Thursday, July 26, 2007

Thursday Thirteen #3

I have tried to keep this blog school-related, but it has become really hard, even after only two Thursday Thirteens, to keep them that way. If anyone has any school related suggestions for Thursday Thirteen topics, please send them my way! Until then...
Thirteen Things about Becky

1. I am 26 years old. I'm very proud of this fact, because most people have no idea. I'm constantly being carded for buying lottery tickets, and just today, I was picking up my mom's prescription at Wal-Mart, and the lady working there asked me, "You're eighteen, right?"

2. I have a very full life, although it probably doesn't seem like it. My boyfriend moved here from British Columbia, and I spend most of my time with him. However, I try to spend a good bit of time at home with my mom, too. After my dad died, I don't like her to be at home alone because I know she gets lonely.

3. Lance and I are moving to Canada one day in the near future. We are both in love with BC, and our plan is to get married, live here long enough to save up some money, then move back there. I've only been there once so far, but it was enough for me. Victoria is a beautiful city; that's where we want to go.

4. But I want to lose some weight first. I'm constantly battling with my weight and right now it seems to be winning - I'm heavier than I ever have been before. I won't mention my weight here, but I'm only 5'4", so any extra weight shows up too much for me. I have been trying to eat better lately, and I have been doing Yoga Booty Ballet for about a week now. (I know - Yoga Booty Ballet? Still, though, it's fun, and by the time it's done, I am SWEATING and hot and I know I've burned some calories.) Lance and I are also walking some mornings, and every now and then I do pilates.

5. I love to read. I've been reading "Teacher Man" by Frank McCourt forever - it takes me so long to finish books, because the only time I really have for reading is at night in bed. I love everything written by Jennifer Weiner, too. It's chick lit, yeah, but it's smart and funny. I like it.

6. If I ever get to a point where I'm not in debt, I will be one happy woman. Since my dad died, my mom and I have had the hardest time paying bills... we even had to go to a credit counseling agency and get help creating a debt management plan. It's been really hard, and it's going to keep being really hard, but we've been in the DMP for five months, and three years will be up before we know it. I hope, anyway.

7. I never planned to teach fourth grade. I interned in second grade, then did two maternity leave positions (planned for 3 but then my dad got sick) in second grade. It was assumed that I would just automatically teach second at that school. I did get hired there, thanks to my wonderful principal, but the only position open was fourth grade. I accepted it and have fallen in love with it. I love how independent the kids are, and the curriculum is so much more interesting for me.

8. I try my hardest to be nice to cashiers and other people in public service jobs. I worked at Kroger for five years before teaching, and I know how rude people are to those they think are below them, so to speak. I always try my hardest to be courteous to them.

9. That said, I HATE IT when people are rude for no reason! Like when you're ordering food at a restaurant and the waiter is unnecessarily unfriendly. I'm always the first one to call the manager and either complain if the service was bad, or compliment someone if the service was good. I don't know if that's a virtue or a fault.

10. I'm too often a perfectionist at school in terms of tidiness. I always have to make sure that my desk is cleaned off before I can leave for the day, and I have a really hard time walking away from unfinished work. Before I turn out the lights, I always check the room to make sure that the chairs are pushed in, and there's nothing on my desk or the kids' desks. (My students are trained to push their chairs in when they get up, no matter where they're going.)

11. We just found out that my 20 year old sister is pregnant. I wasn't particularly happy about this, since she's not married, not financially stable, and (in my opinion) not mature enough to have a child. But none of that matters, because there's nothing that can be done about it now. I know that I just have to support her and do whatever I can to help her.

12. My boyfriend and I just drove about 45 minutes away to get a Wii. We didn't think we were going to find one anywhere, but turns out a store called Game Stop had one left. I told the guy how far we were coming, and that we'd be there as soon as we could, and he held it for us. So far, I kind of rock at that bowling game. I love that stupid thing.

