What do ghosts serve for dessert? I Scream.

I had a very interesting time at my school this past Friday. First of all, it was a Friday and the students were very wild and talkative all day, and my CE had to be on them all day, yelling at them. At the end of the day, myCE  got a call to come to a meeting after school, but she said she had a student teacher with here, so she could come now. So, myCE  left me in the classroom by myself for about 30 minutes. The students were to suppose to finish up their phonics test and then read silently until they had to pack up for the day. Well, as they were finishing their tests, they kept talking and talking, so I had to constantly yell at them to read silently. I had my door open during this time, and the bathrooms are right outside our room, and a little girl fell over face first, and had a seizure. The teacher outside was screaming for help, so all of my students got up to look what was happening. I noticed that two other people, and the assistant principal had ran to help the little girl, so I closed the door and calmed down my class and told them she was going to fine. I have never ever experienced anything like that, but I knew I had to be calm about all of it. All of this happened while myCE  was not in classroom, but everything ended up being fine. Now onto what I was doing the rest of the day before that incident. My class went to the computer lab for a special, and I got to help some students read and take AR tests. MyCE  showed me how she practices with her class to get them ready for the EOG in the 3rd grade, and each week she will give them a test with 3rd grade material on it, and compare their data from each test to see how much they have grew. my CE  cares more about growth than good grades, and I feel the same way about that. I noticed that my CE  puts the struggles students next to her in everything that she does, which is a great strategy, because she can always see if they are doing what they are suppose to be doing. During a Eureka math lesson, it suggested they make rulers, but that did not work at all, so myCE  told the class, "This is a lesson on how some things just do not work the way they are suppose too." It was good to see that sometimes lessons just do not work out. They were measuring stuff in Eureka math, so I got to help a group with that and they had a blast. I got to assess the students on sight words, and mark whether or not they knew them. I also got to grade phonics papers for the time! I was asked by a teacher next door if I could watch her class, and this teachers class was even crazier than mine was Friday. That class made me appreciate the class I was in.

This week, I found a great article on Edutopia called, "The Power of Keeping Your Cool". This article talks about how as teachers, especially new teachers should learn patients and keep their cool when their classroom is being hectic. The article mentions many different ways to help us "Keep Our Cool", in the classroom and is definitely worth the read. However, calm doesn't mean using a flat or monotone voice. When reading aloud, posing a question, or explaining the exciting choices your students will have for an upcoming project, continue to be your dramatic, upbeat self. Students mirror our energy. If we stay calm when teaching, giving instructions, addressing individuals or the whole class, it's amazing to see that this too, happens with them. Whenever we want the responsibility or not, we are constantly modeling for the children we teach ways to be out in the world. We want them to see that kindness, flexibility and tranquil approach to others are vital skills to develop. Using one of the oldest and best practices in our business - Show, Not Tell - is the way to guide your students to emulate these very actions.

This article really hits on the NCTS number four, of teacher's facilitate learning for their students. If we project the energy that we want our class to have into ourselves, then we will have the control we want in the classroom, and learning will be more achievable.

http://www.edutopia.org/blog/the-power-keeping-cool-rebecca-alber

What do sea monsters eat for lunch? Fish and ships.

All of my video release forms finally made it back to me! Everyone said yes to videoing, so that is a huge blessing. I am now able to walk my students to and from specials by myself, and I had to yell at a kid today for climbing on the poles outside, and he had to move his clip down two places. I helped a small group in math today, and they struggled grasping the concept, but at the end of the small group they all got it except for the one EC student. The EC student understood it more by the end, but could not do it on her own. Then the students who needed help in reading their AR books, would come up to me and read. I would then take them over to the computers and help them read the question to their AR test. The EC student in our class gets pulled away every Friday at 11. I got to give the students a Saxon phonics fluency and spelling test, individually. I have worked individually with the EC student on every subject we did today, but it was so great to be able to teach almost all day long.  I loved being able to teach small group almost all day long! I was also exhausted by the end of the day, but it was worth it. 

