9:5

I don’t really know how today went. Honestly. I very much dislike Halloween. And I kept a happy face, and didn’t let it bother me, but talk about chaos. We took a spelling test, but other than that, the day was basically a blah blurb of school. I have decided that Halloween might not be so bad when I have my own kids, but I have always dislike Halloween (because my birthday is so close). It wasn’t horrible, I can handle it. What I can’t handle is the getting nothing accomplished. In the morning, there was a movie and that took almost all of our teaching morning. The afternoon we had a little bit for math (which don’t even get me started on--- Miss M taught again, and she STILL hasn’t gone back to place value), and then we did bingo/got costumes on, and then it was the Halloween dance/party/Masquerade Ball (I think that is what it was called). WOW today was crazy hectic.

9:4

Today I was surprised by Mr. P coming in. He showed up while we were in computer. I should have checked my emails! I wasn’t teaching math today, as it was “taken” away from me. Yesterday I was so mad that I wasn’t going to be teaching, but I got over it. Then when math came around today, I got even more mad then I was yesterday, because Miss M was teaching the stuff I was suppose to teach!!! She said she was going to go back and teach some of the things she should have taught a little bit more in depth, but she wasn’t! She didn’t even go back to that. She said she was going to go back to place value, and she hadn’t. She worked on adding. That was what I was suppose to teach. I WAS SOOOO ANGRY! I didn’t say anything, and I tried to keep a straight face. I’m still mad at this point, but there isn’t much I can do. I wish I would have been given the chance to try again. Especially after finding out that she wasn’t going to go back. I don’t know. Other than that, that was my day. It was all going really well.

Today is my birthday. Man do the kids love the fact that they get to celebrate your birthday with you! How exciting!!!!

9:3

Math was absolutely HORRIBLE today. I will never ever teach math the way I did ever again. WOW! I don’t even know where to begin. The students just were not grasping the concept, and after talking to Miss M, part of it is my fault for doing things differently then they have ever done before, and not stopping when I first saw the sign of trouble. She also had said that I just wasn’t ready to take this on. Whether it meant math in general, or whether it meant the lesson we were on. We are doing 2 digit additions, and the students just don’t seem to understand. They can do the problem, but they don’t understand much more than the math algorithm that goes along with it. Miss M said that last year one of the teachers (if not both) in second grade were teaching the algorithm so that students could get the questions right on the NWEA test so that she/they could get the points they needed. That screwed us up because now the students aren’t willing to listen because they already know how to add it. Miss M also said that she had been contemplating before on whether to take the chance and let me give it a stab, or if she should just teach it. It many ways I wish she wouldn’t have let me do it, but at the same time, I’m really glad she did. Now I can see what it feels like to completely mess it up, and have to start over (except I don’t start over tomorrow, she is going to teach tomorrow because she needs to get them to the point they are at, and re-teach some of the things she has taught them earlier in the year). It’s hard for me to be handed something and then have that same something get taken away because I failed. I know that something needs to be changed, and I’m glad that Miss M is going to let me see what is going on, and how to teach something when it fails… sort of a where to go from here type of a deal. At the same time I want to try to fix my own mistake.

Science, I feel a little guilty, like it was my part my fault, but at the same time it isn’t even close. I warned the students, and they chose to ruin it. We lost our science experiment today because of goofing around at the water fountain, not listening, talking when not suppose to be, and plain period being disrespectful. I had students evaluate themselves (they would have had to at the end of the experiment anyways), and give themselves a grade, with a reason why they felt they deserved that grade. I’ve read through a few of them and plan on writing or speaking my own comments to each student individually. The students will not be getting a grade, the slips will not be sent home and we will be discussing one last time about being respectful, following directions, and behaving. I don’t feel the need or want to ever even bring up a science experiment for a while. I don’t want to deal with it. It won’t be for a bit before we do another one, but I’m not going to keep it from them for forever. Just until they can prove to me how much better they can act as a class.

