Reading Literature

Watching one of Ms. Wright's students ask MC how to set up a reading study on American presidents during war time. This is what all 4th graders deserve to be doing. 

Staying innocent

We are listening to a Dora The Explorer song (Bate, Bate, Chocolate) during morning work. The song was requested by MC. I love that my kids this year aren't jaded and trying to act older than they are. 

Love my nerds...

GB: "Can I take my book to recess?"
Me: "Absolutely"
GB: With a fist pump and a grin..."yessssssssss"

Conferences

One of my kid's parents just cried during our conference talking about her middle school aged son. Why did she cry? She is terrified that our middle school isn't challenging her son and isn't preparing him to be successful. 

Who exactly are the parents in low-income communities who don't care and aren't invested in the education of their children that I always hear talking heads blame? I haven't really met many. 

Sad. During Recess Reading, JB has decided to sit in MP's desk. He is moving on Friday and I think he will sorely miss who we all think to be his crush. 

I have turned my kids into nerds. Many of them now opt out of recess to come into the classroom and read. Love it. 

Growing pains

Our kids have been growing their own plants for the last two weeks. They have been controlling the variables (water, sun, etc). The results have been hilarious. We have bone dry cups and cups with floating soil. 

After they assess how their experiments have been going, we will be planting new plants. 

Hilarious. 

Spanish vs. English

Yesterday, we read a book about a family returning to Mexico for a visit. A lot of my students really connected with it. 

As I was writing back to YG's journal today, I noticed that she had written something inspired by the book. It was about how some of the people in her family always tease her or pick on her until she'll say something in English. Her teacher last year was also known to talk about how Spanish was "not what we use here." 

I feel so sad for my kids who are taught not to appreciate their native language. Knowing another language is so wonderful. 

Needless to say, I wrote back to her in Spanish. She beamed. 

Reader's Workshop

Thanks to Ms. Wright's planning, my kids read and write in the workshop style. There is an article today about workshop in NYTimes.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/30/books/30reading.html

Camoflauge and Mimicry Museum

We are studying animals this unit in science. Today is camo and mimicry day. To start this out, we are having a gallery walk in the classroom. Classical music is playing and there is a no talking rule as they peruse the "animal art" and take notes on how the animals are hiding and hypothesizing as to why they might be hiding. 

Admission is free if you're interested :) 

Sick..booo

I am home sick ALREADY! I was planning on trying not to miss nearly as many days as last year as a year two "vet." So much for that.

I had great reports about the kiddies today. They make me so proud! I have to thank my superstar TFA colleagues for taking on a few extra kids for the day as I didn't realize I was sick early enough this morning to get a sub. I don't know what I would do without all of their support. Half of my kids got to return to their 3rd or 2nd grade teachers which was a lot of fun for them. The majority went to Ms. Wright's class which is AWESOME as our classes are essentially identical so they didn't miss a thing!

YG called right after school to "check on me" and see if I would be at school tomorrow. She told me she would bring me soup if I would please come to school. I love them.

Even more books on my doorstep!

I cannot thank everyone enough!

PARTAY!

My class earned their first party today by earning compliments around campus.

The first party was a milk and cookies party that turned into a dance party extravaganza. We did the cha cha slide, cupid shuffle, and the electric slide. My kids have rhythm. I think they were shocked to learn their teacher actually does too.

LIBROS!

The kids are BEYOND excited that the first batch of biographies from my grandma came today.

Teachable moment...

One of our crickets has decided that today is a perfect day to molt. This is rather convenient for us teachers. What better way to describe an arthropod as a creature whose skeleton is OUTSIDE of their body. Currently, this cricket's skeleton is located about 5 inches away from the rest of his white, squishiness.

Now THAT is an EXOskeleton!

My kids are...freaked, excited, grossed out, confused.

Job: Cricket Wrestler

We are learning about animals in Science. More specifically, vertebrates vs. invertebrates. Even more specifically, today we are talking about how arthropods are different than other invertebrates.

Clearly, this means that I needed to bring in crickets and worms today for our scientists to observe. Mom was nice enough to make a Petsmart run last night and Ms. Wright and I had the lovely job of wrestling crickets into separate containers for each of our classes. The worms are just chillin' (literally) in the fridge.

I am a teacher.

Journals

My kids write in their journals each night for homework and once a week I collect them and respond. It is great to learn about what is going on in their lives and it allows you to gently correct errors in their writing by modeling correct things in your responses. At the same time, some of the things they write are terribly sad or troubling.

I wish doing well in school was the only thing these babes had to worry about.

Not a way to start the morning...

KH, a student from last year, came into my room and started telling me about school life in his non-TFA 5th grade classroom. They copy everything the teacher say all day. They do worksheets. His classmates are "losing their integrity" (one of our class values) because their teacher doesn't care what they do as long as their work is done. They don't get a chance to read "real" books. All they do for reading is recite passages over and over again. He misses book club and asked if he could borrow some of my books.

This is what they have to look forward to when they leave me at the end of the year?

Putting Michael Jackson into any lesson plan these days equals INSTANT engagement. 

Michael Jackson's record sales provide great numbers for working in the millions. 

I have official notice of my first donation of 20 books off of the Class of 2022 Wish List on amazon.com!!

Thank you so much, Professor Reiley! 

The first district reading test results

My first district reading test results show that all but 4 of my kids are on a 4th grade level at the BEGINNING of 4th grade. My challenge this year will be to push them even farther.

What a great responsibility.

And people say kids don't like to read and don't care about history...

