Would a cardboard belt be a waist of paper?

I only went to my school on Friday, and we had a field trip! I got to experience everything that comes with a field trip. I was in charge of carrying the bag of medicines the whole time. I helped get the school lunched together for the students who did not bring a lunch. I had to sit with a problem student on the bus, and make sure he behaved and he did really well! We went to the Catawba Science Center. We were combined with another second grade class, and the teacher in the other group struggles with keeping her students in line, so that was kind of rough. At the end of the field trip, the people over the science center let our class do fun science experiments. Mainly, during this field trip, my job was to make sure the students did not wander off past where they were suppose to be. The students loved the field trip so much! When we got back to school, we made it just in time for their PBIS reward, which was to watch a play in the auditorium. My CE left to take the medicine bag back where it was suppose to go, so I was in charge of walking my students back to the classroom and getting them packed up. My CE never came back, so I was also threw into walking the bus riders to their designated spot and the same for the car riders. I had another teacher show me where to go, so that was stressful but it was a great learning experience. Turns out my CE had car duty she had forgot about, so thats where she was. All in all, it was a wonderful day!

The management strategies on this field trip were flawless, and just seemed like everything worked like clock work. I know that keeping the students managed on the field trip is no easy task, but I did not know all the behind scene stuff that went on during field trips. I researched how to help a field trip run perfectly as the teacher. This article comes from Education World, and is talking about the things that go on in the background to make field trips run smoothly. Some of the tips this article gives are to, visit the site prior to the trip. The preview of the place your field trip will be at, will help you identify potential problems and plan for them. Set ground rules. Let students know they are representing their school and you expect them to be on their best behavior. Inform them that the usual school rules are in effect, and add any other rules specific to the field trip (No talking while a tour guide is speaking, for example). Consider having each student sign a list of the rules signifying their agreement to comply with them. Go over bus rules. Keep in mind that some students do not take a bus to school and, therefore, might not be familiar with bus rules. Talk with students about the field trip. Let them know about the day's activities and inform them of any events that might be upsetting (loud noises, for example). Provide activities for students to complete while on the trip. You might, for example, give them a list of items to find, or a list questions that will be discussed when they return. Talk with troublesome students before the trip. If you have students who are likely to present behavioral difficulties, take them aside individually and ask for their cooperation. Establish a signal to get students' attention. If you need to quiet students, you might raise your hand and form a V with your finger. Consider your student groupings. Assign problem-prone students to chaperones with good management skills, but avoid grouping together students who tend to have problems when together. Bring a cell phone, if possible. Besides providing you with immediate access to the school in an emergency, a cell phone also allows you to contact the parents of a student who presents a problem. I saw a lot of these strategies while on my field trip, and plan on using them while I plan my own field trips in the future. 

This blog correlates with the NCPTS number one. Teachers demonstrate great leadership when they plan great field trips, and care for their students enough to visit the place ahead of time and set ground rules. By making sure everything runs smoothly, the teachers helps to ensure a safe enviroment for their students. The rest of this article goes into a little more detail about each of the things that we need to be aware of to make our future field trips run smoothly. 

Whiteboards are remarkable.

I went to my school twice this week, and my students were great this week! On Monday, I got to work with a math small group, and these were the lowest level math students in the class. I had to constantly make sure they were paying attention, and knew what was going on. I also had my guided reading Monday as well, and the students in my group, paid attention really well. However, I had a little Mexican girl in my group randomly say, "If Trump get elected, I'm going to be sent back to Mexico"...she was dead serious, and I was so caught off guard! I changed the subject quickly, because I did not want the rest of the group to get involved, but I thought that that statement was rather worrisome. The student looked very stressed out about this. The rest of the group time was great! On Friday, I got to help a group of low level students take a reading comprehension quiz on the novel we have been reading, and helping them with the written comprehension part was more difficult than I anticipated. During, my small group Friday, an ESL student got pulled from my group to go with an ESL teacher, and that has never happened while I have been in there before.

