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.

The Parent Trap

I don't know if there were this many kids getting picked up from school everyday when I was a kid and I just didn't notice cause I was a bus kid but every elementary school I sub at there are a ton of parents waiting outside the school to pick up their kids and we have to walk them outside and make sure they get to someone who can legally pick them up. Especially the preschoolers... I don't think presschoolers are allowed to ride school buses.

Anyway where I was going with this is it's super awkward and weird to have to deal with parents when you're a sub. I barely know the kids' names and I don't know much about them I just met them today. Then when a parent comes and asks me how their kid's day was it's usually the bad kids' parents who ask that so I have to actually remember each bad thing the kid did during that day which is a lot of work when you have a class of about 20 kids you barely know.

Yesterday I had a parent basically have a mini parent teacher conference with me, telling me she's ex-air force and that her daughter is too advanced for the class she's in and she talks too much cause the work isn't challenging her and I'm just like ok... but have this conversation with her regular teacher.

 I also had one kid who's adjusting to new medication I guess. I asked him to stop making noise in the hallway and told him to either stop or he could go to the office. He decided to he wanted to continue what he was doing and walked off to the office. Since I don't know for sure if a kid makes it to the office, whenever a child leaves a room I'm in charge of unattended I call to the office to have someone find them so they're not unaccounted for. I tried to call down to the office when this happened but I couldn't get through while they were about to use the PA system to do the afternoon announcements. This child's mother was in the building and walked into the classroom and asked me why her son was out in the halls and I told her. But like I said it was a weird conversation to have to explain to her why her child walked off unsupervised. Then she started going into detail about his medication situations...

It's not even that I don't care I actually do care about all my kids even the ones I never see again, it's just that I have no say, authority, or bearing on what happens in your child's class after I leave.

edTPA Flashback

I was sitting in the teacher's lounge eating lunch while I was subbing a few days ago and I overheard a meeting that was taking place. Then I realized it was a meeting with a student teacher and a mentor teacher. It seriously flashed me back, especially when I heard that dreaded word... edTPA. For you non-teachers the edTPA is a teacher certification exam that requires lesson plans, videos and ends up being about 60-70 pages after all of the questions are answered. And I can only speak for this state but it costs $300 to take it as well... it took me about 8 months to finish it. Sitting there overhearing this conversation flashed me back to sitting at a table across from my own mentor teacher as an undergrad student teacher having my work evaluated... just. one. year ago. It's just insane to think a year ago I was so stressed as a student teacher and now I'm working on my master's. It's an interesting feeling I'm starting to ramble because I can't even describe it.

Pick and Choose

Today's rant is about job placements when subbing in the district I work for.

For those of you who don't know, when you're a substitute (speaking only for the districts I've worked in) there are a few ways to choose your job assignment for the day.

1. You go on a website where teachers can post their absent days. It lists the teacher's name, the grade level or subject, what school it's at, contact info for the school, and the teacher can attach their email address, attachments, or a note for the sub.
2. The website can call you with an automated message giving you most of the info listed above and you can choose to accept or decline the job by pressing buttons on the phone.

So lately... and pretty much since I've started in this district they seem to put me in whatever spot is open when I get to the school rather than giving me the assignment I've chosen and it's really f*$%ing frustrating. And I conveniently keep ending up in special ed classrooms. I have nothing against special ed classrooms or children but it's not my department and I really don't prefer to sub there very often. If I wanted to do special ed I'd pick it and I'd mentally prepare for it. Last week I was supposed to be a 3rd grade teacher and ended up a gym teacher in the morning and a special ed teacher assistant in the afternoon.

My point is they should put subs in the jobs they chose not just whoever get to the building first put them in an empty spot.

Young Forever

It's super awkward being a young and young looking substitute teacher. I constantly have teachers mistake me for a student particularly in high school. High school I can understand, I only graduated from there about 6 years ago, I'm short and shorter than some high schoolers, and I'm sure I look pretty young. Looking young will be cool at some point but its really awkward when I walk into a classroom as a sub for a TA and the main teacher tells me to "grab a packet and take a seat." Shaking my head. Sidenote, it's October... that teacher should know her students enough to know I'm not one of them by now. She also asked a different girl that day if she was new to her class and she said no which again tells me that teacher doesn't know her students well.

One time I my old high school English teacher asked me to sub for her. When I walked into the English office another English teacher proceeded to yell at me and tell me that students weren't allowed in the office and ask me what I was doing there.

This week I was subbing at an elementary school and I had a sixth grader and a first grader ask me if I was a grown up... a grown up!! Do I look so young that even kids can't tell if I'm an adult? Does that fact that I'm telling them what to do not tip them off?

This really isn't a rant or even a complaint it's just really awkward and kind of embarrassing sometimes to not be looked at as an adult.