Math Time

Typical Day in math. Surprisingly, they can follow this.

So far this year, we have worked on:
-Adding (up to three digits)
-Simple subtraction
-Graphing
-Fractions
-Place Value
-Ordinal numbers
-Time (hour and half hour)
-Money
-Skip counting
-Counting to 100
-Writing numbers to 20
-Shapes
-Number bonds/number families
-Number words
-Math facts
-Combinations of 10

Picture Day

The photographer actually held up a toy for me to smile at, just like she did for the kids. I felt like I was five.

SNOW DAY!!!

First snow day as a full-time teacher. I love the excitement at the school (I drove in, as it was decided to close the school after I arrived). I decided to stay and help answer phones, watch kids, and inform parents who drive up. It's more fun to be here than at home (never thought I'd think that about snow days). Everyone's bustling around and full of snow joy.

Quotes to ponder

A good teacher is a master of simplification and an enemy of simplism. ~Louis A. Berman

We expect teachers to handle teenage pregnancy, substance abuse, and the failings of the family. Then we expect them to educate our children. ~John Sculley

Most teachers have little control over school policy or curriculum or choice of texts or special placement of students, but most have a great deal of autonomy inside the classroom. To a degree shared by only a few other occupations, such as police work, public education rests precariously on the skill and virtue of the people at the bottom of the institutional pyramid. ~Tracy Kidder

What the teacher is, is more important than what he teaches. ~Karl Menninger

Teaching should be full of ideas instead of stuffed with facts. ~Author Unknown

Teachers who inspire know that teaching is like cultivating a garden, and those who would have nothing to do with thorns must never attempt to gather flowers. ~Author Unknown

The best teachers teach from the heart, not from the book. ~Author Unknown

The secret of teaching is to appear to have known all your life what you just learned this morning. ~Author Unknown

Fall

Fall is in full swing here in kindergarten. I am already cold standing out in recess and can only imagine this winter out there with the kids. I never remember standing outside in the winter during recess when I was in elementary school. I've either blocked it out or I was running around so much that the cold didn't bother me. Anyway, I came prepared this morning with a long coat, hat, scarf, and mittens. Recess, here I come!

First Field Trip

Well today was our first field trip of the year. Remlinger Farms. Everyone came back alive and in one piece, which was my main goal. They had fun too, which was my second. :)

We took a class photo by some hay and pumpkins. I have to admit it was kind of surreal to see a picture of just me with my 12 homeroom kids. Guess I'm a teacher.

I guess we've bonded...

"Ms. Schadt, I feel like you're my mom. That's so silly."
"I feel like you're my mom, too!"

Awww, thanks kids!

I love my job...

We're studying insects and spiders this month. Here's what one student had to say during a discussion about insects:

"Ants have poison in their butts. When birds want to eat delicious ants and go toward the ant territory, ants shoot poison from their butts. What happens to the birds is some ants shoot red poison and some shoot blue poison. When the queen ant shoots poison, the bird dies. It’s really fast like a bullet. A bullet is really fast. The poison goes on their bodies." -My kindergarten student

Uniforms

Friday was our first "free dress day" and I must say I'm excited to see the uniforms back today. At recess, it's much easier for me to see my kids' faces when everyone is dressed similarly. Friday was a sea of pink tutus and party dresses. I couldn't tell where my class was! Another teacher observed that kids look younger in street clothes. I think that's true. I would've loved wearing a uniform in school. Seems like it would make picking out an outfit each morning a breeze. Also, those glittery light-up shoes are a major distraction.

In Ireland, all of the kids wear uniforms regardless of whether they attend a private or public school. This helped balance out the socioeconomic statuses of children at school. I love uniforms.

I love Share Circle.

Me: "And Steven, what is your goal for this week?"
Steven: "My goal is to be friends with the animals. It's my job in my kingdom in the fields."
Me: "That's a great goal. Thank you for sharing."

First Sick Day

All that subbing came in handy this morning when I went in to write my set of sub plans. Hope it goes okay...

Update: My substitute teacher appeared in all of his motorcycle garb. The kids looked from me to him with wide eyes. "I've never really taught kids this young," he said. "You'll have fun," I replied. "Bye kids!" His sub notes were three sentences long - One student talked a lot. Another student talked a lot (and was helpful). And the rest of the class was decently quiet.

I could've guessed.

