Grievances

VII Communication/III Personal Development
7:45 am

Episode
Today we had an unplanned meeting right away. One of our fourth grade students had been killed this weekend in a tragic accident. Many teachers were crying and many social workers were brought in to assist in the classrooms. Right away in the morning the general education teachers informed their students of the situation. The fourth grade classes were devastated. My fourth graders came down today and were just bawling; tears streaming down their faces. My cooperating teacher was out today, so we had a substitute. Right away in the morning my aide got called into the office to cover for absent staff. Then the substitute in my classroom just disappeared; she had left my room. I was trying to manage 4 different reading groups, many extremely upset fourth graders, pick up homework, check planners, etc. I finally got the other students set up with their seatwork and spelling work, so they could just work independently. I tried to comfort the fourth graders. Finally my aide and substitute came back in. We barely managed to get a minute amount of spelling done. The fourth graders went back to their class because the social workers were talking to them. In our class, we had a few students absent. Our routine was upset definitely this morning.

My fourth graders ended up coming back in for a bit and we had a little counseling session. Suddenly reading seemed so unimportant. My students were trying to understand why God would do such a thing. They were asking me what I believed and why I thought God would do such a thing - If I only had all the answers. I answered to the best of my ability and tried to calm them down, somehow the accident was all in God's plan. One of my girl's said, "At least **the student*** is in God's hand's now. God is taking care of him." My fourth graders then had to get ready to leave on their field trip, even though by that point none of them even wanted to go.

After the fourth graders left we tried to get some writing and math done. With most of our students gone, we didn't cover a lot of material. It turned out to be a good review day.

Analysis

In retrospect I guess it was good experience to deal with this kind of situation, though I would wish it would never happen again. Another experience was dealing with our substitute. She complained about being bored, but when I would give her responsibilities, she would not do them. I let her take over the afternoon first grade math. I explained that my student struggled quite a bit, and she needed to go slow and help a lot. I ran a couple of errands around the school. I came back in and I found her being a little rougher with one of the first graders. He was one that didn't know his numbers past 5. I intervened and helped the student with his work.

What an overwhelming day. There were not as many students in my classroom as there usually were, so that helped me to manage the ones that were there. I guess I can see more clearly why a consistant prayer life is so important...because God will give us strength when we need it the most. I do not have all the answers, but I can always share God's love with my students. My prayers are with this student's family.

No School

FALL BREAK!!!

Parent-Teacher Conferences

III. Professional Development
Again today we had parent-teacher conferences. We had 5 conferences today, with only 1 annual case review. Throughout the rest of the day, my teacher and I worked on switching our reading groups and trying to prepare for the new groups. We were scheduling in our computer testing time, for we have to finish our education performance testing soon. Also, next week we will be starting to carve pumpkins and write the steps throughout that process. Today my teacher and I also got to update our student files and send out new IEP's. New bulletin boards and crafts were put up. It seems like it would of been an easy day, but it ended up to be very busy. It is always a little crazy when we switch our reading groups. It did seem very quiet in the classroom without any students. I will look forward to teaching my new reading group next week.

Parent-Teacher Conferences

IV. Rights and Responsibilities/Professional Development

Today was Parent-Teacher conferneces. Here was our schedule:
7:30 3rd grade student
8:30 5th grade student
9:00 5th grade student
10:30 3rd grade student
11:00 Annual Case Review, 1st- grade student. (I was in charge)
2:00 Annual Case Review, 5th grade student
2:25 3rd grade student
3:15 5th grade student
3:30 1st grade student
4:30 4th grade student

Today's meeting went quite well. It was a very long day, and we ended up running late and leaving after 5:00. I was tired and hungry, but it was exciting during the day to see my students making progress. There were only a couple that were tremendously struggling. Most parents were very quiet and had little concern. Throughout this semester many of these parents have been in multiple times for different meeting or to sign testing paperwork. So, their student’s progress was not really much of a surprise to many. A couple of the parents did not show up, but some others came in unexpectedly. It was good to meet the parents again and just touch base.

Grandparent's Day

VII Communication
Episode
This morning was our beloved Grandparent's Day. When the bell rang the halls were packed with grandparents. There was a good turn out, more than most were expecting. The morning was a little unorganized, but eventually we helped direct all the grandparents to the correct homerooms. The children found their grandparents. Grades K-2 headed down to the cafeteria to have a snack with their grandparents. Grades 3-5 headed down the hallway to have their picture taken with their grandparent. About 45 minutes later the two groups switched. No formal activities were planned in the classrooms, but the grandparents got to observe and help with whatever the class was doing.

