Just another Manic Monday!

With the last two weeks of school closing in the kids have been getting a little wacky- and so have I. Class today was a little crazy and a lot of fun. I planned a Jeopardy with the facts the kids had learned about the 40s and 50s with each group having a barnyard sound instead of buzzers- I don't have any of that stuff. The kids seemed to think that louder meant they would get the answer first even after Kristin and I said that being loud was going to get them lots of nothing. The game lasted 40 minutes and they all had a great time and I could tell who had done the webquests and who had just messed around. The rest of the class was a reading assignment, a choose your own reading adventure that Siskow put together. We are back to team teaching so she and I are splitting the classes. Wednesday and Thursday will be about the 70s and we are going to look for a movie about the 70s to show the kids. On Friday there will be a 70s costume day for the whole house. I allready have the coolest hat!

Feed My Starving Children

Today was a great day. We went to Feed My Starving Children and volunteered. We made 34 boxes of food which will feed 7344 kids for a day or 20 kids for a year. The process was interesting with the adults running the sealing machines and the kids scooping the nutrients into the bags. Each bag got rice, chicken flavoring, veggies, and soy that will make six meals. This food goes to Africa and all over the world. The only bad thing was that they mentioned God in every other sentence- with our public school and then they invited us to pray over the food- so a little awkward for some of the kids. The program was in Brooklyn Park and it took us an hour to get out there, an hour to prep and 25 minutes to make food, and then an hour and half to clean up and get back. We also had Dairy Queen, yum, before coming back to finish the day with the webquests that the kids who had stayed behind created about the 40s and 50s. The day was good and the field trip ran relatively smoothly. We are going to have a Jeopardy game as a review on Monday of the 1940s and 50s and then have the kids read and summarize the sixties for an assignment.

Thursday the 19th

Today went well for the last two core classes to do the webquest for the 1940s. The students did a ton of work today and every kid, and I mean every kid did the work without complaint or making snotty comments. Today in E-Core I helped with Tennis and it was great. The kids were having a good time and they all were really good sports. Class met in the library and they even cleaned up when I asked them to. I have noticed that the kids are on my side now, they seem to genuinely like me and want to listen. My teaching hasn't changed all that much but the way I relate to the kids has loosened and I am more of an older sibling then a teacher- they like me but respect me too. I joke and they joke back- the kids are doing well and I am doing well with them. Here is a picture of the kids working on the 1940s webquest with their partners.

The day of the sick people

Today was a day for the record book. Out of the six team members from Earth House three were absent. Maggie is on bed rest, Dunlap is on maternity leave and then Siskow had to leave before Core becuase her daughter got sick. The day was a little crazy becuase of the high temperatures and the kids getting excited for the end of the year. I ran our class in the library and had the kids do a webquest on the 1940s with half the class doing one part and half doing the other. On Friday they will meet and go over the answers. The rest of the class was work time for their projects which most kids did not work on very hard- so I am not crazy about giving them an extra week without any consequences. Tomorrow is progress report day and we do not have any new grades to add so it should be easy. Today one of the kids said that I should get a job at Crosswinds because I was a good teacher, and then another kid agreed and it was nice to hear. Over the past three weeks I have noticed that my relationships with the kids have grown and I have taken on more of an older sibling roll then a teacher roll. We are getting along better and I haven't had to write up any of my problem kids in a while. Today I also planned a field trip to go and see Hairspray on August 2nd. We will be walking the two miles to the theater and back. They were only showing the movie during hours we couldn't go but I talked the manager into showing it at a time convenient to us so that we could come. I made the permission slips and Siskow copied and got them out to the other teachers but forgot to get them to me so our first class will have to get them tomorrow. Not much else is happening right now, I am writing the Friday lesson plan that Siskow will follow while I am on the field trip and I am thinking of murals, maybe.

Monday/Tuesday Work Days

Yesterday and today were the last two days of work time in the library and I am very glad. The kids cannot sustain the attention necessary to get the work done without going completely bonkers every time someone walks in. It is summer and it becomes more and more obvious with every day that they are barely holding it together. I had to write a kid up yesterday for sheer defiance and throwing stuff and he wasn't even fazed. The rest of them are doing okay, but it seems as if there is a constant struggle in all the classes. Tomorrow we start the new Ecore and I will be helping Lindquist to do the exercise class instead of Tennis with Heidi because Bruecken had to go on bedrest, I hope she's okay. We had the science fair both yesterday and today with the kids walking around looking at each others displays, even though they weren't interested at all. Tomorrow Siskow and I will be having the kids do an internet scavenger hunt to learn about the 40s and then each pair will pick an event or person from that time period and make one of their own.

Friday the 13th

Today was Friday the 13th and it was actually not as crazy as I thought it was going to be. Kristin was not here today and I had Ms. Good as my substitue teacher- she was great, she let me lead and backed me up when I needed it. The Science Fair was still in the gym so we went outside and there was a fight- a student was about to get into it with another so they were broken apart but no one went home so there were undercurrents the whole day. During study hall the kids worked relatively silently and didn't try to dance around anything. The E-Core was very chill, we showed a movie that I brought in on How things are made and I went with the kids that wanted to practice their science fair speeches. We are having the first session of the science fair on Monday with our kids and Lindquists kids going and then the other two will go on Tuesday. We are going to make up certificates and ribbons for them since only two of ours got to go to the school science fair since it was during Core. Core classes were fine- they all met in the library and I gave a ton of tardies since all of them professed to not have a clue that they had to go upstairs- despite the morning announcements and three, count them, three signs in the room- two on the boards and one on the small board in the middle of the doorway. On Monday and Tuesday we will be going over bibliographies again and giving more work time. Wednesday and Thursday will be the 40s and 50s. On Friday I am going on a field trip. More later.

