Phineas and Ferb

I didn't remember this story until last night, when my sisters and I were trying to figure out what to do.  We ended up watching Phineas and Ferb, but the point of this story goes back to my 4th graders and that questionnaire I had them fill out.

In one of the small groups, we were discussing the American Revolution, specifically Benedict Arnold and how he was a traitor.  The 4th graders weren't really sure what a traitor was, so Mrs. J tried to explain.  After she used the words "double-crosser" one of the kids pipped up, "Hey, that's like Isabella from Phineas and Ferb! In one episode, she double-crossed them."  Now, I admit, I watch Phineas and Ferb from time to time, normally when my sister finds good episodes and shows them to our whole family, so I knew exactly what episode this 4th grader was talking about (Phineas and Ferb and the Temple of Juatchadoon). 

Mrs. J looked a little confused, so I figured I better help her make the connection, "Oh yeah, I've seen that episode; Isabella keeps handing them business cards and on one of them it says 'dirty double crosser.'"  The student kept going with that to explain what happened in greater detail, but another student kind of shook himself, like what I had said finally clicked, "You watch Phineas and Ferb?"  Of course I had to explain that my sister loves the show and we sometimes watch it as a family when we come home from college.

What's really funny was their answers to the question, "What is Miss Heintz' favorite TV show?"  Almost every single student in that small group wrote down Phineas and Ferb as my favorite show.  Unfortunately they were wrong... I like NCIS better.

Last Day with the 4th Graders

My last day at this school was on Wednesday.  We were only supposed to go until Tuesday and spend the rest of the week working on our TPA (teacher performance assessment), but my students didn't have school Tuesday and I wanted to say goodbye to them before I left.

Because of the long weekend, my students were pretty hyped up.  During Spanish (taught by two high school students), they played a game to review the colors.  Basically they run around the classroom to find the selected color; once found they touch it until another color is called.  One of my high energy boys touched his sweatshirt for the color red and (for some reason or another) kept running around the room with his hand on his shirt.  He was probably trying to be funny.

They didn't say much about me leaving until lunch time.  Then they asked if we were going to have a party.  Well, we kind of were, but not really.  The 4th graders were expecting food and video games and lots and lots of excitement.  I wanted them to fill out a survey about my teaching.  Mrs. J suggested playing a game, "How Much Do You Know About Miss Heintz?" 

Most of the questions on the survey were pretty difficult: when is my birthday? what is my favorite sport to play? to watch? favorite TV show? food? etc.  But I didn't make it absolutely impossible!  I asked how many siblings I had, my favorite subject in school, and what kind of animals I had on my farm.  One of the questions on the survey ask my eye color.  I thought most would get it right without looking, but some of my fourth graders were sneaky.  I purposely sat with my back to the class while I filled out the survey, and some of them pretended to get a Kleenex or just had to sharpen their pencils at that very moment.  Coincidentally, they had to walk right past where I was sitting.  But I saw right through their acts!  I squinted my eyes or closed them completely so they couldn't see my eyes.  I should've brought sunglasses!

After going through the answers, they brought out a present and some cards they had made me.  We sat in the back and I read their lovely words.  They all wanted to sit by me in the circle and practically swarmed me; let's just say our circle was more like an amoeba.  We voted on whether I should open the present or read the cards first; I read the cards first.  Before I opened the present, Mrs. J said, "I don't know, this thing might give you nightmares!"  I wasn't sure what she meant until I opened it.  Then it was perfectly clear what she meant. My present was an "Eggspert," a jeopardy buzzer system exactly like the one I had had such a catastrophe with earlier this semester (when my professor came and saw me unprepared because I hadn't had time to test the technology before using it).

I was planning to leave my class while they went to PE, but they didn't want me to leave, so I went to PE with them.  That day was their first day of a dance unit! We were supposed to do the Cupid Shuffle, but the CD player wouldn't work.  So we did the YMCA, Hokey Pokey, and the Cha Cha Slide.  Afterwards, I said my goodbyes.  This was quite a process.  I sent the class with a para for a bathroom break, intercepted Mrs. J to give her a bag of chocolate as a thank-you (and said goodbye); when the class came back, I gave them all hugs and they swarmed me in a group hug.  One student shouted, "Hey, if we all hug her, she won't be able to leave!" 

