Thanksgiving

We had a decent day today: solar system presentations went well, kids were crazy, lunch was okay, classroom is moderately cleaned up, and I am out of here for Thanksgiving break!

So far everything is peaceful outside. We'll see how much snow we get!

Christmas

I have our Christmas program songs stuck in my head... Our first day of all school practice was today. We got about halfway through the program. They've got a good handle on the songs already; Mrs. L didn't give them music for the first few times of practicing the songs so they had to memorize it. Now that they have music, they're already familiar with the words/melody.

After school I made cds of the songs for the bible school families, bible school teachers, and us teachers so we can practice in our classrooms. We finalized our seating chart for the program too. It's all coming together!

We're going to finish running through the program tomorrow afternoon. I will probably miss that part of the day. There's a big snowstorm rolling in tomorrow around 3pm with big winds, etc. so Mr. E wants me out of here and in Fulda before the storm hits. I shuffled my afternoon schedule around so I can leave at 1:30. Let's pray they don't bump up the storm's arrival even sooner!

Touching

My kids were super touchy-feely today, always in each others' faces flicking their fingers, touching their arms, pounding their fists on other classmates' hands. We had the 'no touching your classmates' speech at the end of the day (it was more at the end of the day than the beginning). Sigh. I am pooped.

Last night my brain couldn't shut off about behavior management, so I looked up the zones of regulation. One of my students has been learning this at home/other classes, and his mom thought I could use it with him at school. I think it might work for my whole class! I did a bunch of reading up on it and (of course) ordered another book from the library to try to learn more about how to teach the lessons. This philosophy is focused on self-regulation and identifying the triggers that cause each individual to lash out. The idea is that if each person knows their triggers and can identify them, they can use their tools to prevent the blow-up before it happens. There are four different colors: blue (sad, tired, sick), green (ready to learn), yellow (lots of energy/excitement/difficulty focusing), red (blow-up). I'm going to say that over half my class is typically in the yellow zone. Now I need to figure out what to teach them so they can move themselves into the green zone.

I counted and have five classroom management books checked out/borrowed from other teachers waiting for me to read at home. Thankfully, I have less than 10,000 words left to write on my NaNo. I'm hoping I can finish it early and spend some of Thanksgiving break reading up on different things I can try with my students. If only I had a time-pause button...

Friday

This week has seemed to drag on, but this morning during devotions it struck me that tomorrow is Friday! All of a sudden it felt like the week had gone so fast! It was quite strange.

My kids are doing well with their NaNos. More have been spending their writer's workshop time making their planet powerpoints since they'll be presenting them to the 1-4th graders next Monday and Tuesday.

We made Christmas program folders today (and by 'we' I mean two of my students stapled the script and song sheets together in a folder and passed them out to classes). We've been working on the Christmas bell songs for about a week or so and they're coming together nicely. Today's practice was actually pretty good!

There's one song of just 7-8th graders, "The First Noel", and they asked if we could repeat the song since it's kind of short. Sure. Then we had the idea to jazz it up by playing a fancy way. So we tried mallets, thumb damping, and table damping. The mallets sounded the prettiest, so we're going with that. One of the 8th graders thought we should end the song with a technique I can't remember the name of... it's where you ring the bell, then swing it down in an arch by your side and swing it back up and clunk it down on the foam table. So we're also going to try that. It was a great practice!

Good Stuff

I've been going a little overboard placing holds on books at the library. I've maxed out my holds amount twice and I'm getting close to a third time... (you can only put holds on 25 books at a time in this library system!). I've also learned that there's a limit to how many you can check out at a time... 50. I maxed that out once and came close a second time. Apparently if you're a 'good' patron (aka, the librarians like you because you return your things on time and don't have any fines) they just override that.

I put a ton more on hold today because I found a bunch of books that tie in with our figurative language unit in English. If only we had more time to read them...

Today we packed boxes for Operation Christmas Child. It went pretty well, but it cut into our morning routine. Overall we had a pretty good day today. It was our first day in pods and they did all right. We are working our way towards earning crates in the classroom (they're currently in the coatroom and the boys do NOT like it... it's too much of a hassle for them to get their stuff). Our class has to beat me five days for that to happen. They did beat me today. Five days takes us to Thanksgiving break. So if they win all five, they could move their crates in the room in December!