It was a shortened day. Classroom specials were still going but just on a shortened schedule. Lunch started at 10:30, so not a whole lot got accomplished in the morning.

Analysis:
It was such a fun day. I had an amazing time meeting all the grandparents. The morning was a little crazy, but it was so good to see the heritage and bridge the gap of generations. Behavior seemed to be at a prime. The students handled themselves during the busy day and abnormal scheduled day. Thursday and Friday the student will have the days off because we have parent teacher conferences.

Student Lunch

VII Management of Classroom
11:00
Episode
About two weeks ago one of our students, who was in the general education classroom, came to our room to receive more services. In the two weeks he should have been in our classroom, he ended up being gone quite a few of those days. The absences were unexcused so we did not have to accept late work. Our grades were due this week because parent/teacher conferences are Thursday and Friday. Upon averaging his grade, he was failing in all areas. Behavior-wise he has been a problem too. It has been hard establishing a routine with this student because he has not been here. Some of his behavior problems have been because he doesn't know our rules or routine. When he is here we have a hard time getting him to finish any of his work. Between his make up work and day-to-day seatwork, he had a pile of work stacking up. Some I just took away because it was too late for him receive credit for anyways. It was reward day today. The rule is you have to have turned in all your homework previous to this day and have 2 or less papers in your 'mail box'/seatwork. He obviously had not meet our standard. The other students got to watch a movie. I had this particular student sitting inside the room, but he was trying to watch the movie. I put him in the hallway next to our classroom window. I checked on him every 3 minutes. At first he was doing a little bit of work. Then I was helping another student and looked over at him. He was rolling around all over the ground. He kept getting in trouble for many things. By the end of the movie, he had not hardly accomplished anything. This incomplete work did not help his failing grade any. I gave him a lecture about his work ethic and attitude. Then my teacher got back from her meeting and lectured again. He lost his recess and he had to each lunch with us, in our room. After lunch he had to finish his work. We set the timer in different intervals and he had to accomplish certain tasks in that time. He quickly got his work done. This student is more than capable of doing his work, he just chooses not to.

Analysis
It has been a frustrating two weeks with this student. It has been hard to get him used to our room because he has not been here. I would like to start some type of behavior plan, but that can't happen until he starts attending school. I also need a bit of time to find out what makes him tick and what he enjoys. Missing so much school, but this student so far behind. I can't possibly catch him up to the class quickly. We have limited time anyways in our room and we have a lot that we have to accomplish. It is frustrating when the student just refuses to work. I don't know how to get him motivated. This transition is probably hard for him, but it is hard to connect in the limited time he is here. It seems like we just have to be hard on him at first, so he knows what the expectations are. When we took away his lunch with friends and set the timer, he seemed to do much better. This is a short week, so next week I'll just start fresh with him and see how it goes.

Word Wall

V: Methodology








This is a short week so out schedule will be a little bit different. Instead of starting a new book and spelling list, we will just focus on reviewing our word wall words. I had video taped another lesson for my video partner to review. When the library was transfering it to a regular sized video tape, they accidentally taped over my amazing 90 minute lesson. I just had to tape my lesson today.

Today’s Lesson: Word Wall Review
I gathered both of my reading groups today to do a combined word work lesson
1- Introduction, Why word wall is imporant. How it relates to reading and writing.
*These word wall words are very important, so I decided to just focus on those instead of going on to a comprehension lesson.
2- Model reading words. Students recite/repeat
* I started by modeling/reading our words, then I had the student repeat the words after me.
3- Kinethetic Words. Clap, Marshmallow Clap, Disco Words, Basketball Clap
*After reciting the words we used kinethetic movement to kept connect the words to our body movement. We marshmallow clapped the word wall words and then 'discoed' them. We also basketball clapped our words. This was also a good way to get the blood flowing and the brains a little more alert.
4- Color Trace (Vowels=red, Consonants=Black)
* We traced our words in black and red crayon. The vowels were red and the consonants were black.
5- Word Shape, Models, Guided Practice
*I then modeled how to draw shaped boxes around our letters. The big boxes were for 'big' letter, such as l, t, and h. The little boxes were for e, a, z, etc.
6- Individual Practice: Word Shape worksheet
* The students had a set of words to box and then we hung them up on our pocket chart.
7- Cloze Sentences
* Our next activity was sentences with a missing word, the cloze method.
8- Word Wall Puzzle, cut and paste.
*The student had to figure out which word wall word best fit in the empty space. The students did quite well with this activity.
9- Rainbow Words
*We did not have time for this activity. Our reading time was almost up and then the students were leaving for a lot of our specials.
10- Homework
*There regular Monday homework is to copy their word wall words 2 times each.
11- Assessment
*Their word wall test will be given on Wednesday.