I started allowing my kids to start checking books out of our classroom library this week. The most popular books turned out to be kid friendly biographies.

The absolute favorites come from the "Who Was" series.



RW, my class librarian, is going to be busy, busy, busy with this class!

Growing Our Brains

On Friday of the first week, we talked about our goals for the year and what we will need to do to accomplish them. One important thing we discussed is how we all have different brains that need different things to grow. After making a list of the things we would do over the course of this year to grow our brain, we grew sponge "brains" in cups.

My 4th graders took the small capsules that turn into sponge shapes and added knowledge and hard work to them (aka warm water). The knowledge and hard work magically morphed their 3rd grade brains (aka 99 cent expandable capsules) into end of year 4th grade brains.

After, the kids attached their grown "brains" to a note card they wrote all about their brains. Many of them included gems like, "I LOVE my brain!"

Probably the best part of this project is what Ms. Wright and I had to go through to pull it off. Buying the capsules was cheap and easy, getting the warm water at school...not so easy. Thankfully, I have befriended the cafeteria manager who was nice enough to boil some water for us. We then had to transport this pot of hot water to our classrooms across campus. Naturally we looked for a cart with wheels...what we weren't anticipating was that there would be a SHOPPING cart in our front office. We pushed the pot over every crack in the sidewalk to our classroom. Of course, our principal had to come out and look at us like we were nuts.



Oh, the things we do for our kids.

P.S. That is a certified awesome school polo I am rockin'

Welcome to Room 13 now home of the Class of 2022

Hey all!

I am back in action in Room 13 for year two of my Teach For America commitment. I currently have 17 students and am super excited to attack year 2 with all of the experience I gained from last year.

Something much different from my class last year is that the majority of my students are on grade level. Having had 2 Teach For America teachers before me seems to have really helped my students be prepared for the 4th grade. I still have my outliers that I need to address, but I am very much looking forward to pushing this year's students ABOVE grade level rather than helping to catch them up to grade level.

I hope you will check in to follow our adventure!

The most important thing I've taught this year...

JL wrote me a card today. The most important and special part of the card to me...

"Thank you for teaching me how to behave. Thank you for teaching me to care about other people."

That's all the significant gains I need right there.

While doing AIMS review....

LO: "Man! When did we learn all this stuff?! I'm so smart." 

KH: "Duh, Ms. V did it."

It's AIMS time. This means...

Admin is in a panic. 
The announcements stress the importance of AIMS. 
The stress from everywhere else stresses out the students. 
Teachers are either super stressed or have decided not to care. 
AIMS = Chaos. 

Our Field Trip to The University of Arizona...

http://media.wildcat.arizona.edu/media/storage/paper997/news/2009/02/23/News/Potential.class.Of.2021.Visits.Ua-3643190.shtml

JF: "He has really great ideas for writing." 

Even JM couldn't help but smile hearing another student say something positive him. 

One of the only picture of AE before she left :(

Spirit Week

LS and JF


PM, KH, LO, SH, JF

KH and his Magnificent (<-- his fave vocab word) 'fro

The Dynamic Duo

KH is a perfectionist with a big smile and an even bigger heart. The boy who was more used to getting a referral than a good grade now beats himself up if he gets anything less than 80%.
PM only wants to hang out with people with the "Go Far Values" and stays after schools to sharpen pencils every day.
These two are the reason I get out of bed on mornings when I feel like this experience has become a little too much or a little too hard on my heart. It's quite the privilege to call them my kids.



(They decided that for reader's workshop they should both read The Rats of NIMH 1) "because it is a great text-text connection with Mouse on a Motorcycle" and 2) "they would get more out of it by, you know, talking about it")

Science Gallery Walk

Here, my students are studying tools used to measure various aspects of the weather. It happened to be a windy, chilly day in Phoenix so I had them do it outside. We don't experience "weather" here too often."

After studying fact and opinion today.. 

"Our teacher is the best!" 

PM: "I don't care what anyone says...that's a fact!" 

"Well, where are the parents?"

Tonight we had a Reading Night for parents to provide parents with strategies to promote reading at home for their children. Turn out wasn't great, but some very dedicated parents dragged themselves in after a full day of work.

I found myself very choked up as we had parents go through some of the reading tests their children are expected to complete at school. Clearly there was quite the barrier for the Spanish-speaking parents, but I found that many English speaking parents also struggled with reading.

I hear so often that the parents don't help at home and they just expect teachers to do all of the work...what about those parents who want so badly to be able to help and just feel helpless?

1 appreciation and 1 helpful tip

Sianna drew my name...

"I appreciate Ms. V because she works so, so hard for us. Um, I think my one thing for her to work on would be organization. She loses stuff in here a lot."

Truer words were never spoken.

While writing the bell work on the board...

Keyvohn didn't finish writing all of his vocab flashcards for homework so he came in early to finish them up. After closing his book, he got a rather pensive look on his face...

Ms. V: "What's up, dude?"
Keyvohn: "Ms. V, I never used to like school."
Ms. V: "Well what do you think changed?"
Keyvohn: "You. You changed everything. Well, bye! I have to go play before the bell rings"

Watching the presidential inauguration. My kids are beyond excited and can't believe how many people fit in D.C. 

Winter Break winds down...

I have done my best to relax over break, but I can't help but think about my kids. Sometimes these reflections make me smile and other times they make me cry. It's hard to balance celebrating what you are doing well and fighting to always give your kids more of whatever it is that they individually need.

I have decided to change a few things and have mapped out the rest of the year. Things still aren't perfect, but I'm excited to get back to Room 13. I love being surrounded by all of my college bound students.