“Sometimes the questions are complicated and the answers are simple.” Dr. Seuss quote

So it's been awhile since I've been able to blog. Part because it was a super busy week and part because the internet was out at my apartment. It's really amazing how we take small things for granted, such as internet access at the tips of our fingers. Literally. I had to use my phone to check my email. Not sure what I would have done without it!

So this week was Filled with a lot of learning, teaching, and all that goes in-between. I took a lot of notes but I forgot what day they were from since it was just scribbled down in my book so this blog will be filled with different ideas and events from the past week. Sorry to those who like things in chronological order.
This week we had parent teacher conferences. It was interesting for many reasons. The first being I figured students would be on better behavior knowing their parents were going to be talking to us. For some it was exactly opposite. We even reminded students at the beginning of the week that we would be talking to them and they should be on their best behavior. It didn’t work. I also found it interesting how some teachers did a lot of prep work for the big day, while others said they just planned stuff the night before. I already know that I will be that teacher that has everything planned at least the week before. I like being prepared and ready for such events. The night of the conference was also very hectic (another reason I would want to be very prepared).  Our first conference was right at the end of the school day. This left no time to set up the room or even give us a moment to collect our thoughts about the day. The conference that was at that time was also one that we knew would take a bit more time because it was for our newer student. I was surprised by how many people also sat in on a parent teacher conference. Depending on the student, we would have their reading specialist or any other teacher they worked individually with, sometimes one or two of the special teachers as well as the parents and both the CT and myself. With each person wanting to but their two cents in our time went by quickly.
There isn’t much time for side talk during the first conference. The teacher has to first present any new programs to the parents (we had a new math online program, and head sprout), make sure we had all the correct contact information, read through a contract that the teacher, the parent and the student had to sign, then talk about behavior or school work. Luckily I was able help with the beginning part of the conference. While one parent was outside the class room waiting and my CT was finishing up the previous conference I explained the new programs and introduced myself to the parent waiting outside. This then gave my CT more time to talk about the student. After the conferences she said how my part helped out so much because she wouldn’t have been able to fit everything in to the 20 min time slot otherwise. It’s especially more difficult when parents have a lot of questions or comments for the teacher.
This week I was able to teach my unit. I created one from scratch. I made mine to teach about bully’s and what to do if you are being bullied or if you see someone who is being bullied. Our class filled out a survey and 70% said they are currently being bullied or have been bullied before. To help show my third graders how much this is I had 4 of them stand and then one sit down. (The math isn’t exact but it did the trick). The students were shocked by this. I think it helped show that if one person was being bullied they weren’t the only one. As well as how important it is to learn about how to handle a bully. The reason I chose to do this instead of just taking over an existing unit and re-creating that was because I didn’t like the lessons the Parrt program had for bullying. It didn’t address the issues our class was dealing with and didn’t really go into all the different kinds of bully’s. It just basically told about the physical and verbal abusive ones. Our class has a lot of the non-verbal bullying. My lesson also taught about what to do if you see someone being bullied. I think this was important for my class because a lot of them are afraid to say anything or wouldn’t know who to actually go to. In the quiz I asked what would you do if you saw someone being bullied and 30% said they would just ignore it.
Overall the lesson went really great! I added a few youtube videos and the kids seemed to really enjoy these. I used newer videos so that it didn’t seem old fashioned. We had a ‘police pal’ come in and used one of the old McGruff crime dog videos and they seemed bored by it. The videos also had a little older students playing in them which I thought worked better because most of them look up to the ‘Hannah Montana’ or Justin Beiber group type group.
One of the biggest differences that my CT and I have is our organizational styles. I like to have things kind of planned out and have a plan B if something else comes up. I also like to have everything written down as a way for myself to remember. My CT on the other hand has a loose schedule and normally just has an idea of what she wants to do but will fit in at different times. This was really evident during our apple day. (If we get 12 stars for either doing a really good job as a whole class or get a compliment by another teacher we get to have a special day)  We had some ideas of what to do, but as the day went on she rearranged a lot of the plans and added or took away some things as well. This was a little confusing for me because I didn’t know what she wanted to do next. It also made it a bit more difficult to transition into the next activity when I had to stop at the end then ask what was next. I think this wouldn’t be so bad if just one person was teaching because they could just change whenever they wanted and the students wouldn’t know any different, but when there is someone else the transition isn’t as smooth because that person doesn’t know what the other one wants.
This week I taught a cursive lesson and it didn't go as well as I would have liked. I like to make things fun and joke a little bit with my teacher. We were learning the letter t and we were going to add i to it. The book tells us to give bad examples which I agree and disagree with. (disagree because I think the teacher really has to emphasize that is the wrong way). What I did was showed the wrong example by making the top of the t go really far above or below the line, made it look like a "mountain" or a capital A. The kids like that it was fun, but then because the group is still somewhat immature it was really hard for them to settle back down after laughing a little. My teacher and I talked a bit about how it's difficult to determine when a group will be able to handle being funny, and when they can't. For our group it's hard to just be a little silly because you loose their attention. We are also really trying to grab their attention and keep them focused. It seems that this year they really want to either talk to the person next to them, play with their jewelery or shoe laces, and even examine all the little bumps on their skin while sitting on the floor. (Which, silly bands so far are the worst distractions!)
Our apple day was really fun. The students made apple puppets to use when saying our new apple poem, I read aloud a few apple books, we added apple ideas into our learning, learned about the life cycle of an apple, then at the end we used an old fashion apple cutter/peeler to have apples with caramel. Unfortunately we didn’t get to our movie or make apple star prints. The class had difficulties with lining up and not talking during work time. At one point when lining up we had to try 3 times before students had a ‘1’ line and were not talking. It’s still amazing how these little things can take away so much of the fun stuff or the learning time. My teacher got on her soap box as we call it and told the students about how much prep goes into these ‘fun days’ and how disrespectful it is to us that they just goofed off and wasted time. It seems that the students will then be really good for awhile after we have one of these class talks, but then go back to the way they were before an hour or two after. It’s also really frustrating for those students who are doing the right thing and are listening because they have to suffer because of the students who are being bad.
Well, sorry for the long blog but it was 3 days worth of stuff J. This week I promise to do better at keeping up with it!