Valentines and Snow Dragons!

I just wanted to share a few images from the past couple of weeks. :-D



Valentines from my students:

 Then later in the week, two of my girls brought me a flower.

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It snowed a lot last night. Sadly it all melted by the end of the school day. Also all the other school districts but ours were closed. I guess I can't say that we close with a sneeze of snow anymore. I found some local snowmen artists.

I call this next one (from a different house) "Death of a Snowman". Yes, those silhouettes are there all year round. I've got no idea why they have them up, but ... blech.

This final one is very cool. When I saw it from a distance, I thought it was a snow unicorn (which also would have been spiffy). Snow dragon!! Snow dragon says "Rawr!".

Until next time: Take care and have fun!
LadyGrace

Spring Fever, Lockdown, and Student Work

     My mind has been on Spring lately. The weather here has been such a tease. The sun coming out and the temperature warming up one day, and the rain, clouds, and wind coming back with full force. It is funny watching my students try not to be distracted by the weather outside. Sun or rain.

     Thursday before last it was particularly difficult to keep them on task because we had a full on lockdown of the school. They wanted to know what was going on and if there was any scary person in the halls coming to get them. We had to explain that they were safe and we were very confident that nothing bad was happening. We reminded them of a previous lockdown where we couldn't let the kids out due to a chemical accident and air impurities from a factory not to far away.

     When we locked our doors and closed the blinds it was a nervous moment. I'll admit I had a moment of fear trickle down my back accompanied by images of Thurstan High and other school shootings. Working in a title one school we have some pretty tough kids. I doubted that any of them would do something terrible, but then so did the other teachers of the kids who did.

     Turns out my fears were for naught. Though I did text my husband to let him know what was going on. What really happened was some crazy guy on drugs was walking down the sidewalk on the other side of our fence..... wait for it .... completely nude. It was very cold outside, even though the sun was shining and there weren't any clouds to be seen. The brilliant blue sky making for an interesting contrast to the cold temperature. At any rate the guy was collected very shortly by the police.

     When the lockdown ended and we opened our blinds we were greeted by the scene of four police cars, two cruisers and two SUVs kitty corner to our classroom. Apparently they weren't quite done with whatever they were doing. I didn't notice them at first, but when I saw that some of my kids kept looking out the window, I grew concerned. So I looked out too. Next to the police cars were about six police standing around in someone's front yard looking down. At that point I grew proactive and closed the blinds again.

      Thank goodness the police around here are on top of things. OH and I guess none of our students saw the naked man, only a few of the aides who had been outside on recess duty for some kindergartners. The second they saw the man they pulled the kiddos inside, pretending that recess was over.


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     On the teaching math front... my kids have been doing fairly well. Though one of two of them don't seem to be getting it at all. It seems like no matter how carefully I teach and reteach the concepts these kids don't get it. I'm planning on some one on one time this next week to hopefully address some of their issues.

   I was extremely proud of the kiddos during my quilt block perimeter lesson. They turned out some nice paper quilt blocks. I plan to glue them together on some butcher paper for a display piece that the kids can be proud of.

    I am particularly fond of the one that looks like an evil beaver with red eyes and red teeth. Turns out it is supposed to be a hamster, according to the artist. The other one I really love is the blue and red one with the funny eyes.

     Then last Thursday I had the kids do an area assignment using Cheez-It's as the unit of measurement. The assignment went over really well. They were all engaged in the lesson and excited about the crackers. My TAG student got super excited over my challenge to the class, which was to find out how many crackers it would take to cover their entire paper. For the record the answer is 93.5 Cheez-Its. Only my TAG kiddo figured out, and he was shaking with joy as he brought over his paper to show me the solution he had figured out. I'm very proud of him.


     Here are some shots I took of the kids working with their Cheez-Its. I only show their paper and their hands to protect their identities and rights.

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     I'm nearly done with my unit and my time in S elementary. I'll miss the kids. I've gotten to know some of them very well, and grown attached to all of them. I've already started going to my new school L elementary. I've started to go there on Fridays, so that I can get to know the group of kids that I will be doing my full time teaching with. These kids are very different from my S elementary kids. The big difference being $$$. L elementary isn't a title one school, so the population and attitudes of the students are very different. More on that later.

   I'm really going to miss my S elementary kids. It is something I'll have to get used to though. Growing to love the kids, to know them well. Then letting them go each year. Part of the price of being a teacher I suppose. I know that some of them will come back to see me from time to time. At least I hope they will. I'll want to know that what I did made a difference in their lives. Just like my teachers made a difference in mine. I may not have always gotten along with my previous teachers, but they almost all of them made a positive impact on my life. What more could a teacher hope for?


Take care and be well,
LadyGrace

Roller Coaster Week

   

  This was a hard week for me. Between a personality conflict with my cooperating teacher and the amount of homework for my college classes. Emotionally this week has been a veritable roller coaster. I think that Monday was the worst day. I thought that I had been doing fairly well in the classroom. But somehow Mrs. T got it into her head that I was “without joy” and not really happy being in the classroom.