This week, I did research on diversity in the classroom. How can we prepare teachers to work with culturally diverse students and their families? What skills should educators develop to do this successfully? This article is from Harvard Family Research Project, and this website is very informational! One of the most important skills we need to develop in Pre-K–16 teachers is their ability to build on the knowledge that students bring into classrooms, particularly that knowledge which is shaped by their family, community, and cultural histories. It is often difficult even for good teachers to go out into the community to do the home visits that can build rapport. I advocate three family-specific alternatives to connect teachers with the primary or secondary caregiver(s) of each student at least once during the school year in order to offer positive information regarding student progress. (1.) Call each child’s family with positive information.

(2.) Email each student’s family during the school year with positive information.

(3.) Through email attachment, post office mail, or student delivery, send a positive message via audio or audio/visual medium regarding each student. My teacher is very passionate about home visits, and looks forward to doing them every year. This is something that I will carry onto my future teaching career.

This research connects with NCPTS number two or, teachers establish a respectful enviroment for a diverse population of students. As teachers we need to comfort the diversity in our classrooms, and make sure that we keep each culture alive. As teachers we need to learn how to embrace these different cultures in our community and in our schools. 

http://www.hfrp.org/family-involvement/fine-family-involvement-network-of-educators/member-insights/how-can-we-prepare-teachers-to-work-with-culturally-diverse-students-and-their-families-what-skills-should-educators-develop-to-do-this-successfully

Did you hear about the guy who got hit in the head with a can of soda? He was lucky it was a soft drink.

We had a very interesting week this week. I went to my school twice this week, and for a half day on Monday and full day on Friday. I learned how to laminate today, and that as fun! We got a new student randomly today, and my CE met the grandmother of the little girl at the parent teacher conference the night before. So we got the new girl all settled in to them class and got her a name tag and everything, then our students went to specials. When the students came back to the classroom, we had a new little boy in our class...apparently the new girl and boy were brother and sisters, and the boy was more to handle so they stuck him in my CE’s classroom. The little girl got switched to another 2nd grade classroom. We had to the get the little boy settled into the classroom. I assessed level one sight words with the new boy in our class while the rest of the class took a spelling test. The new boy, only knew two sight words out of a stack of fifty. I asked my CE why the brother and sister had moved to Bethware in the middle of this semester, and apparently the grandma took the kids out of a homeless shelter because the mom could not support them anymore. So the children have had a very hard home life. During my guided reading group today, my case study kid had a breakdown, and refused to pay attention to me and do his work in my lesson. If you call this kid down too much, he takes it very personally and just shuts down. So the little boy was mad at me for getting on him to pay attention throughout my whole lesson. After my group time, he left the classroom and would not do anything for my CE for about thirty minutes, and then he randomly started being a good student again. I was working with an EC and speech impaired student on fluency, and she actually read through her entire passage twice in one minute! I was so proud of her, and she was so proud of herself! I love seeing those moments. Lastly, a student told me that he was being checked out today to see his therapist about anger management. I would have never guessed that he had anger problems, because he is always an angel on our classroom.

In the second grade, students are learning about the different kinds of graphic organizers. In my small group, I like to us them to organize the students thoughts about what we have read, and to help them better understand the book. Instead of printing out copies online, I like to have my students make their own, that way, when they have to write on their own, they can organize their thoughts in different ways without having a worksheet. I found an article on Edutopia, talking about the correct way to use graphic organizers in the classroom, and I found it very interesting. I did not know that there was a right or wrong way of using the graphic organizers, I just thought whatever works, works. First of all, what is a graphic organizer? A graphic organizer is a visual display or chart that shows the relationship between ideas, facts, and information.  The ultimate purpose of utilizing a graphic organizer as a tool is to prepare students for writing. Simply put, a graphic organizer assists a student with thinking and is a pre-writing tool -- not the end product. Some young writers may need this thinking tool more than others. As I’ve seen in my many classroom observations, we teachers can get caught up with treating the graphic organizer as The Assignment, especially with struggling students. At some point, with learners who are struggling, we need to stop encouraging them to finish filling in those boxes or columns on the graphic organizer and move into what matters: the writing. It’s much more important for a student to practice writing -- the only way to build writing fluency -- and stumble through stringing thoughts together this way than to fill in a graphic organizer completely or perfectly. I am very guilty of just using a graphic organizer as the assessment piece of writing comprehension, but from researching this topic, I see now that graphic organizers should be used as a tool to guide writing, instead of the assessment piece all together. 

