the fact that I had a hard time keeping them from chatting to each other this morning, it was still a good morning message!

This weeks funny story brought to you by...

This weeks funny story brought to you by....

Ms. Karr's first grade students at Watson Elementary.

While introducing our oral vocabulary words for the week, which were tool, service, and career. Ms. Karr read and sang the song "Pet Service" Which is sung to the tune of Yankee Doodle and goes a little something like this: Pam's tool are a brush and comb and scissors and shampoo. Take your pets to Pam and she will clean them up for you.... You get the point. Afterward, Ms. Karr was asking the students if they knew what career Pam has. One little girl raised her hand and said, "Vegetarian?" to which Ms. Karr graciously replied smiling, "No, she's not a vegetarian." The next hand that went up, replied, "She means veterinarian." Ms. Karr says, "No, Pam is not a doctor she just helps people keep their pets clean. I like to take my dog there because she always smells good afterward." The last hand to go up says with confidence, "I know, she's a peterinarian!" It was all I could do, not to to crack up laughing! They sure do have some creative minds.

~Action Research Update~

I'm lost! I cannot find any literature, I cannot think of a way to word my question so that it makes sense, and I'm not 100% sure how I am going to collect data. Observational data is difficult to analyze! Our research briefs are due next week and I have to get it figured out before then. I did ask Ms. Karr if the math series Investigations has any research based information in any of their manuals since I am hopefully doing something about how daily routines in investigations affect students' computational skills!

A few lessons were learned after todays grammar lesson!

This week I taught spelling and grammar for the first time. In spelling we are working words with short i, like six, and in grammar we are learning about the naming parts of sentences. Yesterday we went "fishing" for sentences. The students actually got to go fishing, and each fish had picture of people doing different things. The students were supposed to say a sentence about that picture and share with the rest of the class what the naming part of their sentence is. They were having a blast with this and in no time they were spouting off the naming parts of sentences. So, I challenged them a little and had them say a sentence for me to write on the board and they had to underline the naming part of the sentence. This made them have to recognize what the word looked like instead of just saying it.--a little higher level thinking! I was happy with how this lesson went, but the grammar lesson I did today didn't go as smoothly. The lesson was an activity sheet where the students got to choose a naming part to complete the sentence. For example, ________ is my favorite color, ________ is my favorite day of the week, etc. They were to write their favorite color on the line because that is the naming part of the sentence. Most of the class got frustrated because they didn't know how to spell their favorite color or their favorite day of the week and they gave up. One little boy refused to sound out Sunday, when I wouldn't spell it for him and he almost started to cry. I don't think they got anything out of it, because they were too worried about writing the right word. They didn't finish the worksheet because it was lunchtime. I wish I would have planned something a little different because I feel like the fill in the blank grammar activity sheet was a waste of time.

Week Three Reflection Time

I would first like to say, that now that I've been here for two full weeks (almost three) observing the daily routines I am starting to get the hang of the classroom schedule. I am a lot less overwhelmed about eventually taking over every subject. I am much more confident now about becoming a teacher. I am getting to know the students, and they are getting to know me. However, I am still getting used to the open classroom concept--I hope eventually I will adjust!
I took over my first subject this week, Calendar Math. Calendar Math is a daily routine done first thing in the morning that reviews the calendar as well as important math subjects such as even or odd, patterns, money, and place value. After doing calendar math I realized that I am not bvery good at noticing the students that are not paying attention, they are often in the back. For example, one girl who was sitting in the back of the classroom didn't even know what month it was when I asked her. She raised her hand, I think only because everyone else did, and when I called on her she said, "Ummmm, December?" She couldn't even tell me the month and I was pointing right at the sign that says, September. Afterwards, Ms. Karr gave all the students who were paying attention a ticket, but much to my surprise very few of the students received a ticket. Makes me feel a little sad, because they seemed to pay attention when she was doing calendar. Now that I am aware of it, I will know to look for it. I also think I need to use more enthuasiam when speaking to the students, after all they are first graders!
I get to start teaching grammar and spelling next week and just like last week I am nervous! I wrote my lesson plans this week, all ten of them. It took forever. Sarah, I know you're reading this, but I have to say it...the benedum lesson plan template takes forever! :-) BUT, I do learn a lot when I'm writing them.
Action research? Well, I e-mailed Sharon about maybe finding out how calender math affects students computation skills, but I am not sure about how to get baseline data. Especially since we've done calender math since the very beginning. It also seems impossible to be able to distinguish between what they learn in calender math and what they learn in math instructional time. I am not sure whether it will work out or not, but I would like to do something with math.
I'll end with my funny story of the week! I noticed that Nathan seemed distressed, looking under his desk and in his desk for something. It was affecting his learning because he wasn't paying attention to Ms. Karr, who was reviewing dot configurations, and he is not the type to not listen to the teacher so I tapped him on the shoulder and whispered to him, "Nathan what are you looking for?", to which he replied, "Ms. Burns, I can't find my pencil and it was my favorite one." All I did was smile and point to my ear because his pencil was tucked neatly behind his. His face lit up with relief that he had discovered 'his favorite pencil.' I was happy to be of assistance!
I think they have been exceptionally good today! Even the talkative ones, Ms. Karr knows which ones, have been better today.

Week Two Blog!