When she said it to me, it came out of nowhere. It felt like a lightening strike, or an explosion. It is amazing how much a few words can truly hurt. Essentially she was calling into question or asking me to question if I really want to be a teacher. She made me so angry and hurt my feelings deeply. This woman, whom I looked up to, just ripped part of the curtain of my dream.

     I guess she misread my body language and intent. I'll admit that I'd been a bit wishy washy, but only because I was unsure of the boundaries in the classroom. Mrs. T is a very intimidating person. She is great with the kids, but perhaps not so much with adults. I guess she had expected me to take over or try to take over her classroom, and was disappointed that I had not. If I could have I'd have taken over teaching all day, everyday, but unsure of what was OK or not OK with her, I held back. This is after all my part time teaching term.

 

      Also it is her classroom, and I am a guest in her classroom. So my attempt to be polite backfired into something else.Yeah... I have a serious expression often, when I am not up in front of the kids teaching. I take my student teaching very seriously. I'm busy trying to learn, to gain knowledge of techniques for teaching.

      It wasn't right for her to say the things she did, the way she did. Especially when she told me that I'm not connecting to any of the students. That statement right there just about made me turn into the Hulk.

      So Tuesday, my day of college classes was really tough. I had this miasma of self doubt and disappointment hanging over my head. The feeling and thoughts of “What is the point?”. I had let Mrs. T's rancor into my head and heart. It was like I was poisoned.

      I guess I just really wanted her approval, her thumbs up. Not getting it was painful, and felt like a failure, or disappointing one of my own parents.

     I talked to advisers on Tuesday, and we decided my full time teaching should be done elsewhere. I was reminded by my professors that I am going to be a great teacher. I was sent down memory lane to the compliments from past professors. I was reminded of my good grades. Of all the effort I've put into my dream of becoming a teacher.

      I've wanted to be a teacher since probably the third grade. I've got proof too... a writing assignment that asked me and my fellow students to write about what we wanted to be when we grew up. It has always been a teacher. Though I did pull the freshmen uncertainty movement where I briefly considered other options like History, Art, and even Psychology. After deciding for sure that teaching was it... I finally plunged face first into college full time to do it.

      But I digress. Wednesday morning was just as awful as Monday afternoon. I tried to explain myself to Mrs. T. She had me in tears again. Though she hasn't seen a one. I'm proud of not tearing up in front of her. Essentially I tried to tell her she was wrong (in a nice way) about me. I told her that if I could I would take over he classroom. That I'm happy to be there. That I want to teach. That I love the kids. That I've got connections to them. They haven't been hanging around me because I keep telling them to go back to their desks.

      My friend in the resource room got the crying me for a little, while I waited for copies of a worksheet for my Math lesson later in the day. She calmed me down, and told me if things don't get better to talk tot he principal. I told her I would.

     I never talked to the principal. Mostly because I didn't want to do to Mrs. T what she did to me. Also because I felt it was an issue between the two of us.

      Something happened to Mrs. T between her last bit of yelling at me and me coming back from making copies. Perhaps she had realized that she had been to harsh on me, or had misread me, or misunderstood me. Whatever it was... I came back to our classroom to a different person with a different attitude. It was a turning point of sorts.

      Sadly I didn't notice the change in Mrs. T because I was concentrating on not letting the students see how angry I was. I turned my anger in to energy and bounced around with more energy than usual while I taught our Big Five lesson. (A short math lesson focusing in small reviews of mathematical skills the students know/need to know.) When I was done with the lesson I came back to two hot pink sticky notes on my desk.

Derald (my husband) got to deal with my negative attitudes, and did his best to remind me that I will be a good teacher.

      Thank you, all of you. My self confidence really appreciated the booster shots. <3 I love you guys.

      The rest of my week has been pretty good and productive. Knowing that I'm going on a small trip to visit friends and family about an hour and a half or so away I've been working hard towards getting my homework done in advance, as well as getting the apartment cleaned up.

      I will miss my students from Mrs. T's class when I switch to another school and teacher for my full time teaching in March. I've grown attached to these kids, and their little quirky personalities.

      One of my students, Liz, even made me an early Valentine’s Day card. Funny thing is she gave Mrs. T one, after she gave me mine. /laughs

     Before I leave in March, I think I'll write a letter to these kids, to tell them thank you for teaching me so much. I think I've learned more from them than I have in a lot of my college classes about education.

      I hope they like my Valentines for them. I love Batman, so I bought a box of Batman Valentines. Instead of using the dumb heart stickers that came with it (heart stickers for Batman cards confused me) I used some of my Batman stickers to close the Valentines. I also bought a package of erasers to give out to the kids. I've noticed that most of them don't have any eraser left on their pencils. They wear them out so quickly.

Maybe I'll make the kids some banana bread too. None of them have any allergies... I'll double check that with Mrs. T. 

Well I suppose I've rambled on long enough and distracted myself long enough from my final reading assignment for this week.