Overall I think it was a wonderful morning. My student did quite well during this longer lesson. I did some new acivities with them, but everyone handled them quite well. It was nice to have a longer time period in which to teach reading. Usually I only have a half of an hour and one simple thing can take the whole time. It is hard to get anything accomplished in only a half an hour.

Adapted Spelling List

V. Methodology
8:30 a.m.

Spelling has been a big hangup for some of my students. Usually each week we have a test over 15 spelling words, which is modified from the original 20. All week long we do spelling sorts, ABC spelling words, rainbow words, soccer spelling, worksheets, shaving cream spelling, etc. Despite all of the practice a couple of my students were stills struggling. This week I modified their list to 10 words. We did all the activities with the smaller list. Thursday we take a pre-test. This was the first week where this was important. I made the regular Friday spelling test over only the words the students missed on Friday. Today was our spelling test and my students still failed it. Next week we won't have a spelling list because of our shortened week. I will be anxious to see in coming weeks how my students do. I will maybe even have to shorten it a bit more. I would like to see something higher than a “F” for a grade.

Initially I was disappointed that my students failed. But, I was reminded of my own childhood. I myself have always struggled with spelling. Today I am grateful for spell check and online dictionaries. I guess some of my students will never be wonderful spellers. I am not sure if rote spelling lists are the way to go to best meet the needs of my students. When I have my own classroom I think I will try to use words more in conext, and not just use the basil. Until then, I will follow the style of my classroom and will do varoius activities to try and reinforce the weekly spelling list.

Behavior Plan

Behavior Plan
IV Right and Responsibilities
Management of Materials, Time and Classroom

Behavior management is key in our special education classroom. My teacher has been at this school for 4 years and has had many of these kids that long. Her organization of time and behavior plans have been very simliar over the years. This allows for consistancy for the returning students. The students know what is expected of them and know the consequeces if they do not meet that expecation. During each day student can receive “penalties” for bad bevavior. We make a tally mark on our daily behavior sheets. There are 6 categories of frequent behavior that can be marked: homework, respect, talking, arguing, traveling and working. If studetns are arguging, talking out of turn, disrespecting friends or teachers, wandering around the room or not working, they receive one penalty for each offense. Before the students leave for lunch we evaluate their behavior and work ethic.

If the student has receive 3 or less penalties he has has a successful day. If he/she has received 4 penalties, he loses 15 minutes of recess. 5 penalties equals no recess for the day. 6 penalties is no recess and parent referral. 7 penalties= no recess, parent referal and discipline referral. If student has not turned in their homework or receives 4 or more penalties there is no success day, the student then receives a zero. To receive the movie/snack reward at the end of the day they can only have 1 zero. If this is not achieve he/she has to finish up work in the hallway, working with a teacher. He does not receive the movie or snack.

Example of our Penalty sheet:
Date:
Offense: Homework Respect Talking Arguing Traveling Working
Name:
Name:

**
Friday Fils for October Sheet
Name: Friday Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday
10/4 + O + + +
10/11 + + O + 0
10/18 + + +
10/24


Each week we have had a problem with the student consistenly talking, especially during small group instructional time. This week I intervined with this student and I put him on a specific behavior plan. This is what the student book looked like.




Each part of the morning was to be analyzed for this student. Here is his target behavior:
***(Student name) will limit is talking to only talking when he is called on or during appropriate group discussions. He will not blurt out or keep talking when the teacher is talking.

The teacher will monitor his progress during each group. If student is meeting our goal, he will receive a sticker for each part of the day he is successful at. If student talks out of turn, the teacher will put an “X” in the sticker bubble. To achieve a successful day student will need to achieve 5 out of 7 stickers. If student has a success day, he will earn 10 minutes of free time, at the end of math. (11:40 am) Free time activities will be decided together by student and teacher. Possible options: play game boy, have time at the couch, etc. In order to earn the reward day on Thursday, he must have 4 out of 5 success days. If student had gotten his X on his book, and continues to talk the teacher will tally each outburst. If he receives 4 tally marks he will be sent back to his seat or away from the group. If he is talking at his seat, he will be moved to the study carrel. If there is still a problem, other consequences will be decided by the teacher. (Possibly missing all or part of recess, finishing work during his lunch or recess.) If student receives the X and tally marks, that will automatically not be a success day.