9:2

Today was a day from crazy town. There was a fire drill in the afternoon (good thing it wasn’t too chilly out), found out there will be a lockdown tomorrow. We also had to work on our science experiment that we will be doing this week. It seems that students are really getting into it and it really only does take us five-ten minutes during the morning to get it finished. On our way down to art, I saw the art teacher and gave him a little heads up that we were having a bit of a listening and following directions problem today. Mr. H then said ok, and I went back to the classroom. I went down to get the students from art, and I was patiently waiting while Mr. H finished his directions to dismiss the students. Mr. H had to give his simple direction 10 times!!! Guess what that simple direction was- SIT IN YOUR SEATS! Seriously, that isn’t a direction that should need to be given 10 times before students listen. At least now I know that it isn’t just Miss M and I that are having problems with them listening and following directions. I’m so confused on what to do and where to go to next.

The rest of the day seemed to have just gone by without knowing what happened. We once again didn’t get social studies and science in because there wasn’t any time. Students were given time (by me) to work on their corrections, and also to finish their math papers that seemed to take them an hour. I was doing the lesson, and was going to do more, but the students seemed to get it. They seemed like they understood compatible numbers, and they understood rounding (as they had worked on it for days on end). I gave them their worksheets and students right off the bat had questions, even though each one could answer the questions I asked them during the lesson (which were the same/similar to the ones on the worksheet). I helped students, Miss M helped students, and so did our aide that comes into the room during math. We were all walking around helping student after student. They took over an hour to do the 2 worksheets. It was crazy. Next time I’ll know to slow down, and really make sure that they understand what is going on before I move onto the worksheet (even though I really did think that they understood).

Week 9: Day 1

Happy Monday! Man am I tired. I got nothing done this weekend (I got a few things corrected, but other than that I am looking at a huge stack of things that need to be completed). Today was a day of catching up, and starting new things. Basically everything last week was finished up by Thursday so that we didn’t have to have finish up work on Friday/today. The only thing that really was a continued concept would have been science, where we started a science experiment relating to the chapter we just finished in our book.

The science experiment was a question in my head, on whether or not the students could handle having one. I gave out the expectations that they were going to show me they could handle it so I could assign more of them, a little more often. There was a slight bit of talking and goofing around, but nothing too serious. We did the science experiment during math time, and then just pushed math backwards into science time. Math was a normal day, where we talked about estimating, and a little bit about rounding and problem solving.

Social studies… that subject really did take a while to get through. All we were going to do was quickly go over our social studies test we took on Friday in between our recess and concert times. I asked simple honest questions, and literally went right through the ENTIRE test. There were a few students that needed to make corrections on their tests, that if they were following along they could have had all the corrections finished by the time the class was over. They had a bit of a trouble coming up with examples. A few students instead of writing examples re-wrote the definition from the page before. Some of the examples I was looking for were a little bit more on the tricky side (Name an example of a National Park), but they had three days to study off of their study sheet. I had a hard time justifying that fact that maybe they didn’t know what an example meant. That was a hard concept, and I still feel that they know what it means, they just didn’t carefully and fully read the directions (which I know they don’t do).

8:5

Today was Grandparent’s day. The other dreaded day (day of concerts, and programs) that I have been warned about. It wasn’t completely horrible, but it seemed to be a day of complete and utter chaos. Students were in and out because of Title, and we had practice and an AR ribbon ceremony in the morning. They were in the classroom for not even an hour before they headed down to the gym for the ribbon ceremony. After that they had their practice for the concert later that afternoon. They came up to the classroom and were there for 15 minutes before they needed to go back down for gym. After gym is the usual lunch and recess, and then followed by that they came up to the room and listened to their story, and did corrections in their daily math and daily language books. They also had some AR time if they were finished with their corrections. Students were in the classroom for roughly an hour before having to head down to the concert. Then it was the end of the day.