Eventually I untangled myself and headed to the other class of 4th graders to say goodbye.  They all had to hug me too and were very dismayed I wasn't teaching them science that day.  Earlier in the day, one of the boys had seen me in my classroom and had run in, grabbed me in a hug, and said dramatically, "I don't want you to leave! You should stay forever!"  Once I told him I was going to be at school for a while longer, he immediately let go and left the room.  When I stopped by Mrs. M's classroom, he was at the resource room, so I stopped there before I left.  He of course, gave me another hug and didn't want to let go.  But I untangled myself and headed back to school.

I don't think any of my kids cried, and I didn't either!  I came close for a while (my eyes got that prickly feeling), but I held strong. 

Now I just need to survive TPA and 7th graders...

Parent Teacher Conferences

Whew! What a day!  I didn't do a whole lot, but I'm pretty exhausted.  Our day didn't start until 11:00am, so I got to sleep in until 7:30.  Wow, that was nice.  Then I ran some errands around campus: bought stamps, RSVPed for a graduation event thing, stopped by Career Services to go over my resume and (horrible) cover letter.  After that, I printed my resumes on nice paper, and it was time to go to school.

The morning appointments were kind of sporadic with lots of space in between parents, but after 3:30 we were booked solid until 7 (with a small break for supper).  I don't remember going with my parents to conferences, but apparently they are allowed to do so in this school.  There were only 3 out of 17 students who didn't come with their parents.  Next week, my 4th graders are starting a unit in science about living things, so some families brought in pets for the class to observe.  One of our first appointments brought in Tropical Cockroaches and a huge rat.  Both are used to raise food for animals at Pet Expo.  Of course, those two huge cages distracted everyone, so looking at the cages was added to what we talked about at each conference. 

I really liked seeing my students' parents.  It was fun to see how much their children resemble them, in both looks and mannerisms.  Some parents looked nothing like their children!  But I guess that's the mystery of genes; you never know exactly what you're going to get. 

A bunch of parents made a comment about the 5th grade boys bullying the 4th grade boys during recess on the playground.  Mrs. J said she'd talk to the proper people about that.  She also said that something like this happens every year; the 5th graders pick on the boys and she has a talk with the 4th graders about it.  They always say they'll never act like that when they are in 5th grade, but it still happens year after year. 

Official Online Test Monitor

Today was teacher in-service day, and there wasn't a whole lot planned for us to do.  We were supposed to be getting ready for Parent-Teacher Conferences, but we were all ready to go, so we didn't have much to do.  We had a short staff meeting, I worked on homework, and my teacher cleaned the classroom.  I offered to help, but she said she had to have something to do all day.  The afternoon brought another meeting; this one was for the staff to take an online test monitor certification course for the MCAs.  I logged on under Mrs. J's name and took the course right along with the other teachers, so I guess you could say I am an official Online Test Monitor for the MCAs (a test connected to the No Child Left Behind program). 

I have one boy in my class who doesn't stick with a book.  He just gets bored, or just doesn't want to finish it, or some reason or another.  Earlier this semester, I recommended Lightning Thief, by Rick Riordan to him, hoping the book would catch his fancy... and it did!  He kept me updated on how far he was in the book, and read it every chance he got.  He was so excited about these books, he ordered the whole series from the book order.  Every day he'd ask, "Miss Heintz, did my books come in yet?  When are they gonna be here?"  On Thursday, he was freaking out because the second book wasn't in the library and he was almost finished with the first book.  On Friday, the book orders came in, but I didn't see them until after school.  We unpacked the books and set them on his desk.  Since he was so excited about the books, Mrs. J called his house to see if he wanted to stop by and pick them up (since we don't have school until Wednesday).  We went out for lunch (Mrs. J's treat!) and when we got back... the books were gone!  He had stopped by while we were out.  Shoot! I had wanted to be there when he picked them up.  Oh well, I'm sure he'll tell me all about them on Wednesday.

As for tomorrow... Parent Teacher Conferences.