It wasn't as hard as I would have thought releasing my 26 students in the hands of an unknown sub. Though it's almost as much work coming in to write plans than it is to just stay and work the whole day. Guess I just didn't want to contaminate the whole school...

Things have changed

D'nealian

vs.


Zaner-Bloser

Nurtured Heart Approach

I've decided to implement the Nurtured Heart Approach as my classroom management strategy. I learned about this approach at the school I worked at this summer. Howard Glasser created this approach in the 90's as a response to working with difficult children when nothing else seemed to work. This approach supports the belief that positive behavior should be reinforced and rewarded and negative behavior should receive a neutral response. Any attention given to a negative behavior is giving wanted attention to children and can feed into the behavior patterns (e.g. Saying: Stop annoying him, you should not be doing that, I told you to stop, this is your last warning OR giving a child a negative consequence such as a time-out). Oftentimes children act out or display unwanted behavior due to a need for attention or a simple reminder to stay on task.

Research shows this approach can especially help with difficult students and students who have ADHD. "The Center for Disease Control (CDC) implemented a program where children who were referred to them because of behavior management problems were supported with Nurtured Heart before seeing a physician. When a physician typically saw a child, medication referral rates were close to 75%. Children who went through a nurtured heart program were referred for medication less than 3% of the time. Additional studies show statistically significant benefits associated with this program."

The only problem is following through. It's hard to solely give neutral responses to kids who exhibit negative behaviors. For example, when a child is pushing others on the playground my natural response would be to say something along the lines of, "It is not okay to push someone else" and then have the child move to a different area.

In my classroom I introduced the kids to Nurtured Heart by telling them whenever I say "reset" I want them to take a deep breath and think about what they are doing and then make a new choice. We practiced as a class many times. The kids picked up fast. Every student knows to take a deep breath at their cue. The biggest problem now is that 30 seconds after a reset is given, some students continue on with the unwanted behavior. (Typically the naturally distracted ones- who I totally relate to.)

The nicest thing about this approach is that I can say one word to have a child change a behavior without stopping a lesson, interrupting the flow of the class, or embarrassing a child with a punishment.

I'll keep practicing and hope this sticks. I really want to avoid a system where for example I move kids' names from green to yellow.

I also have positive reward marble jar. I put a marble in when I catch the students doing something good like staying quiet during independent work time. I haven't quite figured out the prize when the jar is full. Extra recess or free choice time? Popcorn while I read stories?

Things they say

"Today my job is to get water, fruit, vegetables, and food for my dragon."

Oh, really?

First Week

I haven't updated in awhile because it was a busy first week! I'm having a lot of fun with my mini-United Nations classroom. I love the spontaneous conversations I have with the kids. For example:

Me: "Our friend is absent because he's out celebrating the end of Ramadan."

Student 1: "I know what that is! We celebrate it in Morocco. Only the adults do. It's when they don't eat until sunset."

Student 2: "Is that a holiday? (To me) Do you celebrate Halloween?"

Me: "Yes, but everyone celebrates different holidays."

Student 3: "I celebrate crayons and pencils."

Each day I have lunch with the kids and also go out to recess with them. I've been doing my own little anthropological observations of the students and student cultures. I love hearing the languages and watching interactions. It's quite fascinating. My minor in college was anthropology, so maybe it's only fun for me. :)

This week in math students are learning about number bonds. (e.g. 5 -> 2 &3 or 1&4.) I had the kids create some impromptu number bond picture stories, which turned out kinda cute. I'll have to post them later. I'm thinking they could make a nice parent curriculum night display.

Okay, off to cooking class for me (Indian food). Maybe we'll do some graphing of our favorite foods tomorrow...

Cultural Awareness

There are at many cultures and at least six home languages represented in my classes including Russian, Chinese, Vietnamese, Hindi, Japanese, and English. The school has a high Japanese influence because this is the culture and native language of most of the administrative staff, head of school, and a high percentage of our student population. Because of the blend of cultures and languages, I've been doing a little research.

