Java e shtatë (Week 7)

            Monday I started my TPA unit. It went pretty well. The lesson went well but you can only make fractions so exciting. I went through the day and got through everything I had. Monday’s we have a 3 hour slot at the end of the day and I felt like I was scrambling at the end of the day and unprepared. I had that feeling that I didn’t want to move on with anything but I didn’t have enough supplemental activities for them to do. We sent home a note that was explaining to the parents that in the two weeks coming up before ISAT’s we are going to be going over a little more review of some language arts concepts and so their homework might go up a little bit, it was saying now that I’m full time teaching they may have a “new teacher” but the routines are all the same. The students have been going home and telling their parents that they don’t have any spelling homework and no spelling tests, then progress reports went home and all of a sudden they’re failing spelling and we’re getting calls thinking they didn’t have any spelling. So the note said that nothing has changed and they are told every day to study their spelling (because I verbally tell them and write it on the assignment board every day). It had some important dates on it and a part about a change in the handwriting. Because the school is almost out of the budget we are running out of paper, so instead of printing out whole handwriting packets we are having them write paragraphs on a separate sheet of paper. It ends up being MUCH less than the original handwriting packet so we said it was due the next day (it was only one paragraph) and Luke started to cry when we passed it out. He thought it was too much and didn’t want to do it. But we just kept explaining it and pretty much ignored him. He does this so often it’s either just a cry for attention (literally) or he’s trying to manipulate us into pulling back on the work.

            Tuesday I came heavily prepared, I absolutely hated the feeling of scrambling and being crunched for time so I came with around 12 different things we could get done and move on to if we had extra time, and of course didn’t. One thing I am planning on doing though is some reading with them. They do a lot of reading in their textbooks and then silent sustained reading when they have some extra time, but I am going to start reading them a fiction book because you can do so much with it and for the kids who don’t get all their work done on time they never have that opportunity to read in school. I was going through the books and Mrs. Z. said she had a unit made up for James and the Giant Peach that I could do and that was the book I was thinking about anyways so now we just have to find it and I’m going to start doing that. One of the things we did in my TPA unit was an equivalent fractions game where they each got a fraction and they had to find their equivalent fraction partner. They don’t really get to do a whole lot of activities like this so it was really fun for them. A couple students who constantly ask me questions the second they start working on anything were having trouble being confident with it. They wanted to just come up to me and ask if it was right rather than do the math on their own to double check. We had a lot of specials so it was a pretty uneventful day.

            Wednesday was an interesting day. We had finished out TPA unit content; it’s just working on the final assessment from here. They have to take the data I collected from the whole fourth grade and make fractions out of all the categories. I asked them what their favorites were in categories like candy, sports, baseball teams, and other things. Then they have to simplify all the fractions and put it on a poster which we are going to hang in the hall. I had to go out and buy the posters because the budget is almost all tapped out and I didn’t want to ask the principal to do it. The biggest change I made with this project from my last one is that I’m making it completely in class. We have a problem with one student whose mother is doing work for him (but I’m not going to get into that) so in order to make sure that it’s completely their own work I collect everything at the end of the day and pass it out the next time we work on it. When I told them this the particular student started freaking out, breaking down, and crying. Then later when I reiterated the fact that it was completely in class he asked “except for me right?” To which I replied absolutely not. Then when I was coming back from dropping the kids off at gym I walked into the classroom and Mrs. Z. had fallen and was sitting on the floor kind of in shock. While she was trying to hang posters she fell and hit her head so she went home for the second part of the day. The principal wanted to just let me be in the class and said I didn’t need another teacher or a sub in there and I was fine on my own but rules were rules. So we had the reading specialist just come in and sit at the desk and do her own work. That was a huge boost of confidence to hear that the principal trusted me in the classroom without another adult in there and if it weren’t for the legal aspects of it I could have just been on my own.

