Mini Residency

Crazy way to start your mini residency..having no school for 3 days and then a nice long holiday weekend. Due to school closure, my mentor and I decided to meet at Shaw and prepare for my mini-residency. We were at school for about 3 hours prepping the classroom, drawing up lesson plans, and deciding what assessments we wanted to do focus on and plan for our field trip.

Overall my mini residency went very AWESOME! Cheri was in and out of the classroom and she said that I have finally got the flow of the school day down. The only thing that I feel I need to work on is clarifying my math lessons. Math Expression doesn't always connect from one lesson to the next as well as the worksheets that we do in class so I am trying to master that. I feel relaxed and not stressed wondering what I am doing right or wrong.

On Wednesday we had a VERY full day. We had the Alaska Children's Choir perform at our school at 9:25a.m., then boarding a bus and leaving school at 10:30a.m.. We arrived at the PAC at 12:00 and enjoyed Click Clack Moo! Such a cute performance and the students really got into the play. Then we were back on buses and at the school at 2:30.

We also had AIMS web testing throughout the week so we had a few interruptions throughout the school day but we managed.

We also started doing some fun holiday craft and the students worked on their fine motor skills.

Thanksgiving celebrations

I realized that having that week off from school I hadn't posted. The week of November 15-19 we had some great Thanksgiving projects. I had the opportunity to make a trash can turkey which was DELICIOUS! You get some tin foil find put it on the hard ground, put a metal post in the center. Open up four cans of chicken broth around the fork, put the turkey through the fork and then place a metal trash can over it. (I forgot you have to dig a little hold under the foil to put coals.) You let the turkey cook for about 2-3 hours and you have the best turkey!

The kids had such a blast observing and watching the process for one of the centers that day. We accidentally set off the fire alarm so we were able to get November's fire drill out of the way! hehe Having us go in and out of the custodial doors to observe and check on it with the cold air coming in set off the sensor even though we were over a 100 yards away.

We made a very sweet turkey and the kids were very HAPPY thankful!

We also made little Indians and pilgrims. They turned out so cute!

We had them take a feather home and decorate it with things that their families enjoy and what they are thankful and we made a big family turkey on a bulletin board!

I am so very THANKFUL for my students and great staff to work with!

Call Backs

This week we have been busy doing call backs. Our students get out of school at 2:00pm and we started an afternoon intervention on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday where we focus two days on letter recognition, rhyming, and letter sounds and one day on math. It's been going very well and it's really exciting to see the light bulbs go off for these students. The students that are staying later to catch up have adjusted well and have enjoyed learning with our FUN center rotation.

I enjoyed watching myself do two video lessons. I got some ideas on how I can better communicate to students and clarify what I am asking of them. I subbed once this week and got the feel of taking over before my mini residency. On Tuesday the Kindergarten team had an hour meeting with our Literacy coach, where we talked about our students that have not made benchmark, who we need to keep and eye on and how we plan on transitioning to full day Kindergarten after winter break! We also went and observed one 1st grade teacher, one 3rd grade teacher, one 4th/5th split teacher, and one 5th grade teacher teach for 5 minutes. We observed other staff members and reflected on their teaching style, got ideas from them and got to see how other teachers at Shaw teach. While I was subbing I got observed by five staff members during my calendar corner/literacy lesson. When I saw them walk into the classroom and begin observing I got really nervous but the five minutes that they spend observing went fast and I got all of their observation notes back with GREAT reviews and words of encouragement on my teaching style!

I am excited for tomorrow because we are having a mini feast where we are baking a "trash can

turkey" and all of the fixings with the entire Kindergarten staff. I have never heard of it nor seen it so pictures will come next week...we are literally cooking a turkey in a trash can outside under some coal.

Here are some pictures of my students during choice time:

These boys were able to use all of our blocks to make a HUGE tower!!! Young engineers!!!

Colton was using the Promethean board to draw a picture. I love how the kids are learning and using our amazing technology!

Hardest Week...