Make It and Take It

III Professional Development

This afternoon from 4-6 we had a workshop in relation to last week's meeting with Sylvia Ford. We got to make all the hand on projects that she has used, and then keep what we made.

Here are the things we got to make:

*Individual conference folder (to use for SSR conferencing)

*Prose Umbrella (a umbrella with the different genera's such as drama, informational test, poetry, and stories) Each reading type is a raindrop hanging from the umbrella. Every work that you read in class, hangs under it’s particular type of text structure.

*Journals, it is black journal cut in half and then spiral bound. This can be used for quick journal writing. I use mine for my individual behavior plans.

*Text Structure Gloves. On the palm of the glove: Poetry is written (will change for different text structures). On the fingers: 1-Images and Sounds, 2-Types, 3- Rhymes, 4-Lines, 5-Concise. When discussing poetry the glove is used to guide thinking about the different elements of a poem.

* Reading Stop Light: 3 circles of green, yellow and red.
Green=what a student should do before reading. (Think about what I already know).
2. Make predictions from the cover and title
3. Survey questions prior to reading
4. Make pictures in my head.

Yellow=what a student should do during reading.
1. Reread what I don’t understand.
2. Put ideas and pictures together in my head.
3. Read between the lines.
4. Understand and use text structure.

Red=what a student does after reading
1. Summarize what I read
2. Confirm my predictions
3. Answer questions about the text.
4. Add information to what I already know.
*Author’s Chair-a plastic chair that all the students would sit in if they were presenting their work. Every time they share they get to sign the chair. At this meeting we got to decorate the chair with paint pens.

This was a great afternoon. The past meetings with Sylvia Ford have been phenomenal. My teacher has many of the manipluatives that are to help reading in the classroom. I have been using some of those things already. This “make it and take it” meeting, was really neat because I could make all of the things for my future classroom.

"Army Man"

Today we had an assembly for our returning member of the army: Lance Corp. W***** He is the son of our main cafeteria lady. He is in the Marines and had been in Iraq since the Spring. Our school has adopted him and throughout his time in Iraq. The students have sent him letters and care packages. This Marine was back in the States for 3 weeks. He came to our school to speak about his time in Iraq. He told us that is was 140 degress where he was. For a time, his unit ran out of water and all they had to drink was Coke. He said they could drink all the coke in the world, but it doesn't quench your thirst. They went quite a while without water. The people in Iraq mostly did not speak English and they did not approach the soldiers. This Corp. thanked the students for everything that they sent. Many of the soldiers over in Iraq did not hardly receive mail. Our adopted soldier got to share his mail from all of our little kids. He said the mail was a great encouragement to everyone over in Iraq. Our soldier will be going through some more army training in a few weeks and does not know his plans after that.

I am excited that our school has adopted a soldier. My uncle is in the airforce and had also been overseas at war. I know it means a lot to anyone serving our country when they get encouragement letters for all the hardwork they do. I can't imagine going through some of those harsh conditions that the soldiers face every day. I wish I could have been more involved with sending the letters to the soldiers. I'm glad that my school is supporting the people serving our country.

Monday Meeting

This afternoon was our student teaching meeting on campus from 1:00-5:30.


This morning did not go as smoothly as planned. Last week was super crazy and many changed schedules. I had planned on trying to video tape a lesson for my peer video analysis, but I never enough of a regular schedule. This morning I had my chance to video tape. I combined my two reading groups, even though they are at different levels. At least my group 2 would still be receiving instruction, even if it was not about their own specific book they were reading. The combined group actually did quite well. I pushed them to work a little longer in my group than usual. We covered a lot of information and that helped to get a good foundation for the week. The library transfered my video from the small video tape to a regular tape and it didn't work. None of the technology in the school seemed to be working. The computers were being slow, the online grade book wasn't working, and the video transfer wasn't working. But, as a teacher I have learned to be flexible. I will just pick up my video tomorrow because there is nothing more that I can do today that will help the situation.

