Holiday Jitters

I've always thought teaching on the day before a holiday break would be stressful because of kids just being so excited that they don't care about anything (which is basically a recollection of my elementary days).  BUT - my teacher is so awesome.  We did a ton of "fun" activities today, but they were all very purposeful and I could tell the kids were still learning a lot!

 

My teacher had a script for them to act out The Mayflower scene with the Pilgrims consisting of the Separatists and the Strangers.  As you can see by the constumes above, we had a Separatist couple, the governor, two teenage girls, the ship captain, etc.  We also had our "Chief Squanto" who was waiting for them at the Americas (with his bow and arrow) to teach them how to plant corn.

My teacher even had them experience the meager rations of a pilgrim on The Mayflower - one melba toast cracker, a small piece of beef jerky, a cube of cheese, and 5 kernels of corn.  

Teacher:"This is your food for the WHOLE day.  Would you eat it all right now or spread it out throughout the day?"

Student: "I'd spread it out so I'm not hungry later!"

Teacher: "Where would you keep it?"

Now the kids start to look puzzled and you hear all sorts of answers: under my hat, under my pillow (my teacher says, "oh you think pilgrims had their own pillows?"), in a storage closet (my teacher says, "you think your friend isn't going to see you put it in there and come steal it because he's just as hungry as you are?").  She totally got them thinking and I loved how concrete she made that idea for them - that this was not an easy journey.  

After some turkey math money games and "turkey travels across the United States" game, we finally made these:

 

Last year at Thanksgiving we made these, thanks to Heather for bringing all the supplies.  When my teacher told me we were making them I was shocked because I remembered how messy it was (and tricky too, for a bunch of us adults).  

But with a 5 minute model demonstration, these kids had it down and made some awesome turkeys!
seriously, like way better than mine (above)

And there you have it - just play on your kids' excitement and you'll have a blast!  Today was probably the most fun day I've been there!

We'll be in a cabin in the mountains (with no internet) until Sunday afternoon when we return home, so
have a
HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

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Random

This is for update purposes only...mostly.   This is where someone tells me to write everything that comes to my mind for the next two minutes:
Watched "The Sing Off" last night - so sad to see Vocal Point go home and I promise I won't be watching again to see who won...none of the others are good enough to keep my/our interest.
Yesterday was a beautiful day in Provo, 55 degrees and sunny with a cool breeze AND there are still SO many leaves on the trees, I had a stressful day at school but nothing mattered thanks to that.
Still watching Planet Earth for my science class - breathtaking and makes me want to explore. However, I'm kind of scared of the ocean now.

Dreaded coming to school today. Substitute = I teach all day. Good news: It turned out great and I pretended to give my kids a tour of Alaska to show them how to add detail to their state reports. Thank goodness I had an awesome substitute who helped me a ton.  NO thanks to money for being so confusing to my students (or maybe it's me, or the substitute, or my teacher...no, I think it's the half-dollar. Who uses half-dollars?)
I'm getting observed tomorrow - what time? During math. awesome.

Went to opening game of BYU Basketball season tonight (which will be the only basketball we watch for a little while, no thanks to selfish NBA players) - Brandon Davies rocked the house. But we miss Jimmer.
I come home almost every day to Devin watching youtube videos of nutnfancy, a gun expert from Utah. He's so excited for Thanksgiving when he can go shooting whenever he wants with all his gun shooting uncles and brother and dad (oh and me, ha)

Thanksgiving. We leave in ONE WEEK.



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I know I said I would write about my school experiences every day but...I didn't realize how unrealistic that is now that I'm in the thick of things so it might be more of a once a week thing.
Besides, this week was H A R D. 

Earlier on Wednesday the other 2nd grade teacher came in and told me that one of her girls who comes to our class to math told her that I was a great math teacher.  You can imagine that warmed my heart, but I didn't get my hopes up too much.  I have to say, I dread teaching math almost every day because it takes a lot of creativity to turn these ideas from abstract to concrete for this low math group.

Just when I feel like I am getting the hang of things, something else comes to humble me: like "using data from a chart".  Having to teach it, anyway.  I had to teach about using clues to figure out a number such as "It is less than 40, it is greater than 36, it is an even number, which number is it?".  Easy right? Not so much.  The program wanted them to figure out which numbers to first ELIMINATE in order to find the right answer.  Well, this means that they had to read the clue, figure out what the opposite of the clue was, and cross those numbers out.  Low math group also tends to equal low reading group (not always, but a lot of them). So it was all just very abstract for them and to TOP IT ALL OFF, my teacher left for the last half of the day to take her son to the empty sea, I mean the MTC :)  (One of the kids wrote that their teacher went to "the empty sea" in their journals!)  So me and the substitute were both coming up with every way we could think of to teach these poor kids and the rest of the day was complete chaos.  Sub days = bad days.

 photo courtesy: amazon.com

But the kids are doing state reports and I can't believe how stinkin smart they are - researching in 2nd grade.  I don't remember doing that. I have two little girls that love telling me everything they find about Pennsylvania. My teacher also had me read them some awesome books about the country and states, like "Scrambled States" and "America the Beautiful" which has absolutely beautiful illustrations.