It wasn’t a horrible day, but it wasn’t the greatest either. We didn’t get anything accomplished, and it felt like I didn’t even teach them one bit. What a weird sort of day, but at the same time, it was kind of a refreshing, relaxing day to spend some quality time working with students rather than rushing to get things finished.

8:4

Today was definitely the day after the students had gotten in trouble for not listening and following directions. They listened intently, they followed the directions, and they were a decent rate of noise. I couldn’t believe the difference between yesterday and today, it truly was quite amazing. There was a student at the end of the day, who had gotten quite enough guts to ask me if this is how they were suppose to act, and I quickly responded with a “should you have to ask, and should I have to answer?” followed quickly by a silent nod of the head.

The day seemed to just fly by. It is amazing how fast a day can go when everyone listens and follows along. Not much happened today, it honestly flew completely right past my eyes.

8:3

Today was quite the day. It was a battle all day long to get students to listen and follow directions. No matter how many times you gave directions, you almost always had to give the direction another time. Finally by the time that math came around, I just couldn’t handle it anymore. It was so bad that I wasn’t even the only one that had said something. Miss M was in the hall with a student and I was teaching math, and working with them on a new lesson. The students could not listen at all, and it was so hard to keep the students listening to me. I was frustrated, students who were listening were frustrated, and those who weren’t kept talking. I finally just said, ok since most of you know what is going on and how to do it, then you can do it on your own. I grabbed the math book, and sat at the desk. Students just looked at me, and had a look of awe on their face. They couldn’t believe that I had done that. They then realized that I was serious, and started working on their assignment. I had gotten out before I quit that we needed to do #’s 1-4 on page 70, but they didn’t know what to do after that. We were supposed to do more problems then that, but we couldn’t even get through those 4. I sat down, and didn’t help anyone. They needed to work on their own, and figure it out. Most of them did it, but there were a few that were so mad and frustrated that they didn’t know what to do they chose not to do it. The consequence for them not even trying is that they have to come in during recess tomorrow to hear the directions, and do it correctly. Other students have the option that if they want to come in and get proper directions so they know how to do it, then they are more than welcome. I then after school talked to Miss M about how frustrated I was, and if it was ok that I did that, she said that it was, and that if she would have thought of it, she would have done the same thing. I told her I was done yelling over them, and didn’t really know what else to do. So I did the first thing that came to my mind, and hopefully it works. We then had talked about if I didn’t have a recess period what I could do to get those students to do their work that they didn’t do today.

Today during reading group, I also had a student who didn’t do his homework last night because he “didn’t feel like it”. I told him what his consequences were, and that he still had to stay in at recess time to get his story written. He wasn’t very happy about it, but I feel as though he can’t just not do it because he doesn’t feel like it. Everyone else chose to do it, and finished their work without needing to have a consequence.

Today was a bit of a difficult day, but I made it through ok. Hopefully tomorrow and Friday are a lot better.

8:2

As the week moves on we seem to be dealing with more and more kids getting sick. It is quite ridiculous to see how many students have an upset stomach throughout the day. We had one student who was gone yesterday, who should have stayed home again today, as it was quite clear she still wasn’t feeling very good. Students seem to be dropping like flies, and it really does make me a little nervous (I was invisible to H1N1 earlier, before school started, and even shortly after, but now I’m getting scared)! I’m really just hoping that I don’t get it, because the last thing I need is to get sick and not be able to come to school for a week. I would probably go nuts!