Mrs. W's Last Day

 We were doing a morning meeting when a student from the other 4th grade class popped in.  She said she had some things for my students to sign.  I asked what it was that they were signing, and... she didn't want to tell me.  Drawing conclusions yet again, I figured that it had something to do with Kristy and me leaving.  So I asked her if she wanted me to exit the classroom so I wouldn't see what they were doing.  As I was leaving, I heard one of my kids say, "It's almost like she knows what this is for."  Someone else chimed in, "I'm pretty sure she knows what we're doing." So I was kicked out of my own classroom for about 15 minutes.  And of course, all sorts of people and teachers and classes walked past and saw me casually hanging outside my room with the door closed.  I heard them reading our Morning Message aloud in unison, so I figured it would probably be safe to go back in, but the door was locked.  I had to wait for someone to let me in.  But, I eventually made it back into the classroom, and a few hours later, the girl from Mrs. M's class came back with a card and some candy sweethearts to pass out to the class as a going away present for me.  They all wanted to point out where they signed the card and kept asking me what I was going to do with the card and where I was going to put it.  They thought I should put it in a box frame so I would see it all the time.  Right now it's sitting on my desk where I can see it as I do my homework.

So it was Kristy's last day with her 4th graders today, and boy did they have a party!  We could hear them on the other side of the wall raising a ruckus to beat the band.  I was this close to going over there to tell them to tone it down!  One of my 4th graders came up to me and said, "Miss Heintz, do they have a Wii? Because I'm pretty sure they are playing one in there.  It's not fair!"  Another student piped up, "Why do they get to play video games?"  "Because it's Mrs. W's last day."  "Wait, so on your last day can we play video games?"  I told them they should ask Mrs. J about that.  They were all really excited, but I don't think they realized that they wouldn't get the chance to ask her before my last day; Mrs. J is gone today, they don't have school Monday or Tuesday, and my last day is Wednesday.  Bummer.



We did kind of have a fun day today.  We watched The Tale of Despereaux in class because I read the book out loud earlier in the semester.  I wanted to discuss the differences between the book and the movie, but there wasn't enough time.  Mrs. M and I switched classes fifteen minutes early because the 5th grade classes were hosting a wax museum in the library.  After testing insulators and conductors with Mrs. M's class in science, we switched back, and I took my kids to the wax museum.

It was so cool!  Some of the students went all out with their costumes (and of course there were others who didn't dress up at all... ahem... the kid who was supposed to be Steve Jobs).  I think my favorite ones were Orville and Wilbur Wright.  The two presenters did their speeches together and had it worked out so one would say a line, and the other would pick up right where the first left off.  It was fantastic!  My other favorite was Laura Ingalls Wilder; she had a very well put together spiel.  I hovered around groups of students who were listening to the 5th graders, but after a while I had three students who pretty much stuck with me for the time we were at the museum.  I tried to get them to guess who the character was; I almost think it was more fun for me to try to get them to find the right answer than it was for me to guess the right character.

First Grade Friends

One of my students has a brother in 1st grade.  I don't really know much about him, but as I was observing today, he made some really funny comments.  Their teacher had asked them what are some signs that it's spring.  This little guy piped up right away, "You get tons of tornado warnin's and you have to spend hours in the basement playin' uno."  Note: this was said all in one breath with the same high enthusiasm.

A lot of singing goes on in first grade.  Their class was singing a song called "The Number Rock" which apparently required all the first grade boys to get out their air guitars and jam through the song in its entirety.  Of course at the end they all enthusiastically smashed their "guitars" on the ground.  One boy described it as "breaking it down."

During lunch, my supervising teacher asked me what my plans were for the afternoon.  I said I didn't have any plans and asked if she had something for me to do.  She kind of laughed and basically told me I couldn't be in the classroom until after PE.  I figured they were probably doing something as a going away present/celebration thing, so it would be better if I weren't around.  I observed my class in PE and some of them were acting really suspicious.  When I got back to the classroom, I noticed some half-decorated cards in the recycle bin with my name misspelled.  Hmm.  I think I figured out what they were doing while I was gone.  Now I just need to figure out something to do for them.  Should I bring treats? Make bookmarks? Write them each a note? 

Another Random Day...

I spent the day observing different classrooms today, and the most interesting room by far was the music room.

In music, I watched both 4th grade classes.  When Mrs. M's class came in, a student ran up to me (one of the worst behaved boys) and said, "I don't want you to leave!"  Then he gave me a huge hug and wouldn't let go.  It got slightly awkward.  But, then we moved on to do this awesome thing called "Amoeba Drill."  They stand in a line with their hands held like opera singers, all prim and proper and singing the song... until the whistle blows, then... CHAOS! They run around until the whistle blows again.  Here's a link to the song: Amoeba Drill.

