quickie update

I know, I’m sorry. I’ve been bad.

The past four weeks of full immersion have been fun, tiring, exciting, inspiring, challenging…quick.

So many things have happened and I’ve had a blast being these guys’ teacher for the past month! My calling has been confirmed! 🙂

March will be a busy month. Not only am I still teaching full time…but I’m also maid of honour in a wedding at the end of the month. I will have been to 3 showers in one week…by the end of this week. Amidst report cards, tests, projects, marking, planning, etc, I will be planning a stagette and other get togethers and be participating in a myriad of other wedding things. Pray for me.

This concludes my thought stream. Back to planning.

Starting Again Tomorrow

Tomorrow morning I will be  back in the classroom after two months.  I’m excited and nervous and everything mixed into one.  I’ve learned valuable things (and some things not so much) during my time on campus but moreso got to know the other girls in my cohort a little better.  Before Christmas we laughed and groaned through Science Pedagogy together and after Christmas we enjoyed children’s books and novels, danced to the YMCA and Macarena and painted alder trees.  It’s been a fun couple of weeks with everyone, and it’s a little sad to leave them all.   We won’t see each other until March.

Tomorrow, I will wake up at 5:45 again, leave at 7:30 and start my day with 29 crazy munchkins whom I care for dearly.  I’ll dive right in to my full immersion (aka teaching EVERYTHING–besides PE and Music) next Monday.  Scary!  I probably won’t sleep well tonight seeing that I have to adjust back to a huge change tomorrow.  And I’ll probably not sleep well next Sunday night.

Just finished reading the young adults’ novel Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson.  Totally judged a book by its cover (but hey, it was 10 cents!).  It’s a compelling story about being able to (and not being able to) voice the hurts of the heart told through the eyes of a high school outcast.  Sarcastic, dark, broken, honest.  The back of the book says that the reading level is 10 years and up.  I’d definitely say that it’s 13/14 and up.  Good book, but perhaps not for my grade 7s.

Done!

…for this semester.

I finished my science final, turned in a unit plan on “Earth’s Crust,” an assessment plan on the same subject and a philosophy of science pedagogy.  Whew.

And now I pack for home…and for a big move to another house.

My room is so empty.

And my suitcase is full of binders and textbooks for unit planning during Christmas break.
Starbucks…here I come.

end of term one with the kiddies.

The Giver mercy killing debate went really well.  They were “well-informed” (in that they had the book and three articles that I gave them to read) and they brought up some pretty interesting and valid points.  Before we began, I had them put their heads down and raise their hands to tell me what side they were on.  I had thought that most of them would have been on the “against” legalizing side, but a little more than half wanted to speak on the “for” legalizing side.  I split the class down the middle into two groups and let ’em have at it for a little while.  Some of them asked me if they could switch sides, so after a good 10 minutes of discussion, they were able to switch sides if they felt strongly about the opposite side.

The class LOVES to talk about controversial issues, so they were bummed when I had to cut them off to stop.  I told them that discussion doesn’t have to only be IN the classroom, but that they could keep talking about it during recess or lunch or afterschool to their parents.  I told them that they had to tell their parents about the book first and the relation to the debate.

On Friday, we had a “book talk” where I brought in some “wine” (cranberry, apple and mixed berry juices), cheese and crackers and a strawberry cake and we talked about the book.  It was fun and they really liked that I brought in food.  The best part was that they had made me a farewell card and all signed it!  So cute!  “Miss Iseri You Rule” was on the cover (so 7th grade language!).

We’re back on campus now and being students again.  It’s such a shift.  I would definitely rather be with the kids…  Though, we are learning a lot of good stuff about Critical Thinking and Assessment which I will try to incorporate into my planning and into my teaching next term.  School is much nicer when you see meaning in it.  That’s another thing…my students will need to see meaning in every lesson that I teach them.  What a good challenge!

The Giver

I’ve finished three of four weeks teaching language arts and three out of five days of “full immersion” (I’m the teacher the entire day).  In language arts, we’re doing a novel study on The Giver by Lois Lowry and it’s been going really really well.  We’ve performed skits of our favorite (and important) scenes, created theme

Webs for the Perfect Society

webs on “The Perfect Society” (see picture), sketched out the character of different characters, produced the front page of “The Community News” with top stories in the Community and had two intense discussions on euthanasia, “Sameness” vs. Diversity and choice vs. no choice.  I’m currently trying to look up some grade 7 appropriate articles about euthanasia/mercy killings/assisted suicide.  We’re having a “research” day on Monday and then an intense debate on the issue.  I have to remember that they are 12 and that they won’t necessarily be able to look at all points and be thoroughly researched…

Last Monday I went to a demonstration on the SMARTboard—-a really neat “white board” that allows you to present interactive lessons using technology.  Our school is looking into getting one and so we had to go out and do some “research.”  I personally would love to have one, especially for things like math and science…and language arts.  She had some grade 5/6 students come in and every single one of them were glued to the screen.  They are the “wired” generation.  I have to sometimes remember that it’s ok to use technology…that things don’t have to be taught in the traditional way.  It’s coming, it’s going to happen so why not use it?