            Thursday I was completely on my own for the whole day! Mrs. Z. was out all day and so it was truly my classroom without her presence. The sub just sat in the chair and read or did Sudoku’s all day which was fine with me. She was really nice and has been subbing in the district for almost 30 years so she knew the kids from when she subbed for their class in kindergarten. She said she loved being a sub because of that reason; she’s subbed for some 8^th graders before and said she tied their shoes when they were little. She loves being able to see the kids all throughout their lives and this was something I didn’t even think of. The day went really well, the kids were great, they were pretty much better than when Mrs. Z. is there which is an amazing sign for me because they truly do respond to me and respect me as their teacher. I had a problem with Job all day though, but just him. It got to the point I was going to send a note home with him but unfortunately didn’t know where Mrs. Z. keeps them so I just had a talk with him. I told him that the only reason he’s not getting a note was because of that and if he were to get another note home he’d have an in school suspension. I asked him if there was something going on because the first 5 weeks I was here we never had a problem and all of a sudden in the last 2 weeks he’s been out of control. He said he didn’t know what was going on but he did say he was going to be better. We also started our final assessment for my TPA unit. After they did so well on the review and were so confident they really struggled with the simplifying.

            Friday Mrs. Z came back but was really sore. She has a bruised clavicle so she was just sitting in her chair and going through a bunch of boxes that she’s been meaning to for the last few years. So she was just sort of chilling in the corner and I felt like she wasn’t even there, which again was perfectly fine with me. It’s weird to think that as of this point I have the minimum requirement of full time teaching. This is weird for me because I feel like I have just started to hit my stride as a teacher and if I were just finishing I feel like I wouldn’t have gotten enough out of it. Anyways, we were working on our final assessment and they told me they had never learned greatest common factor. So I went over factor trees which they had indeed learned and then went through how to find the GCF with factor trees. Once they remembered that then everything went much better for them. Fun Friday was great, I had them make comics because we have been working on predicting, one way to work on predicting is through comics because there are no words. So they had to make their own comics, I let them work in groups and on the floor and it was a lot of fun for them. It was a really good week overall.

Classroom Confidential

            In chapters 8 and 9 in Schmidt’s Classroom Confidential, she talks about social studies and art in the classroom. I love teaching social studies and one thing I haven’t been very good about is bringing in outside sources. For instance I have generally stuck to the book or just the facts and haven’t done a good job about bringing in the things she talks about like primary sources, visual images, artifacts, literature, or bringing in the architectural element. This might be easier for me if we had a projector somewhere other than the computer lab which is always booked, and my renderings of architecture on the blackboard don’t exactly cut it. She talks about how pictures are “perfect tools for getting to the past – fast” (pg 173) which is somewhat what we did at the art institute last week. We looked at multiple different types of paintings and that let the students see the different styles of clothing and other basics about that time period or place, then lets them infer about the rest. It works on both the historical aspect of a subject and inferring. It was also weird to read about the books that offer a different view of a time period, the one she started with was time traveling books, which usually consist of two kids getting stuck in a time machine and going to a different time and learning something (not exactly Bill and Ted’s excellent adventure). A couple weeks ago we actually watched a movie about two kids who time traveled back to different aspects of Dr. King’s life. So it was cool to read that and have already done something like it.

            The two things Schmidt says are the biggest benefits to putting drama in the classroom are: Drama brings stories to life, enriching literature, poetry, history, and social science and it is a vehicle to convey ideas and emotions, strengthening oral and written expression, thinking, and social skills. I try to incorporate things like readers theatre and other methods into the classroom that use the arts because with reasons like that I don’t see why you shouldn’t try and do it. Mrs. Z. likes to play classical music in the classroom when the students are having a good day behavior wise which is something I really like. Having music in the classroom not only benefits the learning environment but you can play so many different types of music which is very beneficial to the students because they can learn about different cultures through it. I love the African culture and I think the music is so unique and can bring so much to the table, I like being able to have the freedom to be able to play that in class. It gives them a chance ot explore not only the different musical aspects like beat or rhythm, but questions like “Why do you think they use mostly drums instead of string instruments?” and other questions like that can open up so many doors into learning about a particular culture, all through a couple songs.