My shop class last night went well. I did get done early. Turns out it was just me; another girl had signed up, but she had to work late and didn't end up coming. Mostly the shop teacher and I went around to each of the machines we'll be using in our upcoming class and we went over how to use it and the safety features. I had to take a quiz at the end where I listed all the safety rules of each machine. It's a lot to remember! My teacher showed me a picture of the planter we'll be making and it looks really cool! Now I just have to decide which plant I'm going to put in it... I certainly have lots to choose from!

Family Write Night

Last night was another late one, but fun! The 4th annual Family Write Night was attended by 49 people, some of which were kids who didn't want to be in the basketball practice study hall room. Our youngest was pre-preschool and oldest were grandparents. I'd say it was a success! We played more writing games and ate a TON of candy and pizza.

My kids have been moderately decent the past two days. Tomorrow we're going to try moving our desks in pods. After that we'll see if they can earn their crates being brought into the room. I'm still very skeptical of that, but we'll give them a chance.

I'm going to keep this short because tonight I have a wood shop safety class in New Ulm. I have to pass the class before I can take any other wood shop classes. I signed up for a two day class in December, so I need to do well in this one!

Royal Treatment

My kids gave Joe's tank the royal treatment today... they fluffed up the coconut husk fiber, cleaned out his food bowl, added fresh food to the dish, and rearranged the dirt. Not only did they do all that, they did some engineering as well. Two of the boys took the 'pool' the girls had made a while ago, cut the opening wider, and flipped it upside down to be a cave for Joe to go in. They carefully patted dirt on top and the sides so if he wants to he can go up top. Once they put him back in his tank, he headed straight for the cave and has been in there ever since! I wonder when we'll see him again...

A few days ago, a different boy stuck a black and white picture of a tortoise on the side of the tank. "Joe needs a girlfriend," he said. Joe is pretty shy. I wonder if that's why he went into the cave so fast... I also think tortoises can't see super well, so maybe not.

My class behaved super well today! They beat me by six points! Our classroom was quiet during our Daily 5 rounds and everyone was productive. It was fantastic.

We watched the Wizard of Oz with the 7-8th graders in Mr. E's classroom (and my class behaved super well again!). After the first hour I ducked back into my room to correct the 7-8th grade 3D earth projects. Yesterday when Mr. E and I did some hunting to find the movie, we saw some clips from the first bit of it. I realize now that I've never seen the first 20 minutes of the movie! Growing up my family's copy was a recording of the movie, and the recording started right at the part where Dorothy is trying to get into the house... no scenes with the hired hands, the evil neighbor lady, or the traveling fortune teller! No wonder I thought the high schoolers added scenes to the play! So I stuck around long enough to see Dorothy meet the Tin Woodsman. Such a great movie. It is pretty scary though, especially the tornado at the beginning!

Parent Teacher Conferences

Another long night this week. All my parents showed up. Shortest one was five minutes, longest was twenty. I had a few gaps between parents which I put to good use lesson planning for next week. Boy I am pooped!

A lot of parents said their kids are frustrated with how noisy/annoying their classmates are and that the whole class gets consequences when it's just a few people misbehaving. I try not to do that too often, but I'm sure those are the times that stick in their heads the most. I don't want to penalize the good students when they haven't done anything wrong. So I need to do something different. A few parents who do social work or have worked in classrooms before had some suggestions I'm going to try. It's just a matter of which one I want to try first...

Sigh. So much research to do, so little time.

On the plus side, I've been keeping up with my NaNo words! My class is 58% done with our goal. We've written about 34,000 words so far.

We're Off to See the Wizard

Our schedule was pretty messed up today. Wednesdays are always a little different because we have chapel, but today we took a bus to New Ulm High School for their fall play, The Wizard of Oz. Everyone brought a sack lunch so we could leave at 11:30 to make it there in time. We crammed in three rounds of Daily 5. I had Miss S do a handwriting lesson with my handwriting boys. They were pretty rowdy, but they at least have their handwriting sheet for the week. 

The play was AWESOME! I am amazed at the talent of the actors (and the director!) for putting together such a great show. They sang beautifully, were well-cast, had special effects going on, neat costuming, and decent choreography. Some of the play differed from the movie (added scenes that I think added to the show), but there were still the old favorite songs and one-liners. 