Last Wednesday I went to school anticipating a great day with my class but was blindsided with the worst news. A early morning house fire took the life of a sweet young Kindergartner at our school, Hayden Martin. He was in the classroom next to ours and I have had the pleasure of getting to know him. The one thing that I love about Shaw is that all three Kindergarten classes collaborate together all week long with many activities, allowing us to get to know all 55 Kindergarten students at our school. Hayden was a bright young boy who loved every part of school. The story has been all over the news, ADN.com and the frontiersman but the house fire is still under investigation. I hope that the truth of it all will come to rest and people realize the true loss of this 6 year old boy.
I am starting to come to peace with it all, but have many emotions of anger, sadness, and happiness knowing that he is in a better place. Our school is dealing with it very well and only making us a stronger community. Hayden is now an angel watching over all of us with his big smile and a twinkle in his eye. I am so happy and at peace knowing that school is the one thing that brought him happiness everyday and that is because of his AMAZING teacher and school.
R.I.P Hayden



On a brighter note....we had a Math-a-thon Assembly where the entire school came together to celebrate our highest earning year ever. Instead of selling wrapping paper, candy, and gits our school does a Math-a-thon where children ask for pledges to improve their math learning and better themselves. The money earned from each student and class will go half to their class and half to their school to cover costs of field trips, assembly performers, game nights, pizza parties...the list gos on. Our school as a whole collected almost $11,000!!! Our class was the top Kindergarten classroom collecting $425 in pledges!!! The children that collected $30 or more were put in a raffle where over 150 prizes were bought to give to the highest earners and all other students. The BIG surprise for the assembly was that we rented SUMO costumes and our staff had some friendly competitions. The kids LOVED cheering on teachers and watching them fall, run each other over and having difficult getting up. It was a really nice way to end our hard week.

Field Trip and Conference

Last week was so busy but so much fun. We took the entire Kindergarten to a local Fire Station for our first field trip of the year. They gave us a tour of the station, allowed students to go inside the fire engines and ambulance. It was really cool to see how excited the students were to see their hometown hero's. I feel that seeing a firefighter and medic show techniques to fire safety and the how to keep yourself and others safe from fire. They also got to watch an Elmo safety video so they loved that.


Thursday we had conference from 8am-7pm, and Friday we were at school from 8:12:30 where we got ready for Quarter 2 and our Kindergarten team got together to plan for the quarter as well. It was a super long day but we had 17 wonderful conference. I was so happy to see every students family participate and understand how important their children's education is. I had my list of things that I came up for each student and I really felt a part of the conference and that my input was important. About three conferences in my mentor teacher said how about you run this conference as the parents walked it...I jumped right in and ended up doing the majority of the conference with Cheri's input at times as well. I really enjoyed the entire process and feel that I am ready for my own at one point. We had some difficult conferences with some parents not addressing their students struggles but it was all handled wonderfully. Today we began call backs where we have students stay later from 2-3:30 Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursdays to get children to meet benchmarks and improve their math and literacy skills. I am going to do the math assessments on Wednesday afternoons so I am excited to see what that in tells.

I am excited to see what Quarter 2 will bring!!!

Homework???

I think that homework can be positive and negative. I have seen a lot of teachers assign homework on material they have never covered in class and expect students to know how. Then I have also seen wonderful homework packets sent home that give children a choice to expand their knowledge on material they have learned in the classroom. I think that homework should not be busy work. That's a waste of time and is only going to give the children and parents a negative outlook on homework. The Kindergarten staff at Shaw send a homework pack home every Monday with four sheets of reading/writing and four sheets of math. We ask parents to not make the students sit and do it all at once but work on it through out the week. Some kids might get frustrated after a page or two and we always say STOP and work on it the next day. We allow feedback every week on the packets letting us know if its too easy, just right or needs more instruction. It helps us get a good look at what children are comprehending and not during the week. We collect them on Friday and give them a new packet on Monday.

At the end of last week we did some fun centers making rip art candy corn and pumpkins. The class had a blast and loved eating their candy corn's after.


Today in class one of our high readers sat in front of the class and read to us. Cheri and I were so impressed with him. He is such a SMART SMART boy.


Tomorrow we have a field trip to the FIRE STATION. The kids are super excited. Once we get back to school we will have lunch, calendar, and then have a FALL HARVEST! I am super excited for our FUN day.

I am also looking forward to TEACHER CONFERENCE. I think it will be a wonderful eye opener and learning experience. Today we reviewed what we are presenting to them in regards to benchmarks, AIMS assessment and material we have collected during the first quarter to present to them. I am also excited because this will be a perfect opportunity for me to get a lot of my School Community Project materials collected!

HAPPY CONFERENCE AND HALLOWEEN!!!

What's new...