            I love what she says about if there are different ways of knowing then there are different ways of showing. There are so many different ways of assessing students than with tests, which is something I love to do if you haven’t figured out already. I’ve been in the class for 7 weeks now and the only tests I’ve given are spelling tests and a single math test (and that’s because I didn’t teach the first half of the unit). I love alternative assessments! I love to use debates and am trying to find the best place to implement one, we are actually having a social studies fair at the end of next month, instead of picture books I had them do a comic as a small assessment, I had them write a short story of a piece of art after the field trip to the art institute, these are all things she talked about that I have done or am planning on doing. She does bring up some other things that I really want to try as well like making a mural, having them do a dramatic performance would be fun with some of the personalities we have in our class, or re-creating the past with models. These are all great ideas that I would love to try and implement in my classroom and hopefully I can find the perfect place to do it.

Semaine six (Week 6)

            Monday was a field trip to the Art Institute. It was the first time I got to go on the field trip as a chaperone so that was a pretty cool experience. It was a colossal mess. One teacher who was sort of organizing the whole thing didn’t show up because she was sick, we got there almost an hour and a half early so we had to find a way to kill the time, half the fourth grade went to the park and the other half went to the bean, we didn’t get back at the same time so we started at different places and different times, that meant that some of the teachers who were supposed to talk about a few pieces of art weren’t there to do it, it was just a mess. As a kid field trips are always so much fun but now I understand how stressful it is as a teacher. Constantly making sure we have all the kids, double checking every room to make sure we aren’t missing a straggler, not only trying to teach them about the art but trying to make sure they stay far enough away and don’t touch anything, I swear it was going to give me a coronary. We have been talking about how paintings or art can tell a story without using any words in the couple days leading up to it. As a follow up assignment I had them pick their favorite piece of art and write their own story about it.  Despite all the chaos it was actually a really good field trip.

            Tuesday we had off for Lincoln’s birthday.

            Because of the short choppy week a lot of what we did in math was just review of the last few weeks. We worked with mean, median, mode a lot and then did some more review of area and perimeter. The students are having some issues with area and perimeter still so I’m just having them do more and more review and giving them other ways to think about how to remember them. They seem to have difficulties understanding length x width and want to multiply all of the sides together and no matter how much I explain it or how nothing works. I taught a science lesson on the Sun, Earth, and Moon that went really well. I had them stand up and try to feel the speed of the Earth spinning which was a fun way to get them interested and ready for the lesson. Then there was a collaboration meeting so the superintendant could hear what we already spent 2 hours going over, but I’m not going to get started on that whole issue. Then the day was over before I knew it.

            Thursday was more math review. Grades for progress reports were due today so that was another whole mess. Between the field trip, the day off, focusing on getting observed twice this week, a whole mess with a certain parent, it meant grades were on the back burner until last night and today. Over the past week we have gone through the grade book with whatever we had been getting graded and we had so many students with missing work it was ridiculous. Mrs. Z. had printed out other copies twice already so she was livid about the whole thing. What we couldn’t understand is that we knew the students had done the work, we had seen them do most of it, they just couldn’t find it. So now we are starting a new system where they submit their work at a point whether or not they finish it or not and then they can work on it when they have an extra minute here or there because we can’t have situations where we have half the class missing assignments. So we are going to see how that goes and what progress we make with that.