13. I have three dogs. I used to have five, but we got rid of two. Without my dad here working, it just because too hard to afford to properly take care of them and feed them, so we had to find better homes for them. We're in the process of trying to find a home for Pookie Bear, an enormous Great Pyrenees, who is very lovable and sweet. I am in Aiken, SC, and Pookie Bear is free. Any takers? :)

Sunday, July 22, 2007

Getting desperate

Our school has been locked since the beginning of July. Apparently they're redoing all of the floors. We can get back in on August 1. I am going crazy.

Friday, July 20, 2007

Thursday Thirteen #2

Thirteen things I'd like to buy before school starts

1. One of those pocket charts to identify which stage of Writers' Workshop a student is at. This thing.

2. A new desk chair. Because you know what? Yes, I'm a teacher, and I think I'm a pretty good one. And guess what. I SIT DOWN SOMETIMES. I always run across teachers who think that if you sit down during the day, you're a crappy teacher, but I don't believe that. I believe that I have hallux rigidus in my big toe and my foot is killing me by 10 am, so yes, I sit down.

3. A bunch of storage crates.

4. A nice, bright, colorful, CHEAP rug to put in my classroom.

5. Some comfortable bean bags or chairs for my kids to sit in while they read. Right now they're limited to their chairs or the dusty tile floor - not great options.

6. Nice, swanky clothes to wear to school.

7. Storage containers!

8. Somewhere to put the storage containers and chairs, etc. My room is so weirdly shaped. It's like a triangle, and I have no corners, and no blank walls where I can stack or store things. It's so weird.

9. Staple-free stapler

10. Free blank checks for our little classroom economy thing.

11. Some kind of books on teaching reading and writing. I feel pretty confident in teaching everything else, but I'm about to branch out to something Ive never done before, and it would be nice to have some sort of reference. Everything is so expensive, though!

12. A good way for the kids to keep up with their own materials. They only have so much room in their desks, and they have so many books and things to keep up with. I really don't have anywhere in the room to store their stuff. Most teachers at our school buy those gigantic sized Ziploc bags, but that's not very effective for me. Any ideas?

13. An iPod. Because really, why not?

Wednesday, July 18, 2007

Long range planning

When I did my internship with the second grade teachers at my school, they did all of their lesson planning as a team. One teacher would write reading lesson plans, for example, another would do math, a third would do science, and so on. It worked well for them, and I thought it was a great method. For someone who had never done this professionally, I thought it was great to have my lesson plans written for me, for the most part.

However, once I got my own classroom, I was informed that the fourth grade teachers don't plan together. Every now and then, one of them told me, they'd get together and check each other's progress, and make sure they were all sort of on the same page, but other than that, nope, no team planning at all.

I was scared to death.

But over the past two years, I've grown to really appreciate writing my own plans. Sure, it's more work, but it lets me focus on what I think is important - not what other people place emphasis on. I can also tailor my lessons to what my own students need, so if they're having a hard time with multiplication, we can spend an extra few days on it, rather than being forced to move on, regardless.

So that brings me to this year. I'm grade level leader for the new fourth grade team. That's kind of exciting, and I'm pleased that my principal feels that I'm prepared enough to do that in my third year of teaching. However, in our six person team, three are new to fourth grade. There are two who have expressed an interest in planning together, and they are basically scared to death to teach a brand new grade (one of them has taught second grade for fourteen years - quite a change!). I feel that as grade level leader, I need to help them out, while at the same time, not letting myself get bogged down in what they need.

I mentioned in a couple of posts already that I'm interested in readers/writers workshop. I can see how that might be intimidating to someone who is doing this for the first time (it's still intimidating to me!). I can understand that at this point, they'll probably rely pretty heavily on the textbooks we're given. What I'd ideally like to do is plan out my year in detail, then provide anyone who is interested with a copy of those long range plans. If those teachers are interested in following the same format as me, that's great. If they're not, they certainly won't be made to do it.

Still, planning for an entire year is a pretty big goal, and to be honest, I haven't really done it before; not well, or in depth, anyway. I really don't know where to start or what the best way to do it is. I'm open to any and all suggestions; I'd love to learn some of your techniques for planning.