Last week and this week has gone by so fast. We finished up Quarter one and are making sure all our assessments are finished and getting everything entered in the computer for grades and having things organized for conferences. It was need being able to get on the computer and put my input in in regards to where each student is at socially(1,2, 3).

We are fortunate to have the Alaska Avalanche Hockey team volunteering their time in our class once a week for 2 hours. The student have loved having them help us with benchmarks, reading and centers. I was really impressed how one hockey player was able to help an ELL student break out of her shell and laugh so much with a strong male role model.

We also did some fun scarecrow art, started literacy centers, and math games. It was so fun seeing them learn but have so much FUN with these activities.

I subbed today for my teacher and will be subbing on Thursday. I ran into some problems with one of my literacy lessons and my entire math lesson. Luckily my mentor teacher had stepped in to the classroom during those two times that she wasn't filling in for the principal and helped me out a lot. Once students left for the day she sat down with me and brainstormed how I can fix those things I ran into and help me not feel the need to use literacy and math curriculum books word for word and choose what works and makes since and what I could tweak! I felt a little bad about how the math went, but I realized how to improve Thursday. I also realized that I am learning and will eventually master TEACHING!!!

Quarter 1

This week we have been moving right along with rhyming, letter sounds, and learning equal and not equal. I am shock to think that next Friday, Quarter 1 ends. A quarter of the way to the finish line! ;)

I am starting to notice how much the students look at me as "their" teacher. I love coming into the class and the students come up to meet with big smiles and say where have you been or that they are happy to see me. I am so lucky to have these 18 students appreciate and trust me as their teacher.

During our weekly staff meeting, I received recognition from a sped aide that is in our classroom during the entire day. She informed the entire schools staff how I have gone over and beyond in the classroom in helping the sped students feel welcome and caring for each individual students needs. I was shocked but it really felt AWESOME!!!

My mentor teacher had to help the principal this afternoon so for the last 2 hours of the day I had the classroom to myself. Karen came in and observed me teach a lesson plan and I was really happy with how the lesson went and with the students listening to me without my mentor teacher there.

Here is the class learning how to use equal and not equal equations on the Promethean board.
Here is a student doing a journal entry.

Transitions

Our students are finally getting into the swing of our Kindergarten routine. We have a lot of aides in our class, so they help children get on tasks during transitions along with us. When things are getting super hectic, we turn the lights office and the children put their hands on their heads and look to us for instruction. We have an amazing class, so we haven't faced many problems. We have the occasional student wondering the class or distracting other students but that is normal for Kindergartners. When transition to our specials, lunch, bathroom, or recess we always sing this song while children are lining up in ABC order:

My hands are right beside me

I'm standing very TALL
My eyes are looking straight ahead
I'm quiet through the halls!

On Tuesday my mentor teacher was filling in for our principal so she had a substitute. The substitute and I worked really well together and she let me take over pretty much the entire day. I really got the feel of how the day ran without Cheri to guide me. I feel like I am right on track in regards to what I should be doing and learning.



We had MAP testing this week so that took some time. It was interesting to see how each child did when faced with a computer and no teaching on how to do each question. It was upsetting to a few but overall I was impressed on how these five year old handled themselves in a computer lab and with a computer test.

I also got some great documentation of my two literacy mini-case studies. I have one emergent and one beginning reader/writer.



We are finishing our week with a huge Johnny Appleseed celebration tomorrow. We will be making apple sauce, apple pie, dried apples and more. Should be a fun day of APPLES!!!

Middle of September already...

This week has been super busy. We started the week with a bus safety assembly where the students learned all about bus safety and got a visit from "Buster". It was so cute seeing the faces of the students when Buster talked to them and showed them the safe and dangerous things on and off the bus.

Our class has been doing really well learning high frequency words and writing their names properly. I am surprised to see the progress in many students writing from the first day of school to now. The class is ding well with most routines and we are beginning to get a great group of learners and soon to be READER'S!

I have been thrown on the spot and done calendar, big book reading and small group work in math.

All though I feel like I am a little lost or overwhelmed I have to remind myself that I am learning and it will take many many years to be so smooth and wonderful as my mentor teacher!

Professionalism

Definition of Professionalism:

When it comes to professionalism, teachers have to balance connecting with students and projecting a professional image. In addition, teachers have greater ethical concerns than many other professionals, and also have to maintain standards on their required testing and certification.