            Finally it was Friday. I had them do a review test prep in science since we went through it pretty fast. I had them do it and told them it wasn’t a quiz but they were freaking out about it anyways, I even told them I wasn’t going to grade it and I was just doing it to see if they comprehended the material I taught. I know now not to preface anything with the word “quiz” regardless if you’re saying that it’s NOT a quiz. Gave them a spelling test which 3 were absent because of gifted art, then 3 more left to go see the reading specialist, so by the time we were ready to move on to something else we were missing over a quarter of our class. I didn’t want to move on to any content teaching with that many kids gone, so I had some of them read their stories from the art institute out loud in front of the class. We had a really good moment with one of the students. He started the year borderline depressed because of a family trauma over the summer. He didn’t want to do anything in class, never felt like doing any work, and never wanted to be in school. When I told them they were going to read them out loud and they could sit in the special reading chair he jumped up to be the first one to read. Then the rest of the time we were reading them he asked if he could read his again. It was great to see him be that enthusiastic about something, especially reading something he wrote to the class. The other thing I had them do today was earn Friday fun day. I keep forgetting to start this from Monday but I talked to Mrs. Z. about it and she’s completely on board. Anyways, they were extremely rowdy in the morning so I told them they had to earn it, every hour they had to earn a check and they had to get 4 to get Friday fun day. After I told them that they were the most quiet and hard working group I have ever seen. They earned it easily and if they acted that way every day we would get through so much more material. However, 3 students were just non-stop talking and distracting other students. This was a pattern that was going on all week so Mrs. Z. said she was going to have a talk with them, then changed her mind and said that I should do it instead, and told me to just lay down the law and pretty much put the fear of God in them. Which I did. I didn’t enjoy doing it but enough was enough and they needed to hear it, plus two of them are one strike away from having to spend all day up with the principal in an in school suspension. I also taught a lesson for some standardized writing preparation, it went well for it being an extremely dry and boring topic. The kids handled it well and we got through it without a problem. All in all it was a crazy, choppy, messy week but I got through it in one piece and can’t wait to start a new one. I also can’t believe ISAT’s are in 2 weeks already.

Woche fünf (Week 5)

            

             On Monday one thing I noticed is that I’m getting more in the swing of things. My “withitness” is getting better, or at least I feel like it is. For instance, I was teaching and was able to catch two students talking multiple times whereas last week I spent a lot of focus on the lesson and when I heard talking I would speak to the whole class. Now that I’m getting more comfortable being in charge and having it as my classroom I am able to pinpoint the students who are misbehaving. That also comes from being able to distinguish their voices from one another which comes from spending time with them. The students are also respecting me more, they are seeing me as more of an authority figure. The other factor with that is I’m reprimanding them more. I don’t like to reprimand kids for misbehaving but after Mrs. Z. being blatantly told that they were testing me and we had that heart to heart talk I can’t simply ask them to behave.

            Another thing I’m noticing is our new student doesn’t listen to instructions. Whenever I pass out an assignment I have the students read the instructions first. I’m not spoon feeding them the instructions anymore, I’m having them read them first. Then after that I have them restate the instructions back to me so I know they understand what to do. Then often I will go through them again so by that time the students are getting the instructions three times, three different ways. Then I often notice that she has to be told what to do again. It isn’t that she is doing it wrong every time, it’s the way she’s doing it. She always takes the shortcuts, or always leaves out details I specifically tell them to. Two occasions in particular stick out to me. First there was an assignment where the class had to make an object with a perimeter of 16 centimeters, the goal was to use the ruler and make it 16 centimeters. I noticed she was just drawing figures without the ruler and labeling them to add up to 16. I told her to re-do it correctly and she just used the ruler to draw lines but they weren’t measuring correctly, she was just using the ruler to make them straight. So I had her re-do it again and she finally did it right. The next day I had them do another assignment that had them same type of section but was more challenging for further practice, she did the same thing as the day before; she started without using a ruler again. Then I told her it was the same as the day before and she had to use the ruler to make them the shapes the correct lengths. She did the same thing again and used a ruler to make the lines straight but not the right lengths. Then today after telling them they needed to color an illustration for the water cycle multiple times (we’ve had a lot of problems with them not wanting to color) she didn’t want to do it. I don’t know if it’s a defiance issue or what but I’m going to keep an eye on it all week and see what happens after Mrs. Z. and I talk to her about it.