This week, I am going to research how to help the EC student in my classroom to be the best they can be. I found a wonderful website that talks about how the classroom could be set up in a way that is hindering the EC student from learning. "Common classroom conditions can and do affect many students adversely-to some agree, at one time or another, in one way or other0but, some students are especially vulnerable to classroom hazards. students with learning disabilities are among the most vulnerable-at chronic risk for "not learning" under the aforementioned conditions, for long-term academic and social problems, and for lifelong debilitating side-effects of their classroom experiences" ( Reading Rockets).  This website lists so many things that can effect the student from learning. I am just going to mention a few, that I notice in my classroom that may be effecting my EC student. The first being that the classroom is a busy place. Rapid verbal exchanges leave the EC student with a consistent residue of confusion and misunderstanding. The next is that my classroom is very time-driven. Transitions and interruptions batter the EC students already fragile orientation in time and space. Their frustration flares up when he loses his grip in time/space and, what's more, he is convinced that you take pleasure in constantly not letting him finish what he's doing. The last is whole group instruction. Overwhelmingly, classroom instruction relies on whole group instruction, accompanied by large amounts of loosely overseen seat work. Without frequent clarifying interchanges, the EC students are left in the dust of group-focused lessons and semi-supervised seat work. I will think about these different ideas while working with the EC student in my class, and talk with my CE about this situation. 

This blog ties into the NCTS number 4, of Teachers Facilitate Learning. I want to facilitate the best learning that I can for all of my students, regardless of their learning disability.

I wanna make a joke about sodium, but Na..

 This week at Bethware was very exciting and fun! My class went to the library and to computers this Friday. The librarian read them a book out loud, and she was great. Then they get time check out books themselves. On the computers they get to play educational games, and they were all very focused and quiet, the entire time they were on the computers. It is amazing to see how engaged kids get with computer games. Once they were back in the classroom, they had novel reading time, after they went over morning work. They have their own novel notebooks, with notes they are taking on the novel. Mrs. Scoggins hates guided reading, because she usually does not have enough helpers for it to effective. I actually got to help the only EC student in our class with her reading comprehension test, and that was very special! It took us about 30 minutes to finish the test, but it was well worth it. Then I got to have my own group of students to help with their Eureka Math, and they were the 4 lowest  performing students in the class, and keeping them focused was a real challenge, but we made it through. I got to use my teacher look so much during that math time.  

Since I noticed how engaged my students were during computer time, I wanted to research some different computer games, that my students could play during this time. Right now, they only have math games, but I want to see what it all out there and free for teachers to use. 

The website, Math Playground, has a ton of different computer games for kids of all ages and grade levels. This website is also linked directly with common core standards, so that is a big plus! The next website I found is called Common Sense Media, and what is interesting about this one, is that there are different tabs along the top for students, educators and parents. So if the parents do not understand how to do something, they can pull up this tab and see how it works to help their kid. This website is also strongly aligned with Common Core, and has tons of games and activities that the students can play. The last one I found is called Room Recess, and it does not just have math games, but also reading, writing, spelling and math games. This website covers all areas, so you could even individualize the learning for each student, by making them play a game in the area they may not be strongest in. 

Finding computer games that are specialized to our students needs would fit into the NC Teaching Standard 4. Facilitating learning in the classroom, and bring technology into the classroom, is a big part of standard 4, and what we are doing during our computer times in specials.

http://www.mathplayground.com/

https://www.commonsensemedia.org/lists/common-core-friendly-math-apps-games-and-websites

http://roomrecess.com/

I'd tell you a chemistry joke but I know I wouldn't get a reaction.

This week in EDUC 435, we were talking about Learning Experience 4, and how it helps us to look more deeply into our school that we are placed in. We will research our schools report card, and improvement plan, and devise a plan of action to help our school improve our student performance. The idea of a parent night at our school really stuck out to me, but I also have no idea how to go about planning one. Therefore, I want this blog for this week to be researching ways to make a parent night go smoothly. I think this will be very beneficial to all of us somewhere down the road, and I really want to hold my very own parent night next year! My school has dropped in math scores last year, so I will be trying to find a math parent night idea.

The Scholastic website - http://www.scholastic.com/teachers/article/top-5-ideas-parents-night, has a lot of cute ideas for a theme of a parent night, from decorating T-Shirts together, to a guessing a game that requires some addition. Scholastic also described each of the themes in great details, so you understand fully. Also, Pinterest has super cute ideas for parent nights! Just search Parent Nights for Elementary School in the search bar, and the possibilities are endless. However, what I was trying to research was more of how to plan a parent night, and the resources I need to successfully run a parent night. This is a PDF that is a checklist for a parent night that I think is very helpful for making sure that you have included these critical components of the parent - night. file:///Users/ambertownsend/Downloads/parent_workshop_event_checklist_for_planning_a_parent_night.pdf
Here is also another list of what to include which also mentions babysitting services, which I found to be extremely important for parents who may have little babies at parent night with them, so that they can focus on their student that is in school right now. 
I hope that this helps with planning your very own parent night! There are tons of resources out there, you just have yo look.

