100th Day of School!!!

I'm not going to lie until I began student teaching I definitely forgot about the hype that comes along with the 100th day of school in elementary school. Since the first day of the school year we have been counting up to the 100th day and now, today, it was finally here! My co-op and I had a full day of 100 themed activities.

The students were allowed to dress as if they were 100 years old today rather than wearing their uniform. This is without a doubt an idea that I will be stealing for my own classroom one day. I'm not sure if there is anything cuter than seeing 6 and 7 year olds dressed up as old people.

I brought in a snack for everyone today to go along with the theme, 100 day cupcakes decorated in their school colors! They were definitely a hit! During snack I passed out comparison photos I made for the students of what they look like now and what they will look like when they are 100 years old. Everyone definitely got a laugh and I even had other teacher's ask for the template so they could use it in future years.

The entire afternoon was dedicated to 100 themed stations. At station 1 students had to create a patterned necklace using 100 fruit loops. At station 2 students had to construct anything they wanted to using 100 mini marshmallows and toothpicks. At station 3 students drew a line on a plastic cup where they predicted how much water 100 drops would accumulate to. Lastly, at station 4 students wrote using the writing prompt, "If I had 100 dollars I would buy...".

Surprisingly with all of the craziness the day entailed the students behavior was not an issue whatsoever.

Now onto day 101 tomorrow.

Let's Read

Catholic School's Week has come and gone and it is time to return to a more regular classroom routine starting Monday. It was a fun, but VERY exhausting week. Today the students and faculty participated in Comfy Day, enjoyed a pancake breakfast and spent the afternoon watching a movie in true movie theater style. With all of the exciting activities packed into one day, I must say that none of them were my favorite part. My teacher was out of the classroom most of the day helping and preparing for all of the different activities. Guess who was left in charge....ME! It is such a different feeling when you are the one and only adult in the classroom. I led morning meeting and we took care of the regular Friday tests (spelling and handwriting). We had some downtime so I decided to read to the class. I love reading to children. No matter what book you pick they are so intrigued and focused on the words coming out of your mouth. You can add voices to the characters and exaggerate your expressions and not feel "awkward" doing so.

I read my new favorite children's book: The Day the Crayons Quit. I had seen a lot of advertisements for the book and I knew there was a lot of hype about, but I never actually read it until last week. I must say that I fell in love instantly. Getting my own copy is a must, and I already am looking into purchasing the sequel.

Next we read Fancy Nancy. This is another book that I've seen on shelves and in Scholastic book orders but I never actually read. I must say, I really liked this one too.

Lastly, we read Pirates Love Underpants. My class recently fell in love with this whole series of books. They've been rereading the Dinosaur and Alien versions of the books and I was excited when I found this book in the library because I knew it would be a hit.

I highly recommend these three books if you haven't read them already!

Teachers Pay Teachers

Next week I will be adding more subjects to my teaching work load. I have a system of having all of my lesson plans finished and materials made by Friday of the week before. This week I had a lot of materials to find and/or create. After many recommendations I finally joined Teacher's Pay Teachers. I must say, I can't believe it took me this long. There are such excellent resources and it puts light on a quote of many of my professors "you don't have to recreate the wheel". Besides being able to download and use resources it was a great tool to get ideas. A lot of times I saw something I liked that didn't exactly fit what I was looking for. Luckily I have a background in graphic design and am able to recreate a lot of materials I saw.

One feature I am testing out is selling my materials on the website. I am part of planning and running an upcoming reading night (there will be a future post explaining this more in depth). At the conclusion of the event we are having all of the students play sight word bingo. Today I made a bingo bundle to be used for the event and I decided to list it on Teachers Pay Teachers. I'm hoping other teachers are able to use the document and enjoy it in their own classrooms. It can be viewed at the link below!

https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Sight-Word-Bingo-If-You-Give-a-Mouse-a-Cookie-2370047

2 Grades 1 Classroom

For Day 3 of Catholic School's Week the kindergarten class (which is located in a separate building) came to our school to take part in the day's activities. The students were at our school from 9-1:30 and the first grade classroom was their new "home" for day. Going from a class of 9 to a class of now 26 with all of the additional students was slightly overwhelming. A class of 26 may be fairly average for some schools so it wasn't so much the number of students that I was overwhelmed by. There are actually 2 specific reasons I would like to discuss.