The music teacher has some great quotes pasted on her walls.  This is one that I kept coming back to:  "Excellence is the result of caring more than others think is wise; risking more than others think is practical; and expecting more than others think is possible." 

The Wilderness Must be Explored! (a.k.a. the rest of the school)

Since we don't have science on Tuesdays and it is my last full week at this particular school, I didn't have to teach today.  And since I didn't have to teach, I took the day to observe other classrooms.  This was actually quite challenging because all the classes have library and PE and music where they leave their classrooms.  So for a while, I was wandering around by myself looking for kids to observe!  It was really weird.  I kept waiting for someone to pop up around the corner and yell at me for being in the hall by myself or for not doing something productive.  Hmm. 

Anyway, I eventually found a kindergarten classroom and joined their morning sharing circle.  I had to introduce myself when I first came in so the students would calm down and quit asking who I was (and more importantly, why I was in their classroom).  I told the students that I normally helped Mrs. J with her class.  We finally got back to sharing (aka- show and tell).  The teacher passed over me to ask another student to share and you should've heard the fuss they made!  "Wait! You forgot Miss... Miss J!" (they forgot my last name and substituted it for my supervising teacher's name).  So their teacher asked me if I had something to share with the class.  The most interesting thing I could come up with was that some of our cows had had babies this weekend.  Well, that set everyone off.  They all wanted to know what I named them.  I told them that one of them was my sister's calf, so she got to name it.  Some of them said we should name these babies Chocolate Chip or Blackie or Butterscotch.  I told the class that my dad had to approve all the names before we could actually name a calf.  One student stared at me in absolute shock, "You have a dad?!?!"  Their teacher explained that everyone has a dad.  Another kid piped up, "I don't have one!"  This discussion could've gone on for hours, but we needed to keep sharing, so their teacher quickly moved on.

In a first grade classroom, I was sitting on a chair watching the class when a boy came right up to me and announced, "I want a hug."  Then he wrapped his arms around me and walked to his seat.

Last week, I had judged some 1-3rd graders at the Expo, which is basically a big science fair, except the topics can be on anything the students are interested in (Legos, their family, a pet, dinosaurs, etc.) and the purpose is to improve communication skills.  One boy I interviewed was very shy and it felt like I was dragging information out of him.  He actually heaved a huge sigh when I left his table!  Well, I saw him in class today, and he kept turning around to look at me (probably wondering why his project judge was in his classroom).  The 1st graders had to fill out a worksheet about their Expo project, filling in the blank, "I felt _________ when the judge interviewed me."  This particular student had written "I felt scared."  Yikes!

In the afternoon, I sat in on a 3rd grade classroom.  One pod of students was apparently fascinated by me.  Two of the girls almost fell out of their chairs trying to see my shoes (black flats with black sparkles around the edges).  One of the boys was the son of Tiffany's supervising teacher.  At the end of the day, he came up to me and asked, "You're the helper in Mrs. J's room, aren't you? Are you going to be helping in here now?"  I had to tell him no, and I'm pretty sure he was a little disappointed.  It's the same boy who always stares at me when our classes take our afternoon bathroom break.  I always smile at him, but he never smiles back; he just stares. 

The most interesting parts of my day were the ones I spent in the speech therapy rooms.  There are two rooms for this: one for early elementary students, and one for the middle and upper elementary students.  I've never seen those teachers in action before and it was actually really cool to watch.  They do a lot of things with iPads and games; they'll do a speech activity on the iPad, then play a fun game, then go back to the iPad.  There are also a bunch of finger signs the teachers use to show what sound a letter makes.  The iPad is used to record what the teacher and student say and then it is played back so the individual can hear what he/she sounds like.  They spend about 10-20 minutes with students, usually grouped in pairs of two.  It was so interesting, I kind of want to spend all day tomorrow with them.  If I ever get tired of teaching, I just might have to switch over to speech special ed...

Weird things...