Did you know...
-In Japan, it's considered rude to eat standing up. (A teacher caught me having a snack in the hallway and kindly passed along this information.)
-Traditional Japanese culture promotes a sense of group identity while the Russian culture promotes a sense of individualism.
-In Russia, you can obtain a free college education by passing an exam. Russia has the highest educational level of the world. More than 40% of the population has a college or university degree. Having a PhD is not a big deal.
-The Vietnamese value system is based on four basic tenets: allegiance to the family, yearning for a good name, love of learning, and respect for other people. These tenets are closely interrelated. Doing well in school honors parents and the family name. (I know a few students who could learn from this.)
-Vietnamese culture includes a desire to achieve harmony between the self and the non-self. (This culture sounds very peaceful, I like it!)

I love anthropology. If I had to choose a different profession, I think anthropologist would be it.

Moved In!

Before:



After:






Sorry the images are hard to see. I forgot the battery charger for my camera - these are from the camera phone. I'll post more later (plus others of the school and my view of the play yard!).

These have been a busy two days. I'm still at the school gearing up for parent orientation tomorrow. I should probably head home soon since my neighbor teacher just left and I quite possibly could be the only one in the building. (My room is down a hallway with three other classrooms.) Though my classroom is starting to feel kind of homey.

I'm excited for school to start and really excited for our long meeting days to end. I've never been one who can sit in the same spot for more than 30 minutes without getting stir crazy.

My favorite things about Back to School

Best read of the day:

http://neatoday.org/2010/04/21/florida-teacher-issues-rallying-cry-for-respect-for-educators

An article about the essay I am a Teacher by Jamee Miller.

"I greet the smiling faces of my students and am reminded anew of their challenges, struggles, successes, failures, quirks, and needs. I review their 504s, their IEPs, their PMPs, their histories trying to reach them from every angle possible. They come in hungry—I feed them. They come in angry—I counsel them. They come in defeated—I encourage them. And this is all before the bell rings."

"I am a teacher in Florida, not for the pay or the hardships, the disregard or the disrespect; I am a teacher in Florida because I am given the chance to change lives for the good, to educate and elevate the minds and hearts of my students, and to show them that success comes in all shapes and sizes, both in the classroom and in the community."

Five more days until I see my classroom! In the meantime, I've been working on my welcome signs. I have a pretty diverse classroom, so I wanted to make a sign that reflected different languages including home languages of the kids. I still need to get my sister to write in Japanese.

Thinking about September

Just a little over a month before 20 kindergarteners enter my classroom. I am a new teacher and the thought of setting up an effective, community-oriented, positive, encouraging, organized, and warm kindergarten math and science classroom is a bit overwhelming. I have decided to begin this blog as a place for me to reflect as a teacher, share my thoughts, and grow. I strongly believe in reflective teaching.

"Reflective teaching means looking at what you do in the classroom, thinking about why you do it, and thinking about if it works - a process of self-observation and self-evaluation. By collecting information about what goes on in our classroom, and by analyzing and evaluating this information, we identify and explore our own practices and underlying beliefs. This may then lead to changes and improvements in our teaching" (Reflective teaching: Exploring our own classroom practice, 2004).

The first thing I did when I signed my first-year contract was run out and buy kindergarten math and science books at the local Goodwill to feel like I was somewhat prepared for tackling this new challenge. I felt a little better, but by no means prepared. The second thing I did was pull out my favorite teacher textbooks and books.

My uncle gave me the book The First Days of School by Harry K. Wong and Rosemary T. Wong. This book is given to all new teachers in his school district. I'll share my favorite passages.

"Douglas Brooks observed a group of teachers in his research. The ineffective teachers were those who began the first day of school with a fun activity and then spent the rest of the school year chasing after the students. The effective teachers spent time organizing and structuring the classroom for student success. Effective teachers have classrooms that are caring, thought-provoking, challenging, and exciting.They have this because they begin with classroom management procedures. Students like well-managed classes because no one yells at them and learning takes place. Effective teachers spend the first two weeks teaching students to be in control of their own learning."

"You were hired to affect lives. You were hired not so much to teach third grade, history, or physical education as to influence lives. Touch the life of a student, and you will have a student who will learn history, physical education, even science and math..."

"The three characteristics of an effective teacher
1. has positive expectations for student success.
2. is an extremely good classroom manager.
3. knows how to design lessons for student mastery."

Next week I will attend my first staff meeting with fellow kindergarten teachers. I will also meet my co-teacher. I will teach 10 kindergartners math and science in the morning (this is my homeroom group) and then switch with the literacy and humanities teacher in the afternoon to teach my second group of 10 kids. Looking forward to meeting teachers and learning more about the curriculum.