Thursday, July 12, 2007

Thursday Thirteen

Thirteen things I want to try in my class this year


1. Readers Workshop. I don't think that our basal readers really give a good representation of what students need to know in order to be good readers. We study one skill a week, but the skill isn't very clear in the text and more often, our work becomes more about memorizing the story than actually practicing those techniques.

2. Writers Workshop. I barely taught writing for the past two years, mainly because I don't know how. I bought a book on the 6+1 traits of writing, and I'm going to use that in a way that one of my coworkers suggested: to focus on one trait at a time, in depth, and have the kids publish something where my only grading focus is that particular skill. Once they're good at that skill, we'll move on and build on it from there.

3. A classroom economy. I want this to be part of my classroom management system as well. I'm going to use Becky Bucks (my boyfriend came up with the name) as an incentive to do various things throughout the day/week... things like turning in homework, etc. I don't want to encourage the idea that you should be paid to do homework, but I think that if it's approached in the right way (like a real economy - you get paid for doing work, and at this point, school is their job), then it'll be beneficial.

4. Better organization! I'm going to be grade level leader, as well as membership director of one of our local organizations this year, and I want this to be the year that everything sort of comes together. The past couple of years I've felt sort of like a fraud... as if I'm really not prepared to do what I'm doing - and I want that to change. I think that if I'm more organized, I'll be able to work more efficiently, get more done, etc.

5. Hang posters from the board when I need them, rather than putting them on the wall. I know this sounds silly and unimportant, but I have some little posters that have good information on them, and I know that the kids don't read them when they're eight feet in the air. I want to just pull them out when I need them, magnet them to the chalkboard, and file them when I'm done.

6. Keep a blog of what goes on at school daily. Right here! Good progress so far.

7. Create a more Earth-friendly classroom. I want my kids to start a compost pile with daily waste from lunch and the classroom, then use that compost to create a garden somewhere on the school grounds. The school needs to look better, and the kids will learn about nature as well as giving back to the planet. I'm excited about this one.

8. Bring in a guest speaker. I don't know whom, I don't know when, but I think that it'll help the kids relate our class to the real world.

9. Use the SmartBoard more effectively. The first year, I used it to show the kids pictures of cool stuff. Last year, I created a few science and math powerpoints, and had the kids play around with it some. We played social studies Jeopardy on there. I need to use it now to give the kids notes, let them explore different websites, and organize files a little better.

10. Make some changes at our school. I was elected to the School Improvement Council for the next two years, and I don't know how much power we'll be given, but there are some things that just need to be improved: the school grounds, our website, etc., and I want to help initiate some of those changes.

11. Develop material that I can use year after year. Ask me what I did last year for chapter 13 in math, and I can't begin to tell you. I want to start organizing and categorizing the things that I do so that I have a ready reference the following year. Suggestions on how to do this? Please??

12. Document a lot of things more efficiently. For example, I don't really have a set plan for calling parents. If something bad happens, I call. Otherwise, I don't, because that's probably my least favorite part of my job. My plan for this year is to be more consistent and frequent with parent communication, and part of that is documenting everything that happens with each child. I also want to document how I address our SC standards. I might steal an idea from another teacher. She prints out the standards, and at the bottom of each standard, creates a little grid. In this grid, she simply notes the dates that she address each standard. It sounds time consuming, but it also seems like a pretty cushy safety net just in case.

13. Be more professional. I think that in the past, my students have felt too comfortable with me. I want to make sure that my students know that while they can talk to me about anything, and I encourage that, there's also a line that has to be drawn so they're not thinking of me as just another friend that they can joke around with and don't have to listen to.

Wednesday, July 11, 2007

Certifiable

I got a phone call today from the staff development department at our district office. All teachers in our county have to take the PLT – Principles of Learning and Teaching. We each have a set deadline for taking the test; we have to pass by three years after the date of our initial teaching certificate. I misunderstood, and thought that we had until the end of our third year of teaching, so when I was sent a letter in April telling me that I had to have passed this test by June, I was a little caught off guard. Anyway, I took the test and passed with a score of 190/200. The phone call today was to tell me that my certificate has been voided.

