This and That 2014

September 4th:
Such feisty-ness: "The only one who can tell us what to do is the teacher, 'cause she's in charge of us!!!"

September 2nd:
Student: "Teacher, guess what?" 
Me: "What?"
Student: "I have a crush on someone in our class."
Me: "You do?"
Student: "Yeah, _______."
Me: "Oh. He's nice."
Student: "Yeah." while sighing, and then walking over to gaze on her love.
Me: giggle in my head :)

Update: She followed him around at recess the next day, but he wanted to just play with his brother and not with her, so she punched him in the face! Then he pushed her down. Oops!

August 29th: The kiddos took their first spelling test today! They did quite well too! After school, I worked on getting organized and putting some spreadsheets and other organizational materials put together. There are a few more things I need to do, hopefully I'll still remember on Tuesday! Getting home around 9:30 pm was not part of the plan!

August 28th: After checking the tracking, I found out that the new listening center was waiting for me in the office, wahoo! I set it up this morning, and the students absolutely love, love, love it! There are 6 books with CDs for them to choose from. They were happy little clams the whole rest of the reading time. Also, I added three more books with CDs to our growing collection! We now have at least 5 books with CDs to choose from each month. Due to popularity, I may make a student rotation schedule!

Update: Having so many choices makes a mess that they don't seem to be able to keep cleaned up, so I have given them two to start with. They'll have two each week and that should be good! So far it's working much better!

August 26th: I love it when everything starts coming together and things that I didn't fully understand start to really make sense. I love that I have the gospel in my life and that the atonement is real. I love the analogy of the yoke where Jesus Christ becomes our partner and helps us bear our burdens. I love how the Holy Ghost guides me throughout the teaching process so that I can see my students as He sees them, so that I know how to teach them what they need to learn. I love that even though I work at a public school, I can still say a silent prayer for help and guidance. I love having been able to visit with good friends this weekend who also hold these beliefs and learn and understand more from our time together.

August 19th: Day 1 of 180 done! It was a good day. Several super nervous little ones decided that they are now happy about first grade. That's the biggest success of the day! Some also really, really wanted to go back to Kindergarten (half day). One of the little boys kept telling everyone that they had to stay at school for 6 hours before they got to go home, and it hasn't been 6 hours yet! Plus, once we got past the "I want _______ as my teacher." when asked what they want in a teacher (misunderstanding the question?) they answered, "you!" "I just want YOU to be my teacher!" Aw, I accept. I also saw several of my students from last year, and they've gotten SO tall over the summer! They were super cute saying hi as we crossed paths.

Scientists

To go along with science, we finally made our scientists! They turned out super cute!

scientific method listed inside

Reading Workshop

Originally posted 10/15/14

Although I've had most of the reading workshop pieces in place for awhile, it's also been in need of smoothing out. The question was how do I make it more about the students rotating themselves and knowing where they should go without my keeping track of up to five groups rotating between five centers along with teaching reading groups! Craziness!

So, I took an idea from one teacher who use to use color coded cards and containers, but the students chose a random card, which could make reading groups difficult to fit in as well as odd overlaps in the rest of the time? Another idea is that last year, everyone rotated between three activities while I pulled back the reading groups. I like and dislike the idea of keeping the reading groups together throughout the rotations. So far, it doesn't seem to matter much with the groups this year since they mostly get along well and work well together. Therefore, I've been rotating them with their reading groups most of the time, but it's been messy to keep track. I want them to be more in charge of knowing what they need to do, so I put these two ideas together and...

viola! (Recently, I changed game to writing. It's great!)

The group color doesn't mean anything other than it's arranged by who has reading groups 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th. Other than that, the rotations are really the same. In the mornings, I have three rotations and in the afternoon there are five rotations (now four rotations). The students' names are listed under the card with their group's rotation. 

These were going to be for each student, but then I realized that they didn't all need their own card, so I put one of each card on the board. Now I just say, "switch," and they can check to see where they go next! They love it and it made everything so much easier today!

The other change is using these posters:

Part of the students' education is being able to reflect on their work/behavior. At the end of each day, students think about how they did and write the number corresponding to their behavior and effort* on their calendar page. Then they think about what they need to do to have a good day tomorrow. At first they were all giving themselves the highest rating, but now they're starting to be more honest.

Update: I began using Class Dojo (instead of tickets) for behavior and the whisper bell to help with volume control. I love the positiveness of both! The students understand and it's quick and simple.

*I'm going to change the posters to reflect the whole day instead of just reading workshop (I still haven't done that!).

Georgia O'Keeffe

This week, we are learning about and being inspired by Georgia O'Keeffe's art. The students enjoyed listening to the short children's version of her biography, Georgia O'Keeffe by Linda Lowery and viewing some amazing full color copies of her art work in the four main areas for which she is known: Flowers, Cityscapes, Bones, and Moodscapes. Yesterday, everyone was excited to get started! Here are some amazing examples of student works in progress:

4th grader

4th grader

4th grader

3rd grader

3rd grader

2nd grader

2nd grader

Korean Masks

I'm sad that I didn't get pictures of the rest of the students with their masks, but here is one class of 1st graders wearing their new Korean masks.

My friend came in again this year and taught them all about Korean masks; then we made our own masks out of paper.

Aren't they awesome???

white = young woman

red = young man

black = old person

Popping and/or Floating Boxes

Here's our new hall art display:

Some popping hands (1st and 2nd grades) and some popping and/or floating boxes (2nd, 3rd, and 4th grade)

Close up:

4th grade

3rd grade

2nd grade

2nd grade

Illusions: Hands

This week, we began learning about illusions. Here are a few examples of the first and second graders' work:

second grade

 second grade

first grade

first grade

first grade

Glowing Art

The kiln was done firing the students' glazed pieces right after school today.* I've told them how hot it gets and that it turns red, but it's not something that I can show them. That is until I took a super quick picture before getting burned! Some of the pieces almost looked translucent. What an amazing process! The students are going to love seeing this picture!

*The kiln had shut off, but was still super hot, about 1800*F! The last time I fired ceramics, the kiln was turned on around 8 AM and emptied around 7:30 AM the next day. The ceramics were still a little warm (easily handle-able though).