I have my final this week.  This week is my last week with the kids until the end of January!  I’m quite sad.  I like them.

three weeks of math

Deepest and greatest apologies for being absolutely horrible at updating this thing.

September 29 to October 16 I was the math teacher.  Teaching math was a bit harder than I anticipated.  I was challenged to think about math in ways that I had never thought before…math is not being taught like it was when I was going to grade school.  I had to think outside of the box, pose interesting problems, let the students figure things out for themselves, let them construct meaning.  I almost completed a chapter on fractions (didn’t quite get to subtracting mixed numbers) and I think it went pretty well.  It turned out pretty fun in the end.  In those three weeks, I put fun size chocolate bars up on the board, dressed up in an apron, used recipes, attempted (key word: attempted) to use Legos as manipulatives, pretended like we were on a game show, brought in measuring cups and rice, pretended as though I had a grandmother with a secret recipe for “sugar-flour,” and used their names in outrageous food word problems.

When I’m up there teaching…I have fun.  Sure I’m nervous before I go up, but it all disappears once I open up my mouth.  I love it.  I’ve had several formal observations done on me by my sponsor teacher and my faculty associate.  And their reviews…have been excellent.  They said that they are seeing things that they expect from student teachers in the spring semester.  Woot!

Right now, I’m three days into a novel study on Lois Lowry’s The Giver.  It’s been great talking with the students about different issues and broad themes, and I can’t wait to go further into the book.  I taught them how to annotate while they read—-asking questions of the text, making connections to their lives, highlighting important sentences, circling words they don’t know.  I asked them to do that for chapter 2 which is due on Monday…I can’t wait to see all the things they wrote down!  They basically ate that lesson up and were writing and underlining and circling furiously during the fifteen minutes I gave them to work on it.  Wonderful!  Thanks to my grade 11/12 English teacher who made me see the value in annotating…and how much fun that is.

Friday was our Halloween Carnival that the grade 7s put on as a funderaiser for grade 7 camp in May.  The kids all dressed up (I, along with the other grade 7 teachers, dressed up as the Blues Brothers) and decorated the gym with their booths and banners.  Everyone in the entire school piled through the gym playing carnival-like games and getting little prizes.  I was amazed at how the grade 7s rose to the challenge and really took ownership of their different booths.  They interacted really well with their younger “customers” and took responsibilty for their prizes and ticket collecting.  Yay for them!  I think we raised about $1400 for camp.  Woot again!

fine arts

On Thursday we had a fine arts class where we got a few pointers on Van Gough, art portfolios and poetry parties.  We got to let our artistic abilities flow as we participated in a guided art lesson on Van Gough’s sunflowers.  Fluid curvy lines, pastels (or cray-pas where I’m from) and a dark blue wash were all we needed to become pseudo-Vincents.  They turned out pretty well–mine looked more like a Pychnopodia helianthoides (sunflower sea star).  They eat other sea stars…

We have a couple of art projects that are due on the 20th of Oct–decorating the front of our art portfolios and drawing a realistic picture of a pop can (and then creating a background that will make the pop can stand out, using only the colors found on the pop can).  Hopefully I’ll find some time to do those…as therapy perhaps.

surprise! day

All Monday night I tossed and turned…because of the day that lay ahead of me.  Tuesday was my co-worker’s and my “surprise our old co-workers” day!  I was so excited that I couldn’t sleep well (I’m such a dork).  We met at the school we used to TA at and we kindly informed the office that we would be leaving the campus to go have some lunch (which we occasionally used to do).

Oh it just felt good to be back, if even for a couple of hours!  It was SO GOOD to see all of them–the principal with her wisdom and kindness, the VP with his usual goofiness, the support staff with their love and encouragement, the teachers with their inspiration and care.  And greatest of all, seeing the grade 7s all “grown up” from those two months of summer.  I’m so amazed at how much a kid changes after summer break…they get taller, they fill out, they bleach their hair, their voices are lower (or squeaking more).  One of my students when he saw me, jumped up and came and gave me the biggest hug ever.

Again, I cannot stress at how grateful I am to have been able to work at that school with such a great staff and a huge caring community for these students.  I have gained so much more confidence that I can display in my own classroom that I certainly did not have at the end of my fourth year.  I really did not think that I wanted to be a teacher anymore nor did I want to be in school after that year.  God is gracious in giving me that job to show me how he has gifted me and how much he cares for me.

I forgot to say that I read to my kids every day after recess to help cool down and refocus…there’s this book called No Coins Please by Gordon Korman.  SUPER hilarious book!  I like reading it, though I do need to get better at having the correct intonation of voice…I would rather act out the book because I can see it as a movie in my mind.

that’s all. 🙂

So I’ve decided to change the look of the page..because the brown and flowers were feeling a little too girly for me.  Hope you like “chaotic soul”…is this an indication of what I will be soon?