            Tuesday was a good day. Again it was one of those days where we don’t get a lot of time with them (but that’s not why it was a good day). We are doing something I’m really excited about with the water cycle. We are going one stage a day and then their assessment is to take a pre-made template (by yours truly) with the stage heading on top, write the definition underneath the heading, and then illustrate it. When it’s all done we will tape them together to make a complete cycle and we are going to hang them on our bulletin board in the hallway. This is the first day doing this project and the first stage turned out really well, some of the kids are amazing artists and in fourth grade already doing things better than some high school student’s art.

            The other thing that I’m really proud of is their civil war projects I had them do off the “webquest” when I first started. All of the kids worked really hard on them and nobody got lower than an 85%. It was great to see some of the kids put this much effort into the project, especially some of the students who tend to blow off their work. For my first major project under my control and my ideas it feels great to have it be a success. It turns out positive reinforcement works for 21 year old student teachers and not just 10 year old 4^th graders.

            Wednesday was another really good day. The students are seeming to get better and better every day. The biggest problem we have at this point is the same student who was testing me. Whether he is still doing this to test me or not he REFUSES to stop talking. So I had to send him home with a note to his mother today. The system Mrs. Z. has in place is a pretty good one, even though I think it’s a school wide system that’s been implemented I really like it and have been thinking about using it myself in my future classroom. The way it works is you have 3 cards (green, yellow, red) and with the turn of a yellow card it’s a warning, and a red card gets a note home. That part is pretty standard what I like is the note that goes home. It’s a bright orange sheet so the parent can’t miss it, it has boxes to check and comment in order to describe what the student did wrong that I fill out, then the parent and student have to sign it and return it. On the back is the most important part, the student has to write why he got the note home and what he (or she) is going to do to change it/fix the problem. I really like that part because I can tell the kid what he did wrong all day and it might not stick but to have him write it out theoretically will get the point across and make it stick. Then to have him write what he is going to do to change it is good as well. So hopefully we will start to see a change in this student.

            This is the first time I didn’t get everything I had planned into one day. I didn’t get to the best part I was most excited for which was my science lesson! I’m planning on doing the experiment where you make a cloud in a pop bottle. I was going to do it last so that way I wouldn’t have to try and reign in the student’s attention after it. However the math lesson before took a lot longer than I thought it would and they couldn’t grasp the concept. I know that’s just how it goes with this job but I didn’t have the problem for the first week and a half and it gave me a sense of pride. But like I said that’s just how it goes. I’ll do the experiment right before gym on Thursday so they can get excited and then run it off.

            The water cycle experiment was awesome on Thursday. I taught about condensation then had them work on their picture for the part of the water cycle. When they were working I had 1/3 of the class come up and then I would show them the demonstration, then a different third, then the last third. I told them at the beginning that if they were all just staring at the demonstration then we couldn’t do it and they needed to be working and that worked really well with them. They all did their work and the third of the class was the only ones watching. The student who keeps trying to test me is much better. After the note home and talking to his mother he has really behaved himself. Moving the position of his seat has also worked. I moved it to the front of the class so he couldn’t sit next to anybody. The only downside is that he now know everybody can see him so he does things for attention so I’m thinking about where I’m going to put him now. He’s a really good kid he just likes to talk so I just have to find a seat where we can minimize the talking and take away his ability to draw attention to himself.

            Today was one of those days where you hear something you expected to hear eventually but didn’t think it was coming this soon…grades are due next week. With the transition between myself and Mrs. Z. we are still working on a grading system that works really well for the both of us. However we haven’t figured it out yet and so we have stacks and stacks of grades that need to be graded so that’s what I spend every free second doing. Like I said, I knew it was coming, I just didn’t expect it to be this soon.