photo courtesy: Chris Gall

And on another note, our stake is putting on a Money Wise Workshop (a three-session workshop) with volunteers from the Marriott School of Management - Devin and I went to the first session tonight and although a lot of it was common sense stuff that we've already heard, it DID make us feel like we need to be more aware of how much money is coming in, and not just how much is going out, but what unnecessary things are we spending on?
    Namely, eating out and little things that seem really cheap when making one purchase but adds up when it becomes regular.  However, if you've seen where we live...we're doing pretty well at living below our means, haha. Pin It

Sundial

The students are writing a story about the sun, so my teacher had them MAKE sundials today, they were so cool and super easy for the kids to do!

(photo courtesy of: members.shaw.ca)

After the kids wrote the numbers on their plate, they took them outside as a class and each kid stuck theirs into the ground and placed it so the shadow fell at the correct time (we used skewers or craft sticks).  They went out two hours later and were AMAZED that the shadow had changed and it really showed what time it was - awesome, huh?  This took almost no time at all for them to make. 

Other things on the mind:
-We're going to Idaho on Friday!
-My birthday's in a week
-Devin's cracking down on some job possibilities...............

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Plastic Please

Found out today that one of the students has...a paper phobia. namely, Papyrophobia.  Google it, you'd be amazed how much there is.  Despite technology taking over the world, paper is not yet a thing of the past, especially at school!  So what is a teacher, let alone the CHILD supposed to do?

Teacher: Put each piece of paper you hand out in a sheet protector and have them write on it with an overhead marker that washes off after you make a copy of it.  That's what. 

Child: Be so excited that your teacher has a YELLOW overhead marker, so you can color your scarecrow the right color. 

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First Day of School

I should have gotten a "first day of school" picture BUT I woke up and left before the sun rose so...yeah. Besides, today was "red day" at school and I wasn't wearing any...maybe tomorrow for "purple day".

All I can really say about my first day today is that there were so many surprises! TOP FIVE:
1. I went to this elementary school back in the Fall of 09 to get some observation hours to apply to my program, but I didn't realize it was the same school until today.  It's fun to think that I started both experiences in this school.
2. They sing the Star-Spangled Banner in the morning (as a school over the PA system) instead of the pledge of allegiance but my wonderful teacher has them recite the pledge afterward, anyway...double dose of being patriotic!
3. Our principal is not even 30 years old!  He is so young, I just couldn't believe it...I wonder sometimes if the teachers take him seriously.  The best part is, I got to see HIM teach today!  He came to teach a lesson in my class today because he needed it to keep his license current, or something, and had my teacher observe him.  I feel MUCH less pressure now that I've seen him take a stab at it.  One kid today asked my teacher if it was going to be a competition between her and the principal.  Love it.
4. There are kids in my class who tell me their dad goes to BYU.  Seriously? I would die if I had a 2nd grader while still going to school!
5. There is a boy in our class who has Autism but is very high functioning.  If you know anything about autism, you know they don't like to be touched or touch people very much.  Well, this boy came up and hugged me every chance he got, even before I had ever said a word to him.  The teacher saw it and said, "this is huge, he never does that."  Sometimes it's a little distracting, so I've tried transferring the constant hugging into a high 5 every once and a while but it's just such an eye opener to how much love and innocence they have.  Not just him, but all of them.  Everything they say and do in that loving manner like hugs and smiles are so sincere.

This is kind of a lot for no pictures to tag along, but long story short: my nerves of actually TEACHING this chilluns are quickly getting thrown out the window! Pin It

Praticum!

Define - Practicum: Spend time in a real elementary school, plan some lessons, observe some lessons, teach some lessons, don't wear jeans.
For some reason my teachers haven't really felt like telling us exactly what to expect when going into the schools, so this is the only real definition I can give you.

What I do know, however, is that starting on Monday (until the end of Fall semester) I get to go to a 2nd grade classroom every week on Mon Tues Wed for the whole school day.  The first couple days I get to just sit back and observe, but after that I guess I'm gunna jump right in...I'll teach at least 8 lessons (that I know of) over the course of the next 7ish weeks and whatever else my mentor teacher wants me to do.

With that being said, I'm sure there will be lots to share. Things I don't want to forget. Things I'm learning, hilarious things kids say, how elementary school is so different from when I went, etc. So I'm making it a goal to write something every day. the good and the bad. So, on the right hand side of my blog there will be a little link titled "My Other Life" where I will post these experiences. 

My teacher's last words to us today were this (as she poured the ingredients into a bowl):

Cohort Recipe for Success

• Take care of your life (LIFE cereal)
• Be yourself...we're all a little nutty, let your talents shine (mixed nuts)
• Stay grounded in what you've learned (granola...not sure why)
• Grin and bear the difficulties (raisins...because no one likes raisins, haha)
• Savor the sweet things (M&Ms!)
• The bread of life, stay spiritually strong and true to yourself (pretzels)

And that's the goal...wish me luck!

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