One of my students has been reading the graphic novel version of the book. A few of mine have seen the movie, only one student in Mr. E's class. He had the great idea that the 7-8th graders should watch it on Friday... so we're going to switch math to the morning so we have enough time to watch the movie in the afternoon. I invited my class along, as long as they earn it! Hopefully that's a good enough incentive to get them to behave tomorrow.

Sick

Mr. W was sick today. He was supposed to teach the 7-8th grade social studies lesson today, but since he wasn't here I had to do it. He's going to be gone on Thursday, so thankfully I had a lesson prepped that I could do with them today. After emailing him, we decided that I'm going to teach about the Ottomans on Thursday (what he was supposed to do today) so we can stay on track.

He sent his lesson to me ahead of time and some of the notes he made caused me to think about what I'm teaching in social studies and why. He had made the comment that the lesson on Ottomans didn't meet any standards, not MN or the common core. Well, that's kind of a problem... Even though we don't have to follow standards at private schools, it's still good to try to do so; if the lesson isn't meeting any standards, what's the point of teaching it?

I took a look at the social studies standards and realized that the 7-8th grade books are so old they no longer align with them. In MN, 5th graders are supposed to do American History up to the 1800s (which is about all we can get through in a year), 6th grade does MN history, 7th is supposed to do American history from the 1800s-present, and 8th grade does geography. So, I do all that, except the 7th grade curriculum is ancient world history and the 1800s-present gets crammed in to MN history. It works, but it would be nice to stretch out American history to 7-8th grade.

But... when will they learn about ancient world history? That stuff is important too. And what about non-MN students? What do they learn in 6th grade? A lot of states don't have a year of state history. (I think the answer is ancient world history). I had a nice talk with my teacher friend L about standards and how to lesson plan with them, the benefits of background knowledge, etc. and now my brain is buzzing with thoughts.

So. What to do now? The answer (for the time being) is to keep doing what we're doing with the 7-8th graders, but this summer I'm going to look for a new history book for the 7-8th graders! I need time to do research before I change everything up.

Restart

Today was rough, particularly the morning. We all needed a restart on the day, even me.

It started with me not being able to wake my computer up. At first I thought the mouse batteries had died (I recently got a wireless mouse), which seemed odd since I've only been using it for a week. But sometimes batteries are faulty, so I figured I'd try new batteries. In the meantime, three students arrived around 7:50am.

After putting new batteries in, nothing changed. So I tried connecting the old mouse to the computer. I tried changing which USB port I plugged it into. Nothing worked. I could hear the computer recognizing the mouse being plugged in, but the screen wasn't showing any connection. By this time, the first bus had arrived and students were clamoring all the questions they had about our new student teacher, if there was anything for them to work on, etc. I got increasingly frustrated because I needed to print things for the week, prep an English lesson, and pull up their Daily 5 rounds chart so they could choose what they were going to do later in the morning. Sigh.

I called the IT guys next. Thankfully he answered. He had to talk me through the process of checking for a transmitter box under my computer, then pushing various buttons until something came up on my screen. In the meantime, my students were getting on each others nerves, talking, running around the room... I had to keep pausing to redirect them. Finally I pushed enough buttons my computer came back to life, right around 8:30 when we were supposed to start school. I had thought our student teacher was coming between 8-8:15am this morning, so the whole class was on edge (with excitement) waiting for her to come. But she didn't come until 10am, which made sense with what I'd seen of her schedule a long time ago (only Mr. E got sent her contact info/schedule for some reason, so I had to go on memory). 

Needless to say, I was frustrated and crabby starting the day. I tried not to snap at my kids, but my tone was not its usual chipper self. When we finally got our day started, it was a good teachable moment for me to tell them how I was feeling and that I needed to take a break to restart my mood. We all put our heads on our desks for 10 seconds, then had devotions. While the break helped me, it did not settle them. So halfway through religion we paused to run a lap around the gym. After only 20 minutes of school, I was winning the tally war with four tallies to zero. 

Things did turn around after lunch. By the end of the day we were tied. Still, they were crazy enough that Miss S commented on their behavior at lunchtime, "They sure have a lot of energy!" Yes, yes they do. Mondays are always rough, plus a cold front is moving in/through, so I'm sure the barometric pressure didn't help. Still, prayers for a better day tomorrow are appreciated!