Professionalism is very broad and differs for every profession. Teachers especially have to present themselves in an appropriate clothing attire, proper manners, and be aware of their actions. We as teachers have the responsibility of our students and their future. We have to make sure that we honorable and fair in every situation. I'm a VERY organized person, so I believe you have to be organized to keep a good professional classroom running.

I also read a few articles on Teacher Professionalism and I feel like these three characteristics sums it all up very nicely!

Teacher professionalism contains three essential characteristics, competence, performance, and conduct, which reflect the educator’s goals, abilities, and standards, and directly impact the effectiveness of teaching through the development of these qualities.

Literacy Experiences

Today I had some time to check out the classroom library. I had a hard time finding 10 new books to read. I love children's books, and find that I keep adding to my own person library. After reading these new one's, I found some more books that I needed to purchase.

We had some extra time last week, so the class got to take a bucket of books to a quiet place. They all were taught how to properly take care of our books. It was really interesting how each child read/flipped through their books and how the comprehended their books.

I have noticed the children getting better about not interrupting, staying on task, and remembering out daily classroom routine. During the first week at school we had the class make a drawing and we wrote the sentence to what each student did to get ready for school. Jillian raised her hand and waited for Mrs. Mattson to call on her. Jillian said, "I hugged my mom before I left for school. " It was nice to see that Jillian thought of her mom because her mom had been sick during the prior week and she was worried about her mom while she was gone. Then Jillian went back to her desk and made a picture of her hugging her mom, and I wrote her sentence at the top. We attached all the children's pages and made a class book. Mrs. Mattson also used the Promethean board to show Jillian how to write it. Jillian also had the chance to use the Promethean board, which was funny watching the kids write on this BIG computer/white board.



We started reading Pickled Pepper in class today. Mrs. Mattson explained to the class that good readers look at the pictures to know what our story is about. On the front of the cover Savannah raised her hand and said, "A mouse in a house. That rhymes!" She was so excited and it was great to see that Savannah was looking at the pictures and finding words that rhyme. Once we opened the book to sing a short song, Lauren noticed that the girl on the right side of the page was the same girl under the teapot on the left side of the page because they had the same pants on. I love seeing children figure out these small things.

Welcome KINDERGARTEN

This past week the Kindergarten team, teacher aides, and I had a very productive two days doing roll-in with the students. We tested the Kindergarten students on their fine motor, gross motor, speech, and academic knowledge. I had the opportunity to test students on fine motor, gross motor and academic. It was amazing to see how different each student's though process and style of learning was. I felt this was a great opportunity for me to see what is expected of these children when they enter Kindergarten. After our two successful days of roll-in, we were able to assess our students and prepare us for our first day of school.

The first day of school went SO smoothly. (Almost too smoothly according to Cheri!) Although we have many ELL students and a few Sped students, our students are mostly high flyers. I was so happy to see how excited these students were to learn.

Here is a list of some literacy experiences in the classroom:
calendar, library, colors and shapes, centers, labels on cabinets, lunch charts, and songs.



I had the opportunity to read Miss Bindergarten Get's Ready for Kindergarten by Joseph Slate. After reading this story to the class, we reflected on our fun story. I asked the students what they liked about this story. Then we did a mini literacy lesson on, what each student did to get ready for their first day of Kindergarten. After we wrote down a sentence for each students morning, we had the students go to their table and draw a picture to match their sentence on how they got ready for Kindergarten. We then wrote the sentence on their papers and made a book out of all our their drawings and put it in our class library.

African Children's Choir

On August 24th, The African Children's choir from Kenya and Uganda performed at our school. The Choir created a unique theatrical production incorporating their native dance and song. It was amazing to see these children perform. They were so happy to spread the gospel and their love for education and how our children should be so thankful for a free education.

I loved their performance so much, that I took my children the next nigh to see them perform at a local church in Wasilla.

Truely inspiring!!!

You can learn more about them at www.africanchildrenschoir.com.

STUDENT TEACHING 2010-2011

This week I became one step closer to my goal of becoming a teacher. I am embarking on my year long internship at Shaw Elementary School with mentor teacher, Mrs. Cheri Mattson.

Yesturday, I had the opportunity to meet with Cheri at Shaw Elementary and start setting up our Kindergarten classroom. We moved furniture around, made our bulletin board, hung up numbers and started brainstorming our centers. It made me feel right at home when Cheri asked for my opinion about everything in "OUR" classroom.

I am so eager to meet my future students!!!