The Ides of July

Wednesday and Thursday were work days for the Decades Project. We spent the whole class time in the library with the kids working on their informational paragraphs. They all wrote and looked up pictures for their projects. Suprisingly most of them got the paragraph format but were unsure as to how to use their notecards to make those paragraphs. I had a lot of one on one time with a number of students getting them to look at their cards and put them into categories so they could write about a certain aspect of the decade. Yesterday all the kids worked and it went well- today the last class decided to mess around alot so we told them that they obviously didn't need the extra time on Monday and Tuesday so they would spend their time in an ISS like environment doing silent work. The thing is that the kids that aren't working there is no recourse, they don't care what you do becuase their parents don't care what they do. You can't make them show up for detentions or do any work because they just do not care and that makes it hard. Siskow says that with only three weeks of school left to go there are going to be casualties but they will just spend their time in ISS if they can't get it together. For the Warm Up I had them get into groups of four and talk about their reading and questions and then as a group decide on three important facts about the 1930s and write it on the board- this was done rather quickly and without a lot of fuss- makes me think that they might actually start to tolerate me. ECore yesterday was taken up by the kids trying their best to get out of the room and me playing goalie and telling them to go back. We are going to have our own science fair since the one that the school organized was a mess, they wanted to pull kids during core time and that just doesn't work for us. Tomorrow we are showing a video that I am bringing in to the kids. They need a down day so I am bringing in the "How Its Made" series on Food and Health- usually very interesting. I will also be pulling kids with Igo that want to practice what to say for their Science Fair presentation on Monday and Tuesday- we are going to do a gallery walk with half and half. Siskow won't be here tomorrow so I will be running the show. The sub's name is Ms. Good and the last time she was here with Lindquist the kids hated her and took her stuff and basically tortured her. Siskow made it very clear that I was in charge on the sub plans and I think that it will work out okay. I am going to plan Monday and Tuesdays lesson plans this weekend. We are going to give them work time but also explain bibliographies. We are also going to cover the 1940s and 50s next week.

Tuesday went well. The stress of the fourth quarter and the absolute beautiful weather are causing the kids to act crazy. We won our kickball game today and are now in second place and will play Lindquist next week for the semi-finals. The house meeting today was long we talked about what we are going to do when the Science Fair E core ends. We planned three activities that the kids could choose from- tennis, book group, and exercise videos. I am going to teach Tennis with Igo even though I haven't played since I was eleven. The science fair is this Thursday and I am super glad that this part of E Core is almost over- we didn't plan it and the person in charge had a vision that they didn't share with anyone so there is no rubric, no format, and very little guidance about what is supposed to be happening. The kids are done witht the research though and now are just working on their posters as seen in the photo. We also talked about Field Trips- the kids are going to Feed My Starving Children next week and I will be going too as a chaperone. I also called the Woodbury 10 to see if and when HAIRSPRAY was coming and it is so we are going to make permission forms to go and see it. Class today was fine. The kids are all doing the work but they are a little confused about their Decades Project so I met with all the kids and had them ask questions after I did a brief overview of what was expected by next friday- the due date. We had one student who I will call Z who doesn't do anything in any of the classes, which sucks in general, but if he was a quiet lazy kid that would be different then the fact that he is loud and disruptive and pulls the easily distracted kids right in there with him. He had to be taken out and met with the behavior specialist to figure out a plan- he came back for the last fifteen minutes of the class AND STILL DID NOTHING! and calling mom is pointless- basically he has given up and there is nothing that we do that makes a difference. It is really frustrating and Kristen says that we have done all we can and giving it over to the office and calling 2600 to have him taken out is the only way to deal with it.
Questions for Gretchen:
1. I have the midway progress report- what should I do with it?
2. I have to do an Application of Prior Learning to get credit for my three years of teaching and was told to make sure that my evidence is in direct relation to the reflection. Do you have any advise?

The crazy contiued today with the kids coming back hopped up on whatever they did this past week. This morning we had a decent morning meeting with a share on Mortal Fears that ran the gammut from jellyfish to time- some of the kids professed to be afraid of nothing but I think they just were tired or wanted to get on with the game. We talked a long time and then did the morning announcements- we will be going to Feed My Starving Children next week and the Science Fair is this week. We then played SPUD! and most of the kids loved the game- alot of them liked to get pegged with the ball for some reason. Tomorrow we play kickball and hope to come in second so that we can be triumphant once again. The study hall was crazy but the kids did eventually calm down enough for me to grade the 40 notecard assignment and Kristin to run the room. E-Core is getting more and more useless. The Science Fair is this week but we didn't get a format for the posters or even supplies to do the posters so the kids are lacking motivation and without the stuff I am telling them to do the work on lined paper that we will transfer when we get the supplies. Class was interesting. We had to institute assigned seats and give about a gagilion breaks and they were still crazy bad- however I found out that the whole house was off the wall and not just our class- makes you feel a little better. I taught informational paragraph format and then the kids had time to do their reading on the 1930s. They also met in their project groups to ask questions about what would be happening for the next few days of work time. They will have work time starting Wednesday and extending through next Tuesday. They will then do the 1940s and 1950s and present their projects.

Gretchen in Namibia, July 7

Dana
I think you have the week off. Please email me a reflection from your time so far since the beginning. Do you think that your teaching strategies and practices have improved with your students? Do you feel more confident now with your class? Have there been any changes?
Thanks and continue to enjoy your students
Gretchen