New Teacher

We're getting another student teacher on Monday! She came to school today to take the tour and get our class schedule. She's going to be here the whole day MWF and a good chunk of the day TR. Miss S is her name. She seems very lovely and excited to learn and do lessons. She's a little nervous about classroom management; I told her this class will be a good one to practice on. Since she'll be here so much, my class brought in a desk for her from the shed and wiped it down and made it higher. Tomorrow they're going to write her name on it.

My class was really mean to each other today. It was bad enough that one boy said he's not coming to school tomorrow because he's sick of being bullied. Sigh.

At the end of the day I told the class about our next all school field trip coming up in January. We're going bowling! At least, the good classes are. One of the students asked if we could have a chart showing if we're going in the right direction or not. The rest of the class thought that was a good idea. I asked if we could make a checklist we could run through at the end of the day to see if we met our goal. Three girls volunteered to make the list and the boys agreed that it was a good idea. Awesome! It sounds like we have a good plan in place!

NaNo Update

We're six days into NaNo and the word counts are rising! Our class goal for the month is to write 75,001 words (30,000 words are my goal). One girl wrote her 3,000 word goal over the weekend! Now she's just seeing how many words she can get. Today she's up to 3,700.

So far, our class has written about 13,000 words. I am a little behind with only 3,300 of my supposed to be 6,000, but I haven't written any today. Hopefully I'll be able to catch up a little when I get home.

We had a bunch of meetings today. Yesterday's staff meeting got postponed to this afternoon. Then we had a PTL meeting that just got over. Whew! Long day. The Nicollet chamber of commerce gave us teachers a nice pizza supper in between meetings, so I didn't have to wait until I got home to eat. How nice!

Kahoot

My 5-6th graders did their first Kahoot today! They LOVED it. I loved it because they were so into it, and everyone was paying attention. We're totally doing more of them.

Kahoot is a website that lets teachers make multiple choice quizzes for their students (or anybody) to take at the same time. One question is shown on the board at a time, they pick their answer, and the right answer is shown once everyone has answered. They earn points for getting the right answer, getting a bunch right in a row, and for answering the fastest. The game keeps track of who answers the fastest/gets the most points so you can see which person/team is in first, second, third, etc. as you play. There are options to play each person has his/her own device or as a team, where you confer as a group and then answer the question.

The bell songs are coming along nicely, so we only went through each song twice. Afterwards, I had the 7-8th graders and 6th graders do a Thanksgiving Kahoot quiz. The 6th graders picked it up pretty quickly. They only made it halfway through the quiz, but we didn't have that much to do for 5-6th grade social studies, so we finished our powerpoint, then divided into teams and redid the Thanksgiving Kahoot. Each team had a 6th grader so their prior knowledge of the quiz wouldn't give anyone a super huge advantage. The teams worked really well together, so we might just keep them!

Now that I know how quick it is to do it in teams (we only have four easy to grab devices), we might be able to squeeze in a Kahoot before lunch every once in a while.

Fall Carnival

I did not drink enough water today... I only refilled my desk cup once, normally I do it at least twice, if not three times during the day. I was on a roll trying to get my kids to hand stuff in so they could do the carnival. They were all able to do it! Everyone got their names off the board for both Mr. E and me! I made deals with two kids (the out of control ones yesterday) that if they got their other work done, they could finish saying their memory work Tuesday (end of the quarter, no school Monday). So technically I have two kids who need to say their hymn verse memory work, but aside from that we're all caught up!

The carnival went well. The other classes had a good time. I dressed up as a chef because I wasn't feeling too inspired: I just put on my jalapeno apron and was good to go. Lots of kids liked it!

Mr. and Mrs. E's middle daughter is home from California for a while. She was my cousin's RA at Bethany, so I got to know her a bit in college. She came over to school to hang out with her parents and see all the students, which gave us a little time to catch up during the carnival.

Now I'm loading things up for the long weekend! I'm going to visit my sister down in Iowa, so my goal is to do my grades tomorrow morning before I leave. It's also the first day of November, aka NaNo kick off, so I need to write my words for today still. I quick wrote 50ish while the 7-8th graders took their spelling test! Only need 950 more to meet today's goal!