I had time with my university supervisor today. It is interesting to see the way that I have progressed. I was impressed with how I’ve been doing and some of the things that I am doing right. Miss M asked me yesterday if I minded her leaving the room as often as she does, and I’m not going to lie, I don’t mind at all. There are times that I might have a question, and wish she were here to answer it, but I always figure it out on my own. She said that if she didn’t trust me in here, and didn’t like what I was doing, she definitely would not leave the room at all, and would be glued to her chair making sure I was saying things correctly, and giving out the right information. Mr. P also had a few comments to add about how I am doing, and I was brave enough to tell him that sometimes I am having a hard time (and especially this week) keeping up with my lesson plans. I know that they should be done before I even teach, and it isn’t that I’m not thinking about my lessons and what to do with them, but I run out of time to work on the actual lesson plans, and just can’t seem to catch up once I’m behind. I’m planning on staying at the school late today (since I don’t have to work after school) and finishing lesson plans for this week, and working on next weeks, as I won’t have time to do next weeks this weekend, because we have a HUGE project going on at our house (insulation in the attic, and wiring of the house) along with my entire family coming up for the weekend.

Hopefully things work out, and excited to get moving ahead tonight!

Week 8: Day 1

Today is the first day that I get to teach everything. I have the whole day to teach everything. It was a lot of fun, I really enjoyed it. Not that I wasn’t preparing myself before, but I really felt like I was taking the time to work on different things and make sure that I was fully prepared. I also had to write plans for the Title 1 teachers today, who work with students with their math. That was something I had never done before, and I wasn’t sure if I did it right, or did a good enough job, but I will find out soon enough. I also made plans for all three of us to use with our small groups.

We had quite a few students missing, last I heard in our class alone we had 5. The whole school had 30, which Miss M said was about 15% of the school. To me that seems like a lot of students to be gone at once, she even said it was. The H1N1 bug is definitely catching up around here. I actually know a few older adults who have had it, as well as some of my parent’s friends in the cities. I hope that it stays away from me, because the last thing that I need is to be sick and out for an entire week!

It was a long night last night, and I didn’t get all my lesson planning done, so I have to finish that up today.

7:5

No school, MEA WEEKEND :)

7:4

No school MEA weekend :)

7:3

Today seemed to be quite a laid-back day. There were many times that we just did “fun stuff” as we had finished many lessons the day before, and didn’t want to start new lessons right before a long break. The students would have lost everything. We did our weekly spelling test, and we also did a math test, but other than that we did more “fun stuff” like I had said.

The fun stuff pertained to interesting things that I found on the SMARTboard. Games such as hangman, and a sorting game where we sorted singular and plural nouns. We also got to play some sparkle, which seems to be something that the students enjoy a lot! I read a new Alexander book that I had never read before, something about him and his family moving, but Alexander was not going to move, there was no way! It was interesting, I really enjoy reading! Other than that, it was a lot of make up work, and talking/reading as it was the last day for AR of the ribbon period!

I’m excited to start the weekend, and work on all of my projects that I have to get done before next week, as well as planning for all the subjects in the class 

7:2

Today seemed to be a blur. I honestly don’t remember a lot about today. It seemed to fly by. We took a reading test today, that I think the students did fairly well on. There are a few students who still don’t quite understand authors purpose, but we will continue to work on that. Other than that, it was a day of getting things finished, and working really hard on math as there is a math test tomorrow. We did quite a few things in social studies with communities, we talked a lot about rural, suburban, and urban communities. I even drew a picture of these on the board! I will attach that picture here. Students were interested in that more than they were in any other activity.

Miss M and I after that had talked about a town that came up, that in my opinion would be a surburban community because it is big enough, and close enough, but Miss M would have catergorized it into the rural area, because it is still too far away. I guess that is something that will always come up, there are going to be things that we are going to differ on, and I don’t know if that is going to change. I took what she said, and thought that maybe she was right, and that I shouldn’t do what I think of something when I’m not 100% sure of the community, or area for that matter. I just took what I knew and applied it. We had also talked about how you shouldn’t tell students that you can’t draw, because the students were laughing at my drawings (which doesn’t really matter to me), but if I wouldn’t have said that I couldn’t draw, they wouldn’t have even said anything and accepted it as acceptable work.