I can officially say I successfully made it through the whole first week (and actually the second)! So I must get myself into the habit of writing this blog on Friday, the last day of the school week instead of the first day of the next school week. Thank goodness I have been keeping my own personal student teaching journal, full of more personal things I don't wish to share with the public, or else I would have forgotten what to write. So far, we have reviewed all the letters of the alphabet, as well as the sounds they make, and numbers 0-10. I am still trying to adjust to the noise of the teachers and students next door. The open classroom concept is quite an adjustment to make if you aren't used to it. I feel like I am talking to loud when I am talking to the students because I am afraid of interrupting the teacher next door. I'd also like to add to this glorious blog that I am both excited and nervous about starting to teach calender math next week. Monday is a holiday, so I get to start on Tuesday which is a little scary. This is going to look like I am sucking up but I'm going to say it anyways because it's the truth. Ms. Karr does such a good job, she's a tough act to follow and I'm afraid I'll be a major fail after the students have worked with her for the past two weeks.
We still have a chatty group of first grade students that cannot seem to sit still in their seats and pay attention. They are getting better, I think they just don't know how to sit quietly in their seats---so Ms. Karr is teaching them. She's also teaching them the correct way to walk down the hallway, use the bathroom, and stand outside the bathroom. That's stuff you don't learn in methods classes that I think is an important part of teaching!
Still lost as to Action Research! Would love to do something with Math because Watson just adopted a new math series. Plus, I have not done action research on math yet and I think it could be interesting. We attended the westtest data analysis meeting and I think math would be a great thing to try and help improve. I am a little worried about the work load it might cause, but then I think back to participant year and think, "that's nothing compared to what I did!"
Funny story of the week. A kid came to school with wearing glasses for the first time this year. I had never seen him in glasses so when I asked him about them his response was a sly, "I got the plastic frames instead of the metal frames because they just looked better on me!" Another priceless moment in a day of the life of me!

:-) First Week As an Intern!

I wrote in my journal after day one of student teaching that the phrase, "Today is the first day of the rest of our lives," just took on a whole new meaning for me. Before they were just the lyrics to a Greenday song, but now they mean so much more. I begin my official student teaching this week and have officially seen what I have in store for the up coming years and I am delighted. I am very excited about the year to come. Excited in an "oh man what's this really going to be like, can I do this, nervous kind of way." I have a great mentor teacher that I know I am going to learn a lot from, and I have a wonder and active, however very talkative, group of first graders that I am going to get a few laughs out of. As a matter of fact, I alread have one to share. One of my little girls whispered to me as she pointed to the eraser on her mechanical pencil, "This is a magic pencil, Miss Burns, because all you have to do is push this button and the lead comes out." I acted surprised, what else was I supposed to do? The moment was priceless! I also have to make a comment about the number of shoes I have tied in the past few days. I wish I had a dollar for ever set of shoes I've tied this week, because then I could buy myself a new pair! :-) I will also admit that spending a FULL day at school compared to 5 hours sure is an adjustment. I might need to go to bed earlier because I am tuckered out, as my mom would say.

Bring one week two!

Artifacts and Characteristics of the Novice Teacher #2

Characteristic #2 states that: "We believe that the novice teacher should be an effective communicator." The articifact that I have chosen to use to represent this characteristic in my schastic teacher homepage we created in Kaye McCrory's Classroom Management class. This homepage is created by the teacher and give parents access to what's going on in the classroom. I like the idea of making this website available to my parents because it allows not only the parents but their whole families to see what's going on in my classroom. They would get daily updates on homework assignments, weekly updates on what's going on in the classroom, as well as reccommendations for books for their students to read. I would also like to add a student spotlight page where I highlight things my students have done exceptionally well! A little motivation for everyone.

Artifacts and Characteristics of the Novice Teacher #3

We believe that the novice teacher should recognize that teaching is a professional, moral, and ethical enterprise, should understand moreal issues and ethical practices in educational environments, and should have developed ethical frameworks which facilitate effective teaching. The artificat I chose to use to represent this characteristic is my Character Education Lesson Plan from our Classroom Management class. I have developed a lesson plan on Citizenship for 6th graders, in which they learn that a good citizen does everything they can to help out their community. In order to illustrate that they are aware of what a good citizen is, they well identify problems in their community such as poverty and litter and write a skit about how to help solve that problem. I think that its important that teachers educate children on how to be ethical and moral, otherwise they might not ever be taught!

Artifacts and Characteristics of the Novice Teacher #8

We believe that the novice teacher should be a reflective practitioner! The artifact I chose to represent this characteristic is the write up for my mathematics task and discussion from Math Methods last semester. The base of this assignment was to plan and execute a math discussion with my class. I had a group of third graders at the time and the task I decided to have the students partake in was unlikely and likely events. I put the students into groups of three where they were instructed to color a blank spinner with at least two different colors and predict which color they would spin more often and test their predictions. Afterwards, we had a class discussion about the how results compared, or contrasted, to their predictions. My write-up consisted of my plan for action as well as my reflections on the task and discussion. I talked a lot about how the reactions I had anticipated were different from the students actual reactions. I reflected on what I thought the students learned as well as what I thought they still needed some help with. I also reflected on what I learned about student mathematical thinking from doing this activity. I had to think carefully about what I did to elicit thinking from the students and what approach I would take next. There were a lot of factors I was forced to consider when planning and implementing this task, and the write up helped me reflect upon and assess what I learned from it.

Artifacts and Characteristics of the Novice Teacher #7

The artifact I chose to represent the Characteristics of the Novice Teacher was my workstations project from Educ 461 with Sylvia Berryhill during the fall semester of '09. The characteristic that I believe this artifact fits best under is characteristic #7 which says A novice teacher should effectively integrate content and pedagogy because it illustrates that we know what to teach and how to teach it. For the assignment we were given several 4th grade CSO's that we had to cover over a two week literacy unit. What we taught was up to us as long as we covered the CSO's provided by our instructor. My workstations project was based around the theme of Native Americans. I chose a different reading skill each day and taught it with some sort of picture book involving the habits and cultures of Native Americans. I also created 10 workstations that fit along with this theme so as to reinforce those skills.