The research on graphic organizers is aligned with the NCPTS number four, because this shows how a teacher can facilitate graphic organizers in their classroom to enhance the writing progression in the classroom. Also, it explains how as teachers we could not be using them to their fullest ability.  

http://www.edutopia.org/blog/using-graphic-organizers-correctly-rebecca-alber

Fishermen Are Reel Men

I went to my school twice this week for full days, and had a blast as usual. There was a dead bird in gym class, and all of the kids freaked out over it. I got to observe their music class for the first time and it was amazing, and the music teacher was so great. They made rhythms out of their names. On Fridays, my teacher usually moves the class around, and every one gets a new desk. So today we did that, and she moved two students right at her desk, because they are struggling so bad. I got my very own Bethware shirt Friday, and I am super excited because we get to wear them on field trips! My teacher started this new thing this week, where she will play a popular song on the Smart board form Youtube with the lyrics, and the students will sing along with it and they have to read the lyrics as they go. This helps with reading fluency and the students get very engaged. We watched The Lion King today, and compared it to the novel that we just finished in class. A little boy in my class was balling his eyes out the whole movie, and it was so sad. I was working one on one with a little girl on a math assignment, and I noticed that every time she did not know an answer, she would put the number 7, and leave it at that. So I had to break her from that habit. 

My CE does an amazing job making her classroom feel safe and productive. I have complemented her many times on this process, and I saw a great article on Edutopia, that reflected how she makes her classroom a safe enviroment. In order for your class to be positive, the teacher needs to lay down expectations in the beginning of the school year. If the students know what is expected of them, this will help the atmosphere of my classroom become peaceful. Most of the time when people think of the environment of the classroom, they think of the behavior of the students, but the environment includes the teacher. Teachers must also focus on their behavior and be very careful not to send mixed messages to students. Another way to plan on making sure the classroom has a positive environment is making sure that the students come up with the classroom rules that are fair to all the students. I understand that I should not have rules for the classroom and only apply them to one student and not apply them to another student. When one student is allowed to break the rules and not be corrected, this allows the other students in the classroom to feel there is favoritism going on in the class. Communication is the key to a successful classroom, is what I think. When there is clear communication misunderstandings are at a minimum. When presenting or reviewing a lesson in my classroom I understand that it may take some students a little longer to answer a question. I should allow the student think time in order to answer the question. If a teacher quickly moves to the next student when a student does not answer as fast as expected, this could cause the student self-esteem to become low and it could possibly make other students think little of the student also. 

Creating a positive and productive enviroment in the classroom falls under the NCPTS number two, of teachers establish a respectful enviroment for a diverse population of students. We want our students to strive in our classrooms, and for them to be productive and do their best in the safe enviroment that we establish. 

Have you ever tried to eat a clock? It's very time consuming.

This week, I went for a full day on Tuesday and a full day on Friday. On Tuesday, I started my guided reading small group for 312, and that was extremely fun and eye opening. The group of students I work with have reading levels are on the first level of 1st grade. So, I worked with fluency and reading comprehension with them. I also learned where to check out the guided reading books, that I will use with my small group. I checked out 3 different guided reading packets for this week. My CE  told me about the new girl they picked up in their class about two weeks ago. She said that this child has moved four times this year, because of her family getting evicted from their houses. That fact right there, broke my heart so much. I hate that for the sweet little girl in my class. I watched the EC student in my class have the "light bulb" moment, and she answered a question so beautifully about the main idea of the novel we are reading. The EC student seemed like a whole new person today, and was paying attention to everything the entire day. She had a very good day, and even got her clip moved up for being so great! I got to go to playground with my students for the first time that day, and usually it is only my assistant teacher that is out there with two other 2nd grade classes. So, it was very interesting to see them all run around so wild for thirty minutes. I have already noticed so much growth from the first day I observed my class. During the second full day I was there, I went to specials like usual with my class, and when we got to art my students got very interesting. First, a little boy squashed his finger and was crying the entire class and this distracted him from work all day. Then my case study student had a meltdown in art, because the teacher called him down for not sharing. He would not leave the art room, so My CE had to walk all the way down there to pick him up and bring him back to the classroom. They finished their first novel today, and got to do a fun project on the book and they were all so engaged in this. The students got to get snow cones after lunch Friday for filling out their sticker charts and the students were so excited for this! My students are usually the worst on Fridays, but this Friday, they were the best they have ever been during anytime of the week. I was confused as to why, but I most definitely did not mind.  

Based on this week at school, I have already noticed that the small group of students that I work with are not motivated to read at all. They are all 2nd grade students who read on a kindergarten level, so I feel as if they feel like whats the point of reading since I’m not that great at it? Every time I do my guided reading small group, I compliment the students on what a good job they are doing reading, because they really have improved from the first day of school! However, that just is not enough, I want to know how to motivate my students to be better readers, so that is my research for this week. However, in guided reading, I do not always get to pick a book that sparks all of their interests and that is my dilemma. I found an article that has 10 wonderful tips for motivating students to read, and this article comes from Teach Hub, and has a ton of other interesting articles as well! 

1. Let students see you read. If you are going to encourage your students to read, then you better make sure you’re leading by example. Instead of grading papers when students are silent reading, read a book. Talk about the book that you are reading with them, and how you can’t wait to read before you go to bed.

2. Allow students to read the whole book before discussing it. Give students the opportunity to read the book before you pull it apart and talk about literary devices. Sometimes when all you do is talk about the plot, setting, or genre, you are taking all the fun and pleasure out of the story. Give students the chance to read it once through, then you can go chapter by chapter and dissect.

3. Invite a local author to class. A great way to promote a love of a reading is to invite an author to your classroom to discuss their book. This may be just the thing to inspire your students to read or even be an author themselves someday.

4. Teach students reading strategies. Many students don’t like to read because it’s hard for them. Teach children reading strategies (i.e. repeated reading) to help them feel confident and read fluently.

5. Set up a book club. Book clubs and reading groups are a great way for students to socialize and share their thoughts. This interaction makes reading so much more enjoyable, and it enhances their comprehension skills.

6. Let students choose their own books. Studies have shown that when students choose their own books it will boost their reading ability. Make sure you have an abundance of different genres and themes in your classroom library from which students may choose.

7. Use technology to create an e-book. Children love technology, and there is nothing is better than using these tools to get students to love reading. Download an app like Book Creator or ebook Magic and have students create their own works. Kids will love sharing their books with their peers and they can even submit their stories to iBooks.

8. Introduce students to a book series. Whether students are into adventures or fantasy novels, there is a book series for everyone. All you have to do is find out what your students love and get them to read the first selection. Once they get a taste of the set, they will definitely want to keep reading to find out what happens next.

9. Allow students to dislike books. Think of it like Facebook—students can give a “thumbs up” if they like it, or a “thumbs down” if they don’t. This will also help you choose future class novels as well.

10. Helps students see the importance of reading. Sometimes just knowing the facts can encourage someone to see their world differently. For example, knowing that maintaining a healthy lifestyle may help us live a longer life can motivate us to make better life choices. Laying out the benefits of reading may be the best way to enhance appreciation and encourage them to pick up a book on their own.

Now, not all of these are going to be useful in my guided reading group, but a good portion of them will. I especially like the last one about helping the students see the importance of reading, because once they see how important it is to learn to read in order to read carnival signs, warning signs, etc. They will be more motivated. This blog ties into the NCTS number 4, because I want to better facilitate learning to my students in a way that is engaging and motivating. 

http://www.teachhub.com/how-motivate-students-love-reading