What I Like About You

When I was applying to college a few years ago you know how they ask you about your whole life and your extracurricular activities. At the time I felt like I had a hard time coming up with a lot of things but being back around children who are involved in activities and discovering their talents reminds me of all of the things I have done in my life when I was younger and talents I have explored.

• I used to double dutch
• I used to be an awesome hula hooper
• I was involved in African dancing
• I used to be in chorus (but I knew I could not sing and left eventually)
• I was in band from 4th grade through high school graduation (the flute is my first love) I accomplished a lot with the flute because I was good at it and loved it but unfortunately since I didn't want to make it my career I didn't have time for it after high school
• I played the piano since 7th grade and it is absolutely my second love, the same situation happened with me not playing after high school, well I guess that's not 100% true. I may have let it slip at my job that I play and I've been asked to play the chorus accompaniment for my kiddies at the school I work at, Also I have a song I used to play for NYSSMA tattoo'd around my leg so yea... there's that
• I was on the step team in high school. Loved it

My point is being a teacher can make one be reflective in many ways. :)

Midnight Snack

Time for a little middle of the night posting. I'm back to working and going to school full time and man is it stressful. My workload this semester seems a lot more than last semester. Luckily my professors are being a bit lenient with be... unfortunately it is because I've been sick for 2 weeks and been to the hospital and the doctor and have multiple ailments at the moment. I'm afraid of letting my assignments pile up while I'm sick which is stressing me out even more.

On a brighter note

I'm still enjoying being a building sub. A little more each day actually. The kids in the building are getting to know me a little more, they run up and give me hugs in the hallway, some are excited when I'm going to be their teacher for the day it's nice. I even had one kid come visit me during the school day during a break his teacher allowed him to have from class. (students who get frustrated and shut down are allowed a short break from class once or twice a day) and he chose to spend his coming to see me. Mind you this is a child with real anger issues which are sometimes directed at me.

On a sadder note

I'm starting to know about some of the not so great home lives of some of my students. CPS has been called to the school for one, some are filthy almost every day, some are late to school all the time, some are changing schools every few months, some have very inattentive parents at home and are literally crying out for them to spend time with them. I even had 2 suspended for bringing a weapon on the bus recently and one... well I don't want to put everyone's dirty laundry out there but lets just say there's a lot more. Of course I would never put a name to these incidences. These things really hurt my heart, mostly because I can't do anything to change them. I feel like I shouldn't step in because I am a sub but I get the feeling there isn't much the full time teachers can do either. And believe me the school I work at works very hard to support the families of it's students.

Vacation blues

I never thought I would want to go back to work and school. It's not that I miss either one it's just that I am so bored at home I just don't have much else going on with my life I guess. I've been spending time with my boyfriend and cleaning my house but I don't have many friends in my new location yet and ugh I've been mostly in bed the whole week.

I'm sure I'll forget this problem on Monday when my alarm goes off at 5:30 am.

Happy New Year!

Step 2

Since I've moved and started substitute teaching again I've been asked a few times to become a building substitute. I think I talked about this before in a different post but I can't remember. So for those of you who don't know, a building sub is a person who works only at one school every day and whatever teacher in the building needs a substitute, they fill in for them.

In my opinion having a building sub is a bit selfish on the part of the schools. Almost every school I have been to complains about not having enough substitutes, but other schools have building subs with nothing to do some days and they could be utilized in other schools.

Anyway

Initially I didn't accept any of the building sub positions for a few reasons.

1. I'm in grad school and I didn't know what my semester was going to be like in the spring.

2. I didn't want to commit to any one school in case I got stuck in a school I didn't like.

But I recently did accept a building sub position in an elementary school near where I live. I don't know why but I like this school. When I say I don't know why I mean because they have some pretty difficult kids but it's like a few not like the majority of the building. The assistant principal called me and said the position was opening and he had a few people he wanted to offer it to but he wanted to offer it to me first. Since this is a school I like and he said he was willing to work around my grad school schedule I accepted. We'll see how this goes.

Prediction Board

Last week I conducted a lesson with two 6th grade girls from Thailand about making predictions. Basically what we did is read a story and make predictions.

What you'll need:

• Poster board (or easel paper)
• Different color post it notes for each child
• Pencils
• Crayons (or colored pencils)
• Enemy Pie by Derek Munson
• Paper

What to do:

1. Do a picture walk using Enemy Pie with the students. Have them make predictions every few pages using only the pictures. Have each student write their predictions on their own colored post its and stick them to the "I predict" column.
2. Have the students tell you why they came to their predictions on another post it note and stick it to the "Because" column (or the "evidence" column).
3. After the picture walk go back and read the story with the children having them make (but not write down) new predictions with the evidence of the words and pictures. When you come across the sections the students wrote predictions about, have them stop and go over their original predictions and write new post its about what actually happened.
4. Extension activity- Have the students create a poster advertising the story in a way that would get their friends and peers to read the book.

Recess and the Rest

I don't like recess very much as a teacher because I hate to be outside when its too cold or too hot. It's mostly because it's really difficult and stressful to keep an eye on a bunch of kids doing potentially dangerous things without telling them to stop playing. Then it's a lot to decide what's play and what's too dangerous.

However I actually do love watching recess because it's one of the few times I see kids these days being kids. Today kids all have iPads and electronic devices and talk about things that are way too grown for them to even know about. But during recess I hear kids playing things like super heros and my little pony. It's just nice for kids to play like kids.

Mirror Mirror on the Wall...

I had an opportunity to take a step back and look at how I was doing and improve. I had a student in first grade who was misbehaving the whole morning, not doing any work, running in and out of the classroom and not being where he was supposed to be. One of the most difficult things about being a sub is not knowing the behavior reward/discipline system in the room. Even when the children try to explain it to you... you're talking about 20 six-year-olds trying to explain something to you and they can never all agree on the details of anything so my only real option is to throw kids who aren't listening out of the room and have another adult in the building deal with it.

Anyway back to the kid I started off talking about...

It was intervention time so some of the kids were in different classrooms and we were working in groups. This child was in my group, or he was supposed to be. He started off in the group but he had a pencil he kept playing with, we weren't doing any work where he even needed to write to I don't know why he needed a pencil. Anyway after a few times of telling him to stop playing with the pencil I asked him to give it to me. Every time I told him to do anything he looked at me like I was insane, I assume trying to figure out who I was telling him what to do. Anyway after asking him a few times to give me the pencil I told him to give it to me or go to the office. When he eventually came back from the office he was still not doing any work and misbehaving.

I told him this behavior was not an option and his choice was to take a seat in his chair or sit down with us and do his work. He was doing whatever he wanted and I told him I would call his Dad if he didn't stop misbehaving. When none of this was working I took a minute to redirect my approach since threats and force weren't working and really aren't a way I want to handle a child anyway. So I asked him why he wasn't listening or doing his work. He said because he didn't want to I calmly explained to him that this is school and not doing your work because you don't want to isn't an option so you can either make a better choice and rejoin the group and do your work or you can go and sit in your chair quietly. He came back to the group and did his work. I made sure to praise him for making the right decision and choosing to get his work done.