            Friday was the day we finished our water cycle project! They turned out really well. I know the water cycle itself is a concept taught really early on and not necessarily in a fourth grade gifted class so I just want to make it clear, I didn’t just teach the water cycle. It was a more in depth look at each stage within it and how it affects and contributes to the water cycle as a whole. Then I got to hang them in the hall which is a big deal for our class apparently because Mrs. Z. hasn't had anything on our board all YEAR.

            I’ve been saying that this class is a really good class but never really explaining how so here’s one of the ways. We have been covering mean, median, and mode for the last few days and some seem to grasp it and some seem to be on the verge of grasping it. I was already planning on giving them some more practice but thought I would just ask them to see how they felt. So I told everyone to close their eyes and then asked them to give me a thumbs up, down, or middle if they were understanding it, not understanding it, or kind of understanding it. The good part is that nobody had a thumb down, the rest were about half and half. So I had them open there eyes and asked to raise their hands if they felt like they needed more practice to prepare for a test (I’m not saying that’s their assessment that’s just what I asked) and all of them raised their hands. These students don’t like this subject at all, but they know themselves well enough to know that they aren’t fully grasping the concept and need more practice. This is an awesome reinforcement for me because I know I can trust them to give me their honest opinion and not just want to move on because they don’t like it. I have also always been a believer in that students need to be a part in the decision making process. I’m not going to move on if they tell me they need more practice. Like I said, it was just an awesome reinforcement of my personal beliefs in students that was a great way to end my week.

Classroom Confidential

            In Schmidt’s chapter 11 she talks about communication. This is a topic that I enjoyed reading after this week. We have been having A LOT of problems with one Luke’s mom. Problems I haven’t mentioned because I don’t feel comfortable putting it on the internet and because it would be enough to make a whole blog post. Anyways it was good to hear some of her tips on communication with parents. It’s a little late because I’ve already sat in on 5 parent teacher conferences already but it was still good for me to read. One thing I knew that was reinforced right away in the chapter was that you have to learn as much as you can about the student. You may be there to discuss their performance or behavior in school but on top of informing the parent you can also try and learn what might be causing the conference topic.

            One thing I really liked and am more than willing to try is the student self-assessment survey before the conference. As a teacher i don’t feel like we take the time to talk to our students about what they like to learn and write about because there are so many things we have to have them do. These are the questions she lines up for us to have our students answer:

v  I am smart about

v  What I like about school

v  What I do best in school

v  What I have learned to do

v  How I’m doing in math

v  What I like to read

v  What I like to write

v  I’d like to learn more about

v  I’d like to be really good at

v  My best friends in school are

v  How I help my class

            I think it’s good for us to know that about our students anyway but to have them answer it for you and so their parents can see it is a really good idea. Then on the other hand the parents’ student profile she talks about is another really good think I would like to try if I thought it would work.

v  The most important thing to my child (passions, interests) is

v  My child is most sensitive about

v  My child has strengths or talents in

v  My child’s hobbies are

v  Issues that could affect attendance or learning are

v  The most important thing you should know about my child is

v  What I wonder about my child as a student is

            I’m not sure how many parents we could get to do this but I would love to try it. It is another way of learning things about the student that we might not be able to pick up on in school. Which, like she said early in the chapter, is one thing we should try and do as teachers; learn about our students.

week vier (Week Four)