Teacher Gone

This afternoon my teacher was gone. Our aide was doing her math group and I was teaching mine. Then the aide had to leave to go cover lunch duty. The math groups started to give me attitude because they weren't used to having only me in charge. I am not quite sure they saw me as the authority. The groups seemed to be squirrly becuase the weather is changing. The afternoon groups went smoothly.

It was nice to see how life is without my cooperating teacher in the room. I get along well with my teacher, but it is nice for me to be totally in charge. I have realized that my way of doing things and my cooperating teacher's way of doing things is different. Either way is not better or bad, but we are just different. My voice and style is a little quieter perhaps. It is exciting to think about the future and dream of having my own classroom.

Professional Development Galore

I have been very excited about our workshops. These last few days these meetings have taken up tons of time and I have lost all of my planning time. I have learned a lot, and have taken many pages of notes. I hope to use some of these strategies soon in my own lessons.

Fraction Flop

V Methodology
11:00

Episode
Today during my 3rd grade math group we had a test. Yesterday my 5th grade girl was gone and today she was back, but another student was gone today. I went ahead with the test anyways. They took a addition test over 9's, 2's, 3's etc. They had one mintute to complete one side. Everyone got done in time, but 1 student. He only had two questions left to answer. Their math test took them about 20 mintutes to complete. We put their math walls up around each student, so no one could cheat. (This had been a problem in the past.) When each student got done they got a 'wrap-up' to practice our new adding 9 facts. After the test we only had about 10 minutes to do the "activity". It was a fraction activity from the Saxon book. Each student got a worksheet and their own set of pattern blocks. Fractions were just introduced and some of the students have missed some days working with fractions. Today's lesson objective was to use blocks to show 1/2+1/2=1. Some of my student have a hard time coordinating fine motor and visual interpretation. Since we did not have very much time we barely review 1/2 or 1/4. The students were having a hard time understanding any of the concepts. It was time for them to go anyways, so I just let them clean up and we would review again tomororw and the next day.

Analysis:
The math group is getting harder becuause of varied levels of knowledge. Fractions seems to be a harder concept then even time or money. Tomorrow I will be doing some more activities with cutting a candy bar in 1/2 and 1/4s for our 4 students. I will try to incorporate a few more hands on fractions activites. We will just have to keep reviewing until it makes a little more sense.

Peachy Keen

V Methodology
(9:30)

Episode
Today during reading we started our KWL chart. We will be reading a story about turtles and I decided to introduce this chart to see what the students already know about the subject. The class did very well with working together to fill out our chart. A couple of the student knew a lot about turtles from actually having a pet turtle. A couple of the other students knew about turtles from watching movies (Finding Nemo, etc.) After the students, who had pet turtles, told us what they knew about turtles, we went on the the middle of our chart: What we want to learn about turtles. Since our informers informed us with a lot of information about turtles, there wasn't a lot that the other students wanted to know. They did want to find out: How fast can turtles swim under water? HOw fast can they walk or run on land?? Does it hurt if a person gets bit by a turtle? Tomorrow we will start reading our story and hopefully find out some new information.

Analysis
I was actually very surprised that my students knew so much about turtles. I have never had any other pet besides a cat, so my turtle knowledge is very limited. I was glad that the students were excited to tell about their pet turtles. It will be interesting to see how they respond to reading the book later this week.

Teacher Meeting

Teacher Meeting
Today we had a meeting at 7:15 to get trained on the new copy machine. The meeting lasted about 35 minutes. The new copier was similar to the old copier, so the information was not too hard to understand. There were a few new features that the old copier did not have.

Analysis of Episode

Today I was surprised that the meeting over the copy machine meeting took so long. There were some teachers that were so nervous to use a new machine. I have had lots of office experience, where I was working in many office environments with different copy machines. I did not feel like I learned a whole lot during the meeting, but it seemed to be helpful to the other teachers.

Observation

Observation
Observation today at 11:00

Episode

Today’s math lesson was scheduled to be the Saxon 25A math lesson, adding 9’s. But, this week the student’s have had some problems with some of the main concepts such as time, money, etc. I developed kind of review lesson incorporating review and games to help in the trouble areas. I also have 2 new students who have joined my group. I am still trying to figure out how much they know and where they are at in comparison to my other students.



Analysis

Today’s review went pretty well. It was a lesson where I could get a better assessment of the students, to see how much they actually understood with time and money. My group definitely needs more work in these areas. In the coming lessons I will continue to re-emphasