Week Sixteen

December 6 - 10, 2010

Week Fifteen

November 29 - December 3, 2010

Week Fourteen

November 22 & 23, 2010

This was a very short, easy week! I didn't think we would have a lot of students here this week but we only had a few absent on Monday. But Tuesday was a different story, we had 9 absent! I did not want to move on a teach something new so we went over multiplication facts and long division. I really think the students benefited from the long division review. First I had them work on a Turkey Division worksheet and when they turned them into me I couldn't believe the grades! We spent a lot of time working on each long division step and I saw a large improvement in the kids work. One of my students was having a really hard time and they were very frustrated because school usually comes easy to them. When they finally understood what they were doing I was very proud. I only wish that all of the students would have been there for the review.

Week Thirteen

November 15 - 19, 2010

This week I was able to attend my first parent teacher conference. I am so glad that I was able to attend the conference with Mrs. Brown because she did such a great job and I learned a lot from her! We had one parent not show up for the third conference in a row. I do not understand why someone would take time to plan a meeting on three separate occasions and not even show up or cancel ahead of time. But, we did have four parents show up and they were all a success. I was a little nervous for a few of them but I had nothing to be nervous about! All of the students came with their parents and at first I didn't think that was a good thing but it turned out to be good. We could hold them accountable for their actions and we could talk as a group to work out problems and make goals. Overall, it was a great experience!

Week Twelve

November 8 - 12, 2010

It was so nice to have a day off this week. It made the week seem a lot faster so I am sure that next week is going to seem extremely long. My liaison, Dr. Bolyard, came and observed my lesson on using a protractor this week. She stayed for all three of my math rotations and I was glad because she was able to see my progress after teaching the same lesson three times. She was very helpful and gave me a lot of feedback. I thought that I would be nervous but I am so comfortable with my students that I was not nervous at all. I thought the lesson went well until we graded the homework I assigned that night to review using a protractor. Since there was a lot of confusion, I went over the lesson with all three classes a few times to make sure that all of the students understood.

Week Eleven

November 1 - 5, 2010

I feel like the school year is really starting to set in. The kids are awful a lot of the time. Really they aren't awful but there are a few bad apples that spoil the whole bunch. For a while I was blaming it on the whole class but then I realized that the class was feeding off of one student who was constantly off of task. The student who was acting up was having personal issues at home so at first, we were letting them get by with a lot just because they were having a hard time. But then they realized how lenient we were being and starting taking advantage. I found this really hard because I had never been in their shoes before. I got to the point to where I had to take action and start punishing them. Well, my mentor teacher stepped up to the plate and I followed with the same discipline. Although, I would rather not have to deal with these situations, I am glad that I had my mentor teacher to fall back on and help me with deciding what to do. It is hard to believe that eleven weeks have gone by. I am not looking forward to December!

Week Ten

October 25 - 29, 2010

What a crazy week! I have always heard teachers say that they hate party days at school and I did not realize why until our Halloween party. First off, it is really frustrating when you have 16 parents show up for the Halloween party but only 3 can show up for the parent/teacher conferences. Also, it was really hard for the kids to focus because they were preoccupied with the thoughts of Halloween. As chaotic as the day was, I really enjoyed seeing all of the children dressed up in their costumes. Now it seems to me that holidays are only fun with you have children to enjoy them with. A friend of mine passed away from a car accident on Halloween 4 years ago and I have not thought of Halloween as a happy time since then until this year. Also, this week we heard some bad news about some personal issues with one of our students. I know you're not supposed to take your work home with you but you get attached to these kids because you're with them all of them time and you take on the weight of their issues with them. Hearing these things make me realize how lucky I am and how most of us take our blessings for granted. Hopefully things will turn up next week.

Week Nine

October 18 - 22, 2010

This week we finished up our Tech Step lesson. The students answered questions about inventions in a Microsoft Word document. This was a lot easier than making the database in Microsoft Excel. I projected my computer onto the white board and had the students search through the database with me so that they knew exactly what to do. Mrs. Brown ordered a new book from scholastic that had graphic organizers that went a long with writing prompts. I was so excited, that I picked out one of the prompts to start on this week. Since it is close to Halloween, I chose the Halloween Horror story to work on. A lot of the students have a hard time starting writing prompts but the graphic organizer really helped them. I had never seen them so excited over writing before! Throughout the week, when they would finish their work they would ask me if they could work on their Halloween Horror story. That never would have happened before the new graphic organizer. I am glad to have found this book because writing is definitely not my favorite subject. I want to be able to use this in my classroom next year!

Week Eight

October 11 - 15, 2010

This week, Mrs. Brown and I took the students to the computer lab and we started on the Build A Database Tech Step. Let me just say, it was a train wreck. We had to teach the students how to create a database in Microsoft Excel of inventions from the 20th century. The first day we split the students into groups and assigned each group a certain timeframe. We figured this would be easiest for us. We had to go assist each student one by one to import their data into our class database but we got the job done. It took a lot of time it was very frustrating but I am really glad that I was there for this lesson because I will need to know how to do this when I am on my own next year.

Holly, It is so nice to see that you are having a great time. It is good to see that you love students so much that you seem to love to come to school everyday, even when personal issues arise. I feel that these students and future students are very lucky to have such a caring and energetic person to be their teacher.

Week Seven

October 4 - 8, 2010

On Monday, we had a substitute teacher because Mrs. Brown got injured in a softball tournament over the weekend. Although we all missed her terribly, it was nice to know I could still control the classroom when she was not there. She returned on Tuesday but I continued to teach full time because she was still not feeling well and had a hard time talking. I warned the kids before she came back that she was in a lot of pain and they needed to be on their best behavior and they were excellent! Although I wasn't supposed to start my full time teaching yet, I was happy to take over for Mrs. Brown!

Week Six

September 27 - October 1, 2010

I'm starting to take over more and more teaching. I am really starting to get the hang of it and I feel very comfortable in front of the class. I really like teaching Math because I know the content really well. The kids are really having a hard time with their multiplication tables. I am really surprised by this because I knew all of my multiplication tables when I was in the third grade. I think that it had a lot to do with my mother constantly drilling me with my 'times tables' and I don't think that a lot of my students have someone there to practice with all of the time. I've decided that I want to base my Action Research this semester on teaching multiplication strategies. Hopefully I can figure out a way to get these students to improve their recall of basic math facts. Math will continue to build on itself so it is important that they memorize these facts now.

Week Five

September 20 - 24, 2010

Week five was much, much better than last week! Monday and Tuesday were just like every other day. I taught Math to all three classes and read to the students in the afternoon. Wednesday I attended my first PLC meeting. The third through fifth grade teachers and the title I teachers met in the library all day to work on grade level tasks. We looked at school discipline and new ways to deal with issues. Most of the morning was spent going over last years Westest scores and looking at the areas we were strong in and which areas needed more work in Reading and Mathematics. The second half of the day we were trained on new math technology which was very beneficial to me and my mentor teacher. I felt like the meeting was a great success and it was so nice that the teachers can meet and discuss important topics while the students receive instruction from a substitute teacher. On Thursday, we went to the MTTC in Waynesburg, PA for an all day field trip. We were taken into an underground mine simulation where the students learned how rescuers respond to a mining accident. They also learned how to put out a fire with a fire extinguisher. The students competed with Mrs. Brown to see who could put out the fire faster than the teacher. Only about twenty students were able to play along but one of our students beat the record with around 5 seconds. It was a great day and the students had a great time! Such a good week!

Week Four

September 13 - 17, 2010

Wow, what a week. This week I realized how much I love my students and just how much I love to teach. The week started out well and I started teaching math full time. I feel so comfortable in the front of the class that I truly enjoy teaching the kids. When I am teaching, the day goes by so fast! I am so thankful that my mentor teacher trusts me to take charge of the class. I am starting to feel like a real teacher! But when there is good news, there is bad news. My great-great-aunt ,who I was very close to, passed away this week. I found out early before school one morning and I was very upset. As soon as I got to school that day, I knew that was where I needed to be. My whole attitude changed when the kids entered the room and it really hit me how much I love being there with them. I can't even recall a particular event that happened to make me happy. But, I know that as soon as I saw the smiling faces, I was no longer saddened by my bad news. This event also made me think about my students. What if they had found out bad news before school? Maybe they had a bad night and morning and that's why they don't have their homework. Maybe Tommy is laying his head down all morning because he is having trouble at home. I need to sit back and put myself in my students shoes before confronting them about a problem.

Week Three

September 6 - 10, 2010

It is starting to get harder to wake up at 6:15 every morning. The students are starting to drag and I feel like I need a vacation already. I come home everyday wanting to take a nap and if I end up falling asleep, I'm in bad shape that night because I'm not able to go to sleep. I really need my body to adjust to this new schedule so I don't feel exhausted all the time. A lot of the students are "forgetting" their homework and it ends up being the same students over and over who always "forget." I've been trying to stress to the students that the middle school teachers aren't going to put up with those excuses next year but it doesn't seem to motivate them at all. I've noticed that the majority of the fifth grade do not know their multiplication tables. I've talked with a couple of the teachers at Mylan Park and we've decided that I should do my action research on something with multiplication tables. I've talked with one of my friends in the program who is also working in a fifth grade mathematics class and we have decided to do our action research together. I feel relieved to now have an idea about my action research. I am looking forward to helping my students learn their multiplcation tables!

Week Two

August 30 - September 3, 2010

Week two started off really great. This week we really started to work in our textbooks and the students started to see more homework. We also started our reading series and our spelling series for which both tests would be on Friday. I taught two lessons this week with the "7 Habits of Happy Kids" book. We learned about two habits using our "Leader In Me" program workbooks. All of the students have been coming to class this week and I'm so excited that they want to come to school. One of our students missed over 70 days of school last year and so far he has only been absent one day. I like to see the positive attitudes about school this year. My mentor teacher was absent on Wednesday so we had a substitute teacher in the room. The kids were excellent and I was impressed with how the substitute handled the kids. My mentor teacher is really great with the students. I'm impressed with her classroom management skills and I am learning how to handle a lot of different situations. I leave school everyday very happy and I'm thankful to be working in Mrs. Brown's classroom this semester.

Week One

August 23 - 27, 2010

Week one was very intense and exciting. I am working in a fifth grade mathematics class this semester. This year is my mentor teachers first year teaching fifth grade so we both had to start from scratch. The first week was basically teaching the students rules and learning a routine. We played a name game on the first day of school which really helped me learn the students names. By the end of the first day, I knew all of my students names. The students had to take home a packet of information for their parents to fill out and sign and the first class to bring every form back would get a popsicle party. I didn't realize how many forms the parents had to complete. I organized all of the papers and had them turned before Friday but one of the fourth grade classes turned theirs in before us. Since my mentor teacher is the entire fifth grades math teacher, we gave all of the classes a worksheet with addition, subtraction, multiplication and division so we could see where the class stood and where we needed to start teaching. I've learned so much already and im very excited about this upcoming semester.