My Blog Wordle

I copied all of my blog posts into a Worlde and this is what came up:

http://www.wordle.net/show/wrdl/3486807/Blog_Wordle

 Hope it works!

So now I know what a blog is...

At the beginning of the semester the idea of blogging was scary to me. Maybe because I didn't' actually know how to blog or what it really was. Now, as the semester closes, I've come to love blogging and what it has taught me. We only have a couple of weeks left in the semester (MY FINAL SEMESTER AT ACTUALLY AT UGA!) so I figured I would leave my last blog as a list of things that I have learned from all of my classes and my field experience in these couple of months:
Things that I have learned this semester:
- 8 am is early regardless of what people tell you. 8:15 makes a HUGE difference
-You don't feel nearly as good about something you did in the end if you weren't extremely nervous about it in the beginning (ex: sharing in class, blogging, PRE-K, writing in general)
-a great mentor teacher can literally change your life
- I am actually arts and crafty now thanks to pre-k
- Having teachers who care  results in kids who love school. Whether they are 3 or 23
- I could spend all of my money on books
-I can't wait to be a teacher and have my own classroom

This list could go on and on and on but I'll stop for now. Long story short, I have learned a lot about myself as a person and as a future teacher and it feels good :)

Comments4kids

It was so cute to read what the kids wrote. Here is what I found:
http://kidblog.org/MrsRippsClass/atripp2/being-a-good-teacherstudent-means-4/#comment-2243
http://kidblog.org/MrsRippsClass/atripp2/if-i-were-a-teacher/#comment-2254
http://kidblog.org/ourgoodnews/alex189/a-skype-adventure/#comment-2709

I hope it makes the kids happy to know that there are people out there reading what they are writing :)

I sense summer and I'm not alone

It seems like this semester has flown by. I can't believe that we only have 3 more weeks in the elementary school and a few more weeks of UGA after that. WHOA. Where did the time go?
Last week in the field it was early release day for conferences but pre-k didn't have conferences. I thought that maaaaybe I would be able to go home at 12:30 and play but I was wrong. I would be lying if I said my childhood dreams of early release were a little crushed, but I was happy that I was able to help my teacher. We listened to music and had a dance party in the room while  I created another decoration for the wall. The time actually flew by and it didn't even feel like work. She asked me if I would come back after my time was up to help with a fied trip to the strawberry farm. I of course said yes. I love feeling like a real teacher :)
Apparently I am not the only one who realizes that school is nearing it's end and summer is right around the corner because the kids are going crazy. My MT says that it always gets like this after spring break and that the kids never really settle back down. I'm excited to student teach next fall and have the oppurtunity to see how the kids act at the beginning of the year too.
I'm going to make sure to make the best of my limited time left in the classroom and learn everything that I can. I really hope that I can stay at Timothy next semester because I have come to love being at the school.
Ps- I started a community Spanish class last week. I have 8 ELLs in my class, six of whom speak Spanish as a first language. This experience has really helped me realized how important it is for me to be able to communicate with my students and their families. I go every Monday and I'm really excited about it!

Did this get harder or am I imagining it?

So today I went back to my field placement for the first time in 2 weeks and boy was it intense. I honestly think that some of the kids didn't remember my name when I first walked in (yikes) but quickly seemed excited to see me none the less. I learned that we had a new student, which is the first to come in the middle of my time at the school. The new student was so excited and so new to school. He did not understand lines, yelled out in the hall, and hit other students on accident. During our 5 minutes alloted outside, he ran off to the other playground and I spent an extra 5 minutes chasing him around the monkey bars. I was exhausted by 9:30 and it really made me realize how much work my mentor teacher put into the class in the first couple of months of school.
As the day went on, I got back into the swing of things. While the kids were at specials I helped my MT rearrange the room for the new theme: GARDENING! I just started my own garden this weekend and I couldn't be more excited to be covering this theme in my classroom. My MT also said that this is her favorite unit of the entire year and we're both really excited. As I was helping her decorate the room, I noticed a plan bulletin board with a few sheets of paper tacked to it. I asked her if she would mind if I decorated the bulletin board for our new theme and she laughed and said that she could tell that I wanted a craft to do. By the end of the day, I was exhausted from the kids but eager to do my bulletin. I went to the new teacher store I had heard so much about and spent a half hour walking around admiring all of the things I wanted to buy one day. I went home and let all of my frustrations from the day be channeled into energy for my bulletin board. I think that's how you know you're a teacher :) I just finished it and can't wait to show my teacher tommorrow!

Back to the grind...

It's been 1 day since spring break, 1 week since my field experience and what feels like 1 century since I've been in school. When my alarm went off this morning, the sound and time on my phone were unrecognizable. I don't know how I did it for an entire week in the elementary school, but I did and I loved it.