Somehow, I managed to keep it together and not freak out. The lady that I spoke to asked if I could bring a copy of my test scores to her, and she would fax them to her contact person at the state department of education. She said it may be two to three weeks before the contact person gets back to her. By that point, I'll be getting ready to go back to school. I don't think that this can really affect my job, but I'm a little worried anyway. I mean, technically, I did everything that I needed to do, but still. I'm afraid that there's going to be some problem that prevents me from keeping my job. My principal is wonderful; she would probably let me teach without a certificate if she could, so that should help my case a little.

Speaking of principals, we're getting a new assistant principal. For some reason, our asst. principal and one at another school traded places all of a sudden. I'm not sure why; it wasn't planned or anything. As a matter of fact, she heard about the change on Tuesday, it was approved on Wednesday, and the announcement was in the paper on Thursday. It'll be interesting to see how a male assistant principal interacts with the women at our school, that's for sure...

Tuesday, July 10, 2007

Tesh on Technology

On the way home last night, I was listening to the John Tesh radio show. I know, kind of cheesy. It's called "Intelligence for your Life." It's not too bad; I listen to it sometimes when there's nothing on. Anyway, he mentioned that students have been caught cheating on tests using iPods. Apparently they're creating podcasts with test information. This is kind of baffling to me. At my school, most of the kids don't know what iPods are, and very few, if any, actually have them. I'm assuming this is more aimed towards high school, though. According to the show, everyone is in an uproar over whether or not the iPods should be taken away from the students during test time. That's not what I'm interested in, though; I mean, kids are going to find a way to cheat unless they don't have the desire to do so, and that's another issue entirely. My question is this: why do the kids have iPods at school to begin with? I understand that music aids memorization and all that, and some teachers may even be using iPods somehow in their classes. But unless the school is providing the technology for the students, isn't that providing an unfair advantage to certain ones? How is it fair to let certain students use iPods during a test, and not provide them for the kids who can't afford them? If the school is providing them, then by all means, take them away from the kids if they're using them to cheat. But in this case, I think that the problem may lie more in allowing the students to use the technology than in what they do with it.

Still summer

It’s still summer, although there’s not much left of it. It’s time to prepare for another year of fourth grade, although I’m not sure if I’m ready for that or not. It seems like summer is just beginning and already it’s halfway over. I’ve tried to keep myself in a sort of work state of mind, because if I don’t, August 14 will roll around and I’ll be shellshocked when I realize that those 5:30 mornings are back, along with the long, quiet drives to school, the long, noisy days at school, and the never-long-enough evenings when I’m just getting ready to do it all again.

I love my job. I really do. I’m actually really excited about this year. I feel like during my first year, I was sort of floundering, learning what was what and how things were run. My second year, I was really teaching, trying a lot of new stuff, but still learning. I think that now, I’m ready to do things the way I really want to do them. I taught summer school during June, and I was able to practice a lot of techniques that I never got around to trying last year. I want to play around with reader’s workshop and writer’s workshop. I also want my kids to experience some gardening, maybe; our school needs to be improved aesthetically, and I think that the kids can learn a lot that way. I’m also considering a classroom currency and banking system, which I believe will really reach my students, who may not realize the value of their education, but certainly realize the value of money, and would probably be willing to work harder for that.

I’m also excited about the professional aspects of my job, for lack of a better phrase. For example, I’m designated as fourth grade team leader this year. Organization has always been a strong point for me, but it was that messy sort of organization; you know, everything was in its place, but its might might just happen to be under my desk, or stuck in a drawer somewhere. I’m determined to clean up my act this year. I’ve already bought a planner and color-coded it with school activities and other important dates. Maybe that’s a little much, but I think that sort of thing works for me. I’m also going to be the membership director of ACIRA, our local council of the International Reading Association. I was secretary last year, which required very little work. Membership director, on the other hand, is a very time-consuming position which requires much organization and effort.

I think this year is going to be a good one.