This morning my students came in the classroom and I noticed one boy had his hood up and it looked like he was distraught.  He also had an icepack pressed to his cheek.  I went over to him and asked, "Are you okay? What's going on?"  He moved the icepack to reveal two huge scrapes on his cheek.  After finding out it didn't happen at school (which I should've known because the scrapes were scabbed over), he told me he got hit by a car!  while rollerblading!  He made sure to tell me the car was going slow... like that would make me feel better.  Apparently he hadn't been able to stop, so he ran into the car.  Great.  The poor kid had an icepack on his face almost the whole day.

After school, I went to pick up some potting soil with another RA for our joint wing activity tonight.  We were walking around the store when I saw a para who works at the school where I'm teaching and her daughter (who is in my science class).  We ended up chatting for a bit, but no sooner had I moved on than I saw Tiffany's (one of the other student teachers) supervising teacher grocery shopping with her boys.  One of them recognized me because his class stands next to my class in the hallway during our bathroom breaks in the afternoon.  He didn't say anything to me.  I remember when I was in grade school, it was so weird to see teachers outside of school.  It's kind of weird in reverse too.

What a crazy day!

Yesterday was spring Picture Day.  The one where the photographers takes pictures of all the students against a pretty background of the woods and a brick wall... and they send them home and expect parents to pay for them, and if not, to send them back. 

So our class was scheduled to have our pictures taken before lunch, which would fit in fine with our Daily 5 rotation (our class' reading curriculum).  But the office called and said the pictures were backed up and we'd have to go after lunch.  That was fine with me; I could work with that.

After lunch came and the office called to say someone else was scheduled for that time, so we'd be moved to 1:50.  That's right in the middle of my math lesson, but the 4th graders were taking a test, so I could make it work.  Then it was time for PE.  Normally, my students stay in the gym and I go pick them up afterwards.  Well, it was so nice yesterday, they got to go outside.  The only problem with this is that I didn't know where to pick them up.  I don't go outside by the gym, so I wasn't entirely sure how to get to the playground from there.  I only had my students' sketchy directions to follow: Go out that door in the gym and there's a door there that you go out.  Or you can go up by the music room and go down the stairs and out that door.

PE's end rolled around and I tried to get to the playground.  I went out the doors my students pointed me to a few days before and... didn't see a door.  The only exit sign I saw led me out a side door to the street.  I didn't want to miss them, so I went back to the classroom, hoping Mrs. J would be around or maybe my students would miraculously appear.  Nope.  Didn't happen.  What did happen was the phone ringing telling me it was my class' turn to get their pictures taken.  Here's my conversation with the secretary:

"Can your class come get their pictures taken?"
"Yeah, they're just getting done with PE, so I can bring them over."
"Okay, is it going to be long?"
"No, they're done right now.  I just have to go pick them up.  The only thing is, I don't know where to pick them up.  They went outside for PE."
She thought for a minute, "Hmm, I don't know either!  Maybe go out the lunchroom door?"

I went down to those doors and looked outside.  Well, there were plenty of kids out there, but I couldn't tell if they were mine or not.  I didn't know if the door would lock behind me, so I was hesitant to go out there (I didn't have a key or fob to get back in the building).  But I saw some paras out on the playground, so I chanced it.  I happened to look over and saw my class being herded to a different door.  Thank goodness!

So we waltzed into the auditorium where the photographer was set up, red faced and sweaty from playing outside.  My class made a mad dash to the table with those free combs and started brushing their hair.  A few boys asked if they could go get a drink, but I'm pretty sure they went to check themselves out in the bathroom mirror.  We got all 18 of my students through the photographer in about 20 minutes.  Whew!  What a crazy day!

Last day of full time teaching

Today was my last day of full time teaching.  Next week will begin the gradual giving back of subject areas until I'm not teaching anything anymore.  Yesterday, I told my approaching level small reading group that it was my last day teaching them in the small group.  They immediately protesting, "What? Why?" "Already?" "Why can't you keep teaching us?" "Does this mean you're leaving soon?" "Awww!" "I'm going to be sad when you leave."  If that response isn't enough to warm your heart, I don't know what is.

My 4th graders kept bugging me today to see if we were going to work in the computer lab on our Storyjumper.com stories.  This website lets people write, illustrate, and publish their own books (and can be purchased as a hardcover book, for a price).  My students are turning the adventure stories they've written into an illustrated book.  This project fit in nicely with the author/illustrator who spoke at our school a few weeks ago.  She mentioned that she likes to have a specific object hidden on each page (she referenced Mercer Mayer's Little Critter series).  I noticed a few of the boys took this to heart; one boy told me he put an acorn on every page "like a real author!"  The other boy I noticed put a red pop can in almost all his pages (his story is about a hunter in the woods, so it kind of fits).

I didn't actually teach a whole lot today.  One of the students "bought" a movie privilege with her Dolphin Dollars (an incentive program my supervising teacher does to get students to write in their planners).  So that's how we spent our afternoon.  We did switch classes for social studies and science.  Mrs. M's class enjoyed learning about agriculture yet again.  Most students thought the animal x-rays were the most interesting along with the veterinarian tools.  Here are some other comments:

"I like the tools on the tractors."
"The most interesting thing is how you get the hay bales into the square and oval." [round and square bales]
"I thought the stuff about the bales was cool."
"The most interesting thing about today was about the money."  [We discussed how much farmers get paid for their livestock and how much it costs to raise animals/crops in a given year.]
"I enjoyed looking at the stuff from the vet."
"The most favorite thing is hay."

I found out tonight that this week is National Agriculture Week!  According to a sheep newsletter to which I subscribe, the message of National Agriculture Week was "to recognize and celebrate the abundance provided by agriculture. The program encourages every American to understand how food and fiber products are produced, value the essential role of agriculture in maintaining a strong economy and appreciate the role agriculture plays in providing safe, abundant and affordable products.  Each American farmer or rancher feeds more than 144 people. This is a dramatic increase from the 25 people that each producer fed in the 1960s. Quite simply, American agriculture is doing more and doing it better."
 

Classroom Ag Updates

I brought in some samples of grain and feed from my family's farm and passed them around to both my classes of 4th grade science students.  The samples included: corn, soybeans, oats, alfalfa, ground alfalfa, ground hay, ground corn stalks, straw, corn silage, mineral, salt, lamb creep feed, ground corn (pig feed), chicken feed crumbles, soy hull pellets, Distillers Dry Grains (DDGs), and show feed.  They were obviously the highlight of the lesson:

"The most interesting thing is how the corn kernel gets bigger."
"That in Iowa the corn is grown a lot."
"My favorite part was smelling the bags of stuff. I smelled it.  It smelled good."
"I liked how we got to smell the corn and wheat." (I think he meant oats)
"My fav. was learning how the food smells."
"Smelling all the feed."
"Animals' food are good smelling."

In today's lesson, we covered farm machinery.  I showed a video from YouTube with a combine harvesting corn and soybeans.  I also covered a bit about veterinaries; the visual aids were most helpful!  They loved seeing the x-rays of animal insides and broken bones.  We didn't have a lot of time left at the end of the day... it's pretty obvious based on what was written on their post-it notes:

"Watching the video about harvesting."
"The videos and the x-rays."
"Implant gun."
"Corn hair [corn silk]."
"That you stick a hand up a cow's butt." (referring to the long sleeved plastic glove I showed them)
"I liked learning about the pigs (pig puller) because my neighbors have pigs so I like to learn about them."

We'll find out tomorrow what the other class has to say.

A spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down...

Two of my students were out sick today.  One has strep throat, the other is just feeling ill.  It's really hard to keep them at the same level as the rest of the class and avoid having them fall behind.  I can't imagine what it would be like to be sick as a teacher, feeling ill and still having to plan your lessons for a sub.  Never have I been more happy to live in the dorms!  All the exposure to people and their germs must have bolstered my immune system; I think I'm the only student teacher who hasn't missed a day from being sick.  Let's hope I can keep it up!

A surprise visitor...

Yesterday held a number of surprises.  I was sitting at my desk in the classroom when a 5th grade student entered the room holding a bunch of balloons and a box of cookies.  It was his birthday and he had brought treats for his class.  He came right up to me and said, "this is for you."  I was confused because I didn't know him; I thought maybe he had gotten the wrong room. But he repeated his sentence again, "Yes, you."  Then he handed me a cookie and left one for Mrs. J too! 