Week 7:Day 1

Today was the student teaching seminar.  It seemed to have been placed on a really weird day.  It was the Monday of MEA week, so we had the seminar Monday, and then had Thursday and Friday off (some of us even had Wednesday, or half of Wednesday for inservice).  Even Miss M had said something about how it would have been nice if it were on Wednesday so that she could finish lessons that I was working on, rather than doing things halfway through the lesson, or starting new ones out.

Things were brought up such as lesson planning and how much of a tedious job it is.  It was discussed in our mini-groups that some mentor teachers don't even want to see the lesson plans, and that all of us talk and discuss our lessons with our mentor teachers before we even do anything.  It doesn't make sense as to why we have to do all this work, but it does.  It gives us the opportunity to think our lessons through, but it is tedious work that makes student teachers (in our minigroups anways) feel as though all we are doing is concentrating on lesson plans, and possibly not even giving full attention to making lessons better, and getting things to be more worth while, and exciting.  Its a hard thing to do, but sometimes it is necessary.

Other than that, the best part, and really the only part that was worth while (talking in mini-groups was nice, and we could share common stories) was talking and hearing from the principals.  It helped a lot and gave a lot of information that I have already heard from my University supervisor, and other teachers around, but it came straight from the mouths of the principals, who would be doing the actual interviews.

Long awaiting the much needed break
Miss A

6:5

Integration day.  Doesn't that just make you want to jump for joy.  I'm excited to go, and see what the schools do, and also for the theme (book making) I think it would be fun to incorporate some of the ideas that they have/made the students make into an actual classroom setting.  I really think that students will enjoy it.

Bus rides- car rides are bad enough.  Bus rides, I don't even know what to say about them.  I wasn't excited, knowing that I get car sick, and I have ridden on a bus with students before, when I went on a field trip with a bunch of pre-schoolers before.  I don't know why, but it seemed as though the 3rd graders were way more obnoxious and loud than the preschoolers.  HOW RIDICULOUS!!!!  GRRR.  I was so mad.  They sang at the top of their lungs, talked really loud, and I seemed to have to just sit back and leave it.  At one point on the way there, the students were literally screaming the alphabet, and the bus driver looked at me in the mirror, and I just felt like I had to say something to the third graders to get them to STOP singing/screaming.  There was absolutely no need for it.  Other than that, and being car sick, it went ok.

Integration day was good.  I learned a lot about the book making process, and saw the teachers make a few really good books (I now just need to find some lesson to use them with!).  It really wasn't as bad as everyone else made it seem.  If it weren't for the bus ride, I would have enjoyed myself even more than I did.  I got to see other teachers rooms, and what seemed to be their teaching styles while they taught their groups of third graders.

That was my friday, plain and simple.

6:4

Thursday.... the day of returning to school after being sick for two days.  I guess I didn't realize, or even believe that it really was a TON of work coming back after being gone.  I have been told that sometimes you have subs (just like having aides) that are willing to help grade papers, and get things finished, as long as you leave them plans to work on, or sometimes if they find papers ungraded, they grade them.  How nice would that be.  My mentor teacher strongly believes in one rule (two actually) when it comes to grading.  Aides don't grade papers (they are there to help students.  Good point, but sometimes helping you can be a plus... I know this because my boyfriends mom is a paraprofessional), and if you teach the lesson you grade.  Well technically when I was gone, she should have graded the papers, right?  ummm wrong.  She didn't, and wouldn't.  She I had to go through and do about 2 days worth of daily math and daily language, plus do work from that day.  I had a really hard time catching up, and I actually didn't get it all done before I needed to get home.  So I did as much as I could, today after school, and planned on saving the rest for tomorrow morning, even if it meant doing it right after the students started to come into the room in the morning.

Besides still not feeling 100%, I had to sit and have a discussion with the third graders about how it is super important for them to pay attention, and listen.  When someone gives a direction they need to follow it.  They were simply asked to find their seats, quickly and quietly.  I had to tell them 4 times, and they finally listened on the fifth attempt with a raised voice.  It was really hard, I didn't yell at them, I just had a discussion about how important it was for them to listen and follow the directions when they are given the first time.