This ties into the NC Teaching Standard #1, because planning your own parent night, shows great teacher leadership. Especially as a student teacher in the Spring, this will be a big project for us to do to help our students, and impress our staff.

I'm reading a book about anti-gravity. It's impossible to put down.

Friday was my first full day at Bethware, and I loved every minute of it! School started at 8, and the  kids came in like angels and grabbed their morning work. They then listened to announcements and  then as a class went over the morning work. I finally got to see the class pet chinchilla. They have  specials first thing in the morning, and I went to the P.E. and art classes with them. I got to watch  them take their first summative assessment at the end of the week, and they really struggled with the test, and did not really understand why Mrs. Scoggins could not give them the answers. I noticed that there are 13 girls in my class and 8 boys. Before they start any assignment, they  have to repeat the phrase "put your stinkin' name on it!" that way Mrs. Scoggins knows that they put their names on the papers. I found my schools PBIS, and it is an acronym for PRIDE. I noticed that  half of the kids were almost half asleep during some lessons, but Mrs. Scoggins did not seem to mind that much. I got the chance to have a girl who struggles with reading, read her book to me, and then I helped her read her AR Test. At the end of the day, they did a little bit of grammar, from what they  call "Petra". I believe that the 2nd grade teachers made up this system to help their students, because it is very personalized, I loved it! Mrs. Scoggins has a lot of positive reinforcement, and I really like  that. There is one little girl in the class who gets extremely distracted by me being there, and is  always getting called down. This little girl could not focus on anything, and even the things in her desk were distracting her from listening and passing her test. When the teacher came around to check on her work, the little girl covered her paper, because she was embarrassed. Talking to my CE, I found out that this student has ADHD. Today I am going to research some different ideas about how to help this little girl in my class stay on topic, and focus. 


I found a wonderful website that is specifically for teachers with ADHD kids in their classroom! This website broke down how to help the student into different categories like, seating, information delivery, student work and organization. 
Here are a few tips for seating to help the ADHD student:

• Seat the student with ADD/ADHD away from windows and away from the door.

• Put the student with ADD/ADHD right in front of your desk unless that would be a 

• distraction for the student.

• Seats in rows, with focus on the teacher, usually work better than having students seated around tables or facing one another in other arrangements.

Information Delivery for the student with ADHD: 

• Give instructions one at a time and repeat as necessary.

• If possible, work on the most difficult material early in the day.

• Use visuals: charts, pictures, color coding.

• Create outlines for note-taking that organize the information as you deliver it.

Student Work for a Student with ADHD:

• Create a quiet area free of distractions for test-taking and quiet study.

• Create worksheets and tests with fewer items; give frequent short quizzes rather than long tests.

• Reduce the number of timed tests.

• Test the student with ADD/ADHD in the way he or she does best, such as orally or filling in blanks.

• Show the student how to use a pointer or bookmark to track written words on a page.

• Divide long-term projects into segments and assign a completion goal for each segment.

• Let the student do as much work as possible on computer.

• Accept late work and give partial credit for partial work.

Organization for a student with ADHD:

• Have the student keep a master notebook, a three-ring binder with a separate section for each subject, and make sure everything that goes into the notebook has holes punched and is put on the rings in the correct section.

• Provide a three-pocket notebook insert for homework assignments, completed 

• homework, and “mail” to parents (permission slips, PTA flyers).

• Color-code materials for each subject.

• Allow time for student to organize materials and assignments for home. Post steps for 

• getting ready to go home.

• Make sure the student with ADD/ADHD has a system for writing down assignments and important dates and uses it.

I will mention a few of these tips to Mrs. Scoggins, and hopefully help this student to be able to pay attention in her class, and achieve her fullest potential. 

This would be a great correlation with standard 1 of teacher leadership, because as a teacher we are to take control of the classroom, and do whatever it takes to help our students to learn. I want the best for this little girl, but paying attention in class is so hard for her. Hopefully this blog helps others out there with ADHD students in their class. This website also has a ton of other tips! http://www.helpguide.org/articles/add-adhd/teaching-students-with-adhd-attention-deficit-disorder.htm