            I started Monday with our morning work and then collected everything that was due. Next I went over morning work with them. It was a hard day because like most days we didn’t have the kids for a lot of the day. We had computer at 8:45-9:30 and then at 10:00 we had gym, after gym we had bathroom break from 10:30-10:45. They had lunch at 11:00-11:30 and then we had a collaboration meeting from 12:30-1:30 to discuss the Danielson book. This left us with 15 minutes before lunch which I went over morning work and collected miscellaneous things. In the hour between lunch and the meeting I started their reading unit for the week by having them read a short story and write for 10 on what it would be like to have their civil rights taken away. That left us with 15 minutes before the meeting so I had them start reading the science chapter out loud with the class. Because the common core wants us to have our kids read informational texts we have found that having them read their textbooks allow them to read that informational text and then meet many of the other standards while learning the core subject. Rather than having them read an informational text and do an assignment and then teach the subject matter you can kill two birds with one stone. Not to say this is the only way I teach the core subjects because it isn’t, I just find on a busy day like this it helps. Then after the meeting I jumped right back into science and had them finish up reading and start on their homework. Then we moved on to math to quickly start a new concept. We didn’t have enough time to really dive into it and do an activity so I started it, just introduced the concept, had them answer a couple questions to check for understanding, and that way tomorrow they are aware of what we’re learning and we can jump right in.

            Tuesday was another one of those days where we just don’t have enough good time slots to really dive in and teach a lesson so I made it work with what I had. Matthew had an in school suspension today because he had a REALLY bad day yesterday so my hopes of positive reinforcement being the key were shattered a little bit. He was constantly defiant and then later in the day was trying to start trouble with all the other students and then when they would ask him to be quiet he would just snap at them and tell them to shut up. So we sent him up to the principal where he was defiant to him to the point where he wouldn’t even acknowledge him. That’s what did it for the principal and he just gave him an in school suspension right there on the spot. I got through all my lessons today successfully and in many different parts but did after all make it through them. One of the many nice things about being in control is that I can scrap a lesson and do something different on the fly and it’s my decision. For instance today I was going to do a reading lesson where we just popcorn read again because the kids like it. However we have done that for the last few reading assignments so I said to myself “let’s do readers theatre instead!” So I changed the lesson and we did readers theatre and the kids loved it. One of the biggest problems I have is that these kids are so smart that sometimes I forget that they are only in fourth grade, so I accidentally piled on a little too much homework for them. I’m hoping that tomorrow I can successfully alter the schedule to give them more time to work in class and less homework. The other thing that is going to be interesting to see is how Matthew responds to the in school suspension. He’s never been reprimanded at this level even though this behavior has been going on all year and seeing how he responds is going to be interesting. So far being completely in charge of the class is a lot of fun. It is actually pretty funny to turn around and see Mrs. Z. just look lost and ask if I need HER to do anything for me.

            Wednesday started out somewhat rocky. I handed out their morning work which was on cause and effect, and they just could not grasp the instructions. It took them almost a half hour to do half of the sheet which should have only taken about 10-15 minutes. Then I did an activity with them on area and perimeter and again the instructions just went right over their heads on that too. What was frustrating for me is that they understand the concepts; they know how to do the work because neither of them are new concepts and I have seen their comprehension and they get the material. It just took them forever to try and get the instructions. So I just ended up saying enough we’re moving on. I couldn’t spend all day on the two activities so I decided I would move on, come back with something tomorrow for them to get some more practice that had better instructions. Matthew today has been in a much better mood which was good. He wasn’t always on task but he wasn’t defiant. With a couple of the kids in here you have to adopt the mentality that Rome wasn’t built in a day and it’s a process. Today I had to send a student home with a note because amidst the constant talking and disruption, in one lesson he decided to make a make-shift bow and arrow and aim it at other students, and then in a different lesson he decided to take the ruler and pretend to choke himself. So he went home with a note to his mom (she’s a lunch monitor so we’ve talked about his behavior a lot the last week because he’s started to act up). The rest of the day went really well other than those few things.

            I feel like all I do is talk about the negative things so that’s all you hear. There are so many positive things in my classroom; the negative things are just the most interesting.