In the morning it was time for a spelling test (right away).  I had told them to take out the spelling books because we were going to have our spelling test.  They whined and moaned and complained because they hadn't studied, so I told them that I warned them last week, as well as on monday when I was in school.  They didn't care, they still whined.  They had to take the test anyways, and you could tell who studied and who hadn't, and 99% of them hadn't studied.  Miss M then gave me a piece of advice of rather than saying warned you, say I told you.  It does sound better even as she said it to me. 

Other than that, not much.  Tomorrow is Integration day, doesn't that sound joyous.  Everyone I have talked to complains about how horrible it is, so I'm not even remotely excited about it.  Not to mention one of the schools that does ID with us, has H1N1 in their high school, and it is so bad that people are wearing facemasks so they don't catch it.  Yippy Skippy!

Miss A

6:3

Home sick again today :'(

6:2

Home sick today :(

5:5

Can’t believe today was Friday. I feel like the week just flew by. Mr. Petersen came today to watch Social and Science. There really wasn’t much that happened or went on other than that. I think the lesson went really well even though I felt as though I were batting things out of left field. I knew I was going to teach, and I knew what I was going to teach on, but I just didn’t know if I was going to do a good enough job. I think I did pretty good, knowing what I knew, and doing the different things I did. I wasn’t prepared for the students to not understand the different between urban and suburban and definitely stumbled on that during the lesson, but I think I may have pulled it off. I realized that just because I grew up by the cities, and know more of a difference between the two, as well as a rural area, doesn’t mean that everyone can understand that… not to mention they know where places like Apple Valley, Lakeville, and other suburbs are.

Mr. Petersen suggested that I find something’s to do in science for hands-on work to help students learn. This has been a hard process for me, as I find it so boring, and Miss M hasn’t given me very many thoughts or ideas, not that its her job to provide me with that, but she has given me hints on other things, just not that. Hopefully I can find something ASAP so that the students are a little more hands-on. The idea of just bringing in the roots to show them when they were learning about roots was a great idea, maybe on Wednesday of next week when we are reviewing the roots and stems and leaves I will have those available.

5:4

I feel like we haven’t done social studies or science in FOREVER. We finally did a little science today, but we still haven’t gotten to having both of them in a long time. Because Mr. Peterson is coming tomorrow, we are going to work really hard to make sure we get everything in, as well as have time to do both social and science.


Everyday that I watch Miss M teach math, I am more and more amazed. I am really good at math, but sometimes I feel that I may be good, but that doesn’t qualify me to be able to teach. The ideas and thoughts that I am getting from Miss M is really quite amazing!

Today she played a game with the students using cards. She called it “beat the teacher”, and continued to use the learning they were doing with place values in this game. Anyways the students would choose as many cards as Miss M said. She would have on her board automatically generated cards. The students would flip the cards and make the biggest (or smallest number) they could using those cards (depending on the rules that Miss M made). Miss M would then flip over her cards. All cards would be used besides the King and Jack. The Queen would be a zero, and the Ace would be a 1. It was really interesting to see what the kids would do with the numbers, and also what Miss M would have the students. At one point she had the students make a number after she made one for her. She would make the smallest number she could (or any number for that matter) and then she would have the students make a number (either not much higher than the one she already has made) and then she would make another number, not knowing what the students numbers were, and the students had to be in between the two numbers Miss M made. The rules were pretty simple. If 4 students beat the teacher, students got a point; if not Miss M got the point. It was really neat to see.

I won’t be teaching math until not next week, but the week after, so hopefully I get to learn a ton more! Multiplication starts on Monday in our daily math books, so hopefully Miss M is willing to take that on, because I’m not exactly sure how to go about that. The other thing is, on Tuesday of next week there is division in daily math. So it is really weird that one day they have the third graders learning multiplication, and then the next day they have them learning division. I am shell shocked, seriously!