Our other surprise took place in the afternoon around science time.  My dad had gone to pick up baby chicks for my siblings' 4-H project and passed right by the school where I'm student teaching.  He volunteered to stop by and show the chicks to my class.  Unfortunately, there's a policy prohibiting animals from being in the school, but Mrs. J cleared it with the principal so we could show them in an entryway.  I started science with my class a little early because of the disruption and I left my phone on vibrate on my desk so I would hear Dad when he called.  I prefaced the lesson with a vague disclosure, "We're having a visitor to our classroom, so my phone may ring while I'm teaching."  Immediately they began to guess who it would be.  Most of them guessed my dad, but they all thought he was bringing a bottle lamb.  When Dad called, a few of the ones closest to me could hear his voice over the phone, "It's a guy!" they shouted.  He pulled up right outside our classroom window, so they all struggled to peer out the window.  Five of them offered to go let him in the school.

We actually saw the chicks in a relatively organized manner.  The babies pooped on a few students, fell asleep in a few students' hands, and were peeping the whole time.  After my class saw/petted them, Mrs. M's class came for a look.  When all of them had gotten a chance, they went back to my classroom, washed their hands, and had a question/answer question with "Farmer Heintz."  Their questions were pretty good.  Some included, "What is your favorite job to do on the farm?  What is the hardest physical job on the farm? What do you like to do in your spare time, when you've done all the work?  How do the baby chicks get inside the egg?"

After school, one of the paras stopped me in the hallway and asked how old Dad was.  When I told her, she commented, "Wow, he did not look old enough to have a kid as old as you! He looks way younger than that." 

Animal Ag day 2

Well, my other class of 4th graders had even more fun with this lesson.  The pig video was again very popular.  Here are some of their other comments:

"The most interesting thing is when the pig had a baby.  It came out so fast and stood up right away."
"The interesting thing is to have eyes on an animal." (this student was referring to the fact that a cow's eye placement lets it see almost entirely around its body).
"The most interesting thing is that you have a peacock."
"I like the cows because of how big they are!"
"That the animals go the other way to keep an eye on you."
"When animals are having babies. Always keep an eye on the animals."
"Animals are fun but sometimes annoying... Peacocks can be on farms."

Since they liked the video so much, I am going to try bringing in more hands-on visual aids.  I contacted our local veterinary office to borrow some visual aids.  They let me borrow some x-rays, a hog catcher, calf pulling chains, an empty blood sample tube, a syringe (with no needle), and a few other things.  My dad is going to be passing by the school on Monday on his way home with baby chicks for the fair, so we might try to finagle a visit with my 4th graders.  Hopefully everything works out!

Agriculture Animals 101

Today our science lesson focused all about farm animals.  I regaled my students with tales of how I got my first cow, what we feed our animals, how we do chores, how we keep our animals safe and comfortable, and ways to be safe around them.  I debated whether I should show them a video of a pig giving birth (I found a pretty good one on YouTube).  I forgot to ask Mrs. J if it was okay to show it to them, so I put it in the hands of the students.  They all put their heads down and their hands up if they weren't comfortable seeing a pig giving birth.  No one's hand went up.  So I showed the video. 

I'm glad I did because that was what half the class said was the most interesting/the coolest thing they learned today.

Here are the highlights of their comments:

"Giving birth to a baby pig because pigs are important."
"My favorite part is when the peacock chases the chickens."
"Coolest- How you feed the animals because I think it's really cool how you feed them."

The most important thing they learned (according to their post-it notes) is "where you should be with animals for safety."  Another student remarked, "I thought the safety would have to be the most important because I always grabbed them the wrong way."

One student decided to use his post-it to petition for a seating change in addition to listing the most interesting part.  This morning, some of the boys used their "Dolphin Dollars" to purchase a one day seating change.  A bunch of them did it at the same time so they could sit by each other in a pod.  I was envisioning utter chaos, but they were surprisingly well-behaved most of the day.  Two of the three boys begged me to let them stay there for the rest of the year.  I thought about it for about two seconds, but I've been struggling in keeping the classroom managed, so I told them no (I have trouble enforcing my expectations... but I'm working on it).  I do need to make some seating adjustments because some students are complaining they can't see around someone's head.  Why didn't they bring it up to Mrs. J at the beginning of the year?  Did the student suddenly get a big head or what?  I suppose I seem like a pushover who will agree to whatever demands they make.  Ha! They'll soon see how stubborn I can be... just let them try it.