My week in the elementary school was amazing. When I walked in on Monday the kids were excited to see me but didn't quite realize that anything was different because I don't think they have totally grasped the days of the week :) I got right on that and started the day with  calendar time and a brand new greeting that I came up with! We made a morning train around the room and let everyone get on board. It was a little confusing at first because it was new but my MT told me not to get discouraged and the kids caught on soon and we all had a good time. My MT  also gave me the chance to create a door/wall decoration for class for March and I came up with my very first one!


St. Patty's Day wall decoration



I decided to do my unit plan on shadows and started the week with a great book called Bear Shadow. We spent one day talking about the book and our own background experiences with shadows. The next day, I created a story hill with pictures from the book and had the students come tape the pictures up on hill to work on story sequencing.  In small groups, my students explored with flashlights to create shadows with objects in the classroom. Finally, on the last day, we went outside! I lined up the students and paired them up. They took turns drawing each others shadows with sidewalk chalk and then measured the lenghts with plastic lengths. The kids really got itno it and it was so fun. It was great watching my kids explore and learn about shadows during the week. They would identify them everywhere we went.. on the smartboard, at recess, in the hallway. I felt so proud :)

Fun with shadows

I believe that my unit was so successful because my students were interested in it. They saw shadows in their everyday lives and wanted to know more about them .This is not much different from what Ray talks about in Ch 12 about units in writers workshop. The guidelines that I used for picking my theme for my 5 day unit plan are almost identical to the guidelines that Ray suggests for selecting units for writing. First, the topic should be interesting to the teacher and she students. If it is not fun to teach or to learn about, no one will be engaged or will enjoy what is going on. I picked shadows not only because I thought my students would enjoy them, but because I thought that I could really have fun teaching about them Next, resoucres played a huge impact on my unit. I wanted to study something that I knew I had the supplies to do something meaningful with. The same is true for any subject. It is even better if other teachers are doing the same thing and you can share resources.  Whatever the subject, both students and teachers need to know where they are going and what is next. Units help us to do this.
If there is one thing that the week in the school has taught me it is that a little extra preparation goes along way. Well, that and a lot of coffee.

Writer's Workshop Ch. 7-8, 19

I really enjoyed these chapters because it talked about the fears and doubts that I have had along with the idea of a writer's workshop. For starters, how is the room not in total mayhem if the children are allowed to just write freely?! Chapter 7 discusses ways to manage distractions in a writers workshop. These methods not only seem doable for me as a future teacher, but I actually see them in the classrooms that I have observed. The best way that I have seen to manage a distruptful student in a productive way is proximity. By simply standing closer to the student he or she begins to behave without having to be explicitly asked. This has worked in both my pre-k and fourth grade classroom and works for me as a college student. Rey says that by having presence in the classroom, we are showing children that we expect them to be involved. I think that this is a really good point. If a teacher is circulating around the room looking for children's work and discussions, the children know that this is what they are supposed to be doing at that time.

Rey goes on to talk about transitions and the distractions that these can present in a classroom. The best way that I have seen this managed in my pre-k classroom is with daily routines. My teacher has set aside the beginning of everyday for writers workshop. By now, the children know that they should come into the room, but their things in their cubbies, and sit down at their tables to being writing and drawing. They are allowed around 30 minutes. They are reminded when they have a few minutes left to work and then a timer goes off when it is time to clean up. The children know that they should have all their materials put away and be seated on the rug by the time the timer is done going off. For young children, setting these expectations through routines is so crucial.

I think that Rey is spot-on when she says that teachers struggle to force children to write. We have no problem making them do worksheets but writing seems so different. Rey says that it should be no different than any other subject. Athough the writing is flexible and the content is left to choice, the actually writing is not optional. I believe that the best way to get children to write is to allow them to write about something that interests them and to let them get comfortable. Writers workshop can be a time of the day where the children are in control. They have the freedom to write what they like and sit where they choose. This control is hard for some teachers to give up but I think that it will help create children who love to write and take ownership in what they do.

Lastly, the idea of publication is interesting to me. Rey says that publication is not optional. No ifs, ands, or buts. This surprised me because the whole writers workshop process seemed so flexible. Can we really make children share if they don't want to? What if they cry and decide they hate school because we embarass them so much?
I agree with Rey that it is important to publish for children to complete all of the steps of the writing process. Although I'm hesitant about making children share if they do not want to, I believe that anxiety about publication can be reduced by telling the children up-front what is expected. Take our LLED class for instance. I'm nervous about reading something that I have written aloud to the whole class but I would probably freak out if I got to class one day and Beth told us to pick something to share that day. Now, we have time to prepare and think about what we want to share. I won't be stuck writing a personal story only to find out that I have to share it infront of all of our peers. Putting ourselves in our student's situation can help create a comfortable and enjoyable writers workshop for everyone.