            Thursday was another rough day. There must have been a full moon or something because the kids were just off the wall. Not just in our classroom either, talking to the other teachers at lunch it seemed like all the students were off their rockers. I had a particularly fun day with one of my students; I’ll call him Job, biblical character who went through many trials. This is the one I was having problems with on Wednesday, Mrs. Z. was really confused as to why he has been acting up so she took him out in to the hall and had a talk with him. She asked him why he’s acting out and if it’s because he’s testing me since I’m the new teacher. He told her point blank that he was testing me to see how much he could get away with and if I would actually reprimand him. Then there was an instance in gym with two students pushing each other, and when I was talking to them about it, another student came up and asked “is this because I cheated at the game?” I told him it wasn’t but we were going to talk about that later. So when we got in the classroom Mrs. Z. and I had what we call at F.C.A. a “come to Jesus moment”. I obviously didn’t call it that because it’s a public school but we had a big conversation about cheating, pushing/any touching of other kids, acting out, testing teachers, talking when you’re not supposed to, and addressed all other behavior problems we were having.

            Friday was a MUCH better day. It seems like the talk we had really did a lot of good. The other thing that helps is that Friday Mrs. Z. does a “Friday Funday”, I like this because especially in this class because we move at such a faster pace and work the kids pretty hard during the week it gives them a little bit of time at the end of the day where we can play games like multiplication and division bingo or other games along those lines with them. It gives them a chance for them to kind of unwind before the weekend…or maybe that’s for me and Mrs. Z. I’m not quite sure. There is the stipulation though that if they don’t finish all of their work, or the class is too talkative then we hold the right to either take it away from the whole class or send a student upstairs to finish their work. So with Friday Funday on the line the students were very quiet and EXTEMELY well behaved so they could get that. This makes me think if it should only be able to have it taken away on Fridays, I might start a system where they have to earn a point for the day and then Friday if they earned enough points then they earn Friday Funday. I like that they have to earn it all week and not just on Friday because if they have to earn it with good behavior it shouldn’t just be on Friday.

            Even throughout all the stress and misbehavior this week was a really good one for my first full week of having completely taking over. I actually like the fact that the students were a little crazy this week because it allowed me to nip the behavior early. From now on the tone has been set and they know what to expect. These are great kids and now that we are all on the same playing field and they know what I expect and we all know they can’t get away with anything Mrs. Z. didn’t let them, things have been moving a lot more smoothly.

Classroom Confidential

            In chapter 3 Schmidt talks about free-range learners amidst some other things. They can be somewhat hard to reign in because of a few different things. First of all they just have a harder time managing “school stuff”. There are 7 major things that play into free-range learners; sensory-motor integration issues, learning disabilities, ADD/ADHD, autistic spectrum disorder, trauma, emotional disturbance, or conduct disorder. These are all things that could lead to free-range learners and causes that make them struggle in school. Dealing with these students properly isn’t always the easiest task for teachers. “Some days even great teachers feel like they flunked crowd control 101.” (pg 57) 

            Schmidt says that all behavior is driven by two major factors: to seek pleasure and to avoid pain and then gives us 8 different ways to help us handle students like this. They are providing choices, changing formats, deferring to the experts, teaching self-encouragement, using body language, providing supportive redirection, devising alternative assessments, and reenergizing students. All are great suggestions and I have tried a few in my classroom so far without realizing it. First of all just asking the other teachers is something I like to do a lot. I’m not the type of person who’s too proud to admit he needs help, asking other teachers for ideas is a great thing to do because some have been teaching for over 15 years and they know how to handle things I have never even thought about. I have also Reenergizing students was another one I used before. It was a really lethargic morning, they were tired and weren’t paying any attention or working on task, so I had them get up and do some jumping jacks and then shake their arms and legs to get the blood flowing and wake them up a little bit and it seemed to work pretty well.

            I really look forward to using a couple of the other methods Schmidt suggests. Giving them choices is one I’m going to try. I am somewhat nervous about it because giving some of the kids the choice on what they want to do instead of what I had planned. The only reason this makes me nervous is because some of the students would just get off task. However anything is worth a try at least once, you never know what’s going to work and what isn’t so I’m not opposed to trying anything.