Reason one: Growth Gap

From the beginning of kindergarten to the end of first grade there is astounding growth in a student. When you are with your students daily, it's hard to notice that growth day to day. It is also challenging to think about where they were academically and developmentally a year ago. Well, today I had the opportunity to see (approximately) just how far my students have some in a year. The lack of self-control and independence was what stood out the most to me when it came to developmental growth. The kindergarten students could not resist from getting out of their seats and moving about the classroom; they could not complete their assignments unless an adult was working with them and a small group; they couldn't walk on the stairs one foot at a time, and the list could go on. Academically I was absolutely astonished when comparing the writing samples of the kindergarten class to my first grade less. I was able to see a great example of how much a student's handwriting, sentence structure ,and  letter and word formation develops in just a year. This experience of working with two grades of students at once was a brand new opportunity for me and not something I ever was exposed to before (in a classroom setting). I kept catching myself comparing two students from the two different grades which was unfair. I was holding the kindergarten students to the same level I was my first graders. My class was in kindergarten at one time too. They acted and performed academically just like these students did today. And that is okay! Growth is a part of education.

Reason two: Teaching Styles

I have been in this classroom since August. This is without a doubt the most exposure I have had to one teacher (not counting being a student). I am used to her teaching styles, her classroom and behavior management and her organization. I actually see a lot of myself in her. The kindergarten teacher that joined our classroom today was opposite from my co-op in almost every possible way. That also made the day more difficult. I was used to managing the classroom how my co-op does. When you add 17 children to our classroom, classroom management is that much more necessary. However, you now are managing a majority of students that aren't yours AND that are not used to following any similar type of classroom management. It was a challenging day but it was a great learning experience.

On the upside of thinks; Luckily, I don't think this is a situation I will ever regularly be in.

Routines

As I mentioned in yesterday's post we have a crazy 5 days planned at St. Joe's due to Catholic School's Week. For most students it's their favorite week of the year; games, Wii tournaments, desserts at lunch, programs, and more! However, to fit all of this you could probably gather that our daily routines get slightly mixed up. Some classes are skipped, some are moved from the morning to the afternoon, etc. In your mind you're probably thinking that for students this is no big deal (maybe a little difficult on the teachers for planning reasons) but overall, the students are just excited about the activities.

This is a huge deal for some students. Specifically, students with autism. The autism spectrum is huge so I want it to be known that I am not talking about all students with autism. I'm actually just going to be talking about one, Kendra*.  We only have one diagnosed student at our school. With working with her previously in the year, and talking to her teacher and TSS worker, I knew how crucial a daily routine was for Kendra. As I mentioned before this week does not allow for any type of daily routine. I have been observing her a lot the past two days with how she was adjusting to Catholic School's Week.

I really noticed Kendra struggling. She was very apprehensive to get involved in the interactive dinosaur program today. She also had to keep asking teachers what was going on, what was happening next and when it would be happening. Her peers are very good with helping her out and keeping her on track. She usually is always near them and today I noticed her keeping to herself a lot. During a regular day, something as small as using a different stairwell will get her distracted from anything else going on until she finds out why they didn't use the "usual" stairwell. I can't even imagine the difficulty she is having comprehending all of changes going on this week. I'm hoping next week when we return to regular schedules she will be back on track.



*Name changed

Catholic School's Week

Today was the start of a crazy week at St. Joe's. It's Catholic School's Week! This is a country wide week celebration of choosing a Catholic School as your choice of education. To a public school this is equivalent to a school pride or homecoming week. The week is packed full (no exaggeration) of exciting activities for the students. We have a magician, bingo, crazy hair day, pajama day, and much much more. Not only are the students beyond excited, the teachers are as well.

To begin the week we had an exciting visit from the Bishop. There was a lot of preparation leading up to this visit and today everything finally came together. After everyone returned to their classroom from mass we waited for the Bishop to come do the class visit. Last week as a class the students brainstormed a list of questions they had to ask the bishop. We then narrowed down the list to "what we really wanted to know". This really helped when the Bishop visited today because the students asked previously agreed upon questions. It was great seeing how excited they all were. They could barely stay in their seats.

As far as student teaching goes, this week I added Spelling and Phonics unto my teaching workload. I love the feeling of teaching more and being in front of a class of students.

Lastly, today I hit 500 views on my blog! Thank you to everyone that has been reading and joining in my journey!

Proud

January 29, 2016

Students were assessed in August when school began. January is approximately half way through the school year and it was time to assess everyone again today. My co-op was completing sight word assessments with students today. The goal was to see growth. After each student completed their assessment my co-op showed him/her where they were at the beginning of the school year. Almost every student had the same reaction on their face; "Wow...school really is teaching me something"! However, one little girl's assessment stopped me in what I was doing and I just stood and watched in awe.

Molly* was only on the pre-primer list of the Dolch Sight Words back in August. She is one of our lowest level readers and struggles in Language Arts in general. Her reading has improved, but I don't think I realized just how much it improved until today. This same little girl breezed through the pre-primer words, the primer words, the 1st grade words, the 2nd grade words and half way through the 3rd grade list of words. I can't even explain the overwhelming pride I felt. This is just one of the many reasons why I chose this profession. It is these moments that I am assured that this is absolutely where I want to be.