Website

This is a great website for the curious kids in your life. It can be used when kids ask random "why" questions, such as 'why are banana's curved?'. You simply type the question in the search engine and it tells you: bananas grow in bunches up towards the sun, creating the curvature during their maturation time. They go a little more in depth than that, but still in easy enough terms for the average guy or gal to understand.

Back to School Night/Morning

Last night was back to school night (two sessions), along with this morning (one session). Our room was set up with 5 stations, all with purposeful activities. I liked this set-up because it allowed my mentor teacher and I to roam the room: helping out where needed, answer questions, and converse with both the parents and the students. All but three families came, which I thought to be a fairly good turn out.

When the parents and students came into the room, there was a sign in sheet for both of their names. I found this to be a very good idea, as oftentimes the parents and the child do not have the same last name. next to the sign in sheet was a brochure that went over the stations and what was at each one. Station one was the red folder stations. Inside the red folder was all the informational sheets that the parents needed to take home with them, as well as forms to fill out (emergency numbers, internet policies etc). By doing it this way, the forms get completed at school and there isn't so much stress with trying to get them back to school in a timely manner. Station 2 was our welcome brochure scavenger hunt. We had made a handout with our names, school rules, classroom supplies, about the teacher and assignment notebook procedures. There were 4 or 5 questions the parents and children worked together to fill out. This ensured that the brochure was actually read, and gave an opportunity for questions to be asked about simple procedures, classroom supplies, etc. Station 3 was an example of the assignment notebook and the first assignment. Station 4 was bus sign us. Station 5 was a matching activity that was associated with the school rules-a great introductory for the 4th graders (since the building is 4-6 grades).

Overall, it went well. I got a feel for what students were really excited or fairly shy. I am looking forward to tomorrow and my first day in the classroom with the kids!

Setting Up

This week I attended classes (in which I was a student) and helped my mentor teacher set up the classroom.

It is amazing what six years of teaching will do for you! She had an abundance of information on how to do little everyday things. Her classroom library was amazing. It had lots of different books in several genres. She did mention that she would like to get more non fiction, but that the school library had a vast variety of non fiction, so the students still had access to books of that nature.

I am excited that we are going to incorporate mini lessons and writing workshops for reading and writing into the curriculum. My C and I 208 and 209 teachers would be proud :D

I worked with another intern to put up our first ever bulletin board! We even came up with the design ideas ourselves. We ran into some space difficulties, but three tries later, we finally got something that would fit. I was shocked at how much time it takes to make a bulletin board, but perhaps the time decreases with practice and preset ideas. I will post a picture of our board when I get one.

Coming up next week: district retreat and back to school night!

Wong Wonderings

I was assigned to read a section of Harry Wong's How to be an Effective Teacher: The First Days of School prior to school starting. The section we were to read was on how to set up a classroom, which makes sense, since we (as student teachers) will take part in this activity.

But if you know me, I tend to get a little excited when it comes to books and teaching (and especially books on teaching!), so I read the whole book. An interesting idea was brought up in the section about effective testing. Harry Wong states that the steps to writing a test are as follows (paraphrased):
Look at the concept (key idea of the information being covered), double check your objectives (what did you want the students to learn, what objectives did you set for them? Testing should ultimately be in line with your objectives), questions (should directly reflect the objectives), and remediation (test as a corrective tool-I will further explain this in the next paragraph).

The first few steps are common sense, but I had never experienced in my time as a student a test as a corrective tool-or remediation. Wong goes on to explain that as part of the test, you should indicate where the information can be found (a textbook chapter and section, if you are testing on textbook material) in parenthesis near the question. This way, when the students get their tests back, they can look up the correct answer and correct their tests. This increases learning, because the students go back and look over the parts they did not get correct on the test. While this idea is a good one and seems to go beyond the "testing because we have to" method, I wonder how practical it is in the classroom.

I would love to hear feedback from teachers (or parents who have children in school) to whether or not you employ this method (or have seen this method in action). I guess my questioning lies mostly in the time constrictions placed on teachers: you only have so much time in a day to get everything done. Is this method a practical one, or is it ideal only in theory? Any opinions and experiences are welcome!

Website in the Works

Watchknow is an educational website that is getting started. Its aim is to organize all the best educational videos so that teachers and can have them at their fingertips with ratings and additional information concerning them.

Much thanks to Teacher's Musings for sharing this site with me via her blog.

Aspire to Be

A song* I was listening to the other day has a daring message that I feel more people need to hear. It talks about how should think about who we wanted to be, "when the world was younger and we had everything to loose". The point stands that the younger you are, the more you have to loose, yet the wilder the dreams tend to be.

A little girl I nanny for is 7 years old and will declare with no hesitation that she will be an artist when she grows up. Not she wants to be, she will be. She practices her drawing and has no doubts. Her courage inspires me. When was the last time I was able to proclaim something without any hesitation and diligently worked towards it? It is much easier to dream when you are younger and do not understand all the obsticals that stand in between you and your dream.

10 years ago I wanted to be a nurse "when I grew up". At the time I failed to take into consideration that I have a terrible time hurting others, even if it is for their own good. But it was still my dream. 5 years ago I didn't know what God wanted me to do with my life, but I knew I wanted to help others. On my path to becoming a teacher, I am getting there (to the helping others).

I challenge you to look at your life: "are you who you want to be?"*

*This Is Your Life, song and lyrics by Switchfoot

Technology

One of the things I have been really trying to do in the past year is learn about new technologies and how they may be used in the classroom with students.

I have found quite a few wonderful things. I have always had in the back of my mind that when working with technology we need to be conscious that sometimes it breaks or refuses to work properly, for whatever reason. But the idea has been brought to the forefront of my mind since last night-when my cell phone decided to go crazy.

The phone, itself, works (meaning that if I know the number I want to call, I can dial it and make the call). But the screen is mostly black, with a few rainbow streaks and a few hairline cracks. I know what you are thinking-hairline cracks? you probably dropped it and broke it. But, that is not the case. Unfortunately, AT and T does not cover internal cracks and a messed up screen on the warranty, so I am stuck with a phone that does not work like it is suppose to, at the current time. I can not get to my contact list (because I can not see them), I can't take pictures, listen to music, send or receive text messages (a service I am paying $20 a month to have unlimited access to). I also no longer have an alarm clock to wake me up in the morning. The funny thing is my phone was working fine, it was in my pocket and I was texting people ten minutes before I pulled it out to call a friend. That was when I found the screen was black with rainbow streaks (thankfully that friend was on speed dial, so I was able to call her).

These little things are convieneces to a cellular phone, yet I am frusterated that I had to ask my roommate to make sure I was up before she left for work and that I can hear my text messages coming in, but I have no way of letting the person know that I can't recieve texts or respond to the message.

Lesson learned? Do not rely to much on technology, because it can (and at sometime probably will) let you down.