So many fun ideas

One of the hardest things I do is edit. I have dozens of crazy fun ideas for every lesson that I teach. Keeping them organized so that I can use them, reflect on them and polish them is crazy hard! I've gone digital and thank heavens for that. I try to keep them sorted by topic and grade but even that gets wonky. Pictures help and hopefully over the years I will be able to finally find a good system.

This weeks search, find about 30 pairs of plastic glasses. I will be having my class use a rubric and wearing the glasses to "see with an editors eyes". Looking for errors and places to strengthen their writing.

Now, off to plan another week!

It's a hit!

Well teaching grid coordinates, Idaho history, and team work was a complete success with Battleship Idaho. I was delighted to see my class get so envolved with finding lakes, mountians, and natural geological features that they zipped through a 30 minute block in the blink of an eye.
One of the easiest lessons I've done so far.

Next two weeks are short ones so I'm going to do readers theater with this class. I think they really work well when they can "do" the activities. What's hard to realize is that when those two weeks are over, I will be looking at the middle of October and only have a few weeks left to share with them.

Living History

Well,
My neighboring student teacher and I did a Living History event for our students. I portrayed Eleanor Roosevelt and she was Amelia Earhart. The kiddos in my room were one tough audience. Didn't say a word, stared at us, and it was like dying on stage. ARGH. Slow, painfully slow, agonizingly slow.
Then, the next room was a total hit. They lit up like a room of light bulbs, smiled and completely got into the event. The minutes flew by and we could have kept it going for a good 30 minutes. What a difference a wall makes.

So much else to say, ah well.
Another day, another lesson.

Never enough hours in the day.

I always seem to run short on hours. I get the students really on task and they are so engaged that when I look up and realize that it’s time for recess or specials or going home the kids are begging to keep going. I love that aspect! Watching them ignite with understanding is truly a golden moment for me.
This week I coerced my fellow student teacher into doing a living history event with me. Kadie I hope you’ll forgive me someday.  We are going to come in costume and be Amelia Earhart and Eleanor Roosevelt. The object is for our students to ask the 5 W’s, and write a personal narrative about meeting either one of these wonderful women. I am so excited to see their faces I only hope that this goes as well as I think it will. Meanwhile, I am frantically memorizing facts from Eleanor’s biography and trying to plan the writing lesson, ack!
Now if I just could find 2 more hours for each day we might be able to get to everything we want to get to.

New Oxford Entry

If there could be a new entry in the Oxford English Dictionary it would be;

Flexability(adj) Teachers during the first few weeks of school.

My mentor teacher has been fantastic about including me in the real picture of scheduling and it has been an eye-opener. Our school is a Title One school, so the teachers juggle EL, ERR, RR, Title, and specials ensuring that every student is taught the core curriculum. Let me just say, wow.

My mentor teacher has allowed me to take over spelling, basal reading, some of the writing assignments, read aloud, vocabulary, and the bell work summary. She is easing me into the novels, history, and math lessons over the next couple of weeks so that I don't get overwhelmed. Math is an area of concern for our school and will be targeted for special focus, so I'm glad that is farther out on my planner.

I taught my first completely "original" lesson today on metaphors. It went well, but it certainly wasn't a smashing success that you'ld want to write home about. It was a good solid 30 minute lesson, and at least one student independently used the word (metaphor) correctly to identify a metaphor in his basal story during his reading group. I used several different classroom management techniques during the lesson to get them talking and working collaboratively. Since it's early in the year we are still building those relationships in our room and I am excited to watch them test their wings. Thursday and Friday are the similie lessons!

Leader Of The Year 2009

Leader Of The Year 2009

Why?

I came home the other day to find the upstairs trash can on the kitchen table, and the kitchen trash can in it's correct location minus a trash bag. So, in all innocence I asked the question, (join in any time) "Why is the trash can on the table?"

She blushed looked me in the eye and said...
"You know the dumpster?"

I'm thinking to myself, hmmm... not seeing the connection yet.
"Yes, what about the dumpster?"

"Well, I dumped the trash and it fell in. So I had to fish it out."

Now, the dumpster is our trash bin and it's a good four foot tall. You can imagine the picture I'm getting right about now. "How did you fish it out?"

"I stood on the other bin and the recycle fell off, spilled all over the garage, and I fell into the dumpster. Then the lid fell on me."

Spock would be proud of me! Eyebrow raised, "Why did you stand on the dumpster? Why didn't you get help?"

"Well I didn't mean to knock the recycle over, it just(!) went everywhere, so I got all the paper picked up and the plastic and then I saw the cans under Dad's car, go figure. So I got them picked up and then I got the bucket and tried to reach the can in the dumpster but the bucket started cracking on me and tipped over and then the lid fell on me..."

Taking a slowwww... deeeppp breath.... "SO, why is the trash can on the table?"

"Cause after all that I was almost late getting to the bus and I still had to get the rest of the trash out. And the dumpster stinks."

With great restraint, I ask, "Would you please take the trash can off the table and put it away?"

"Sure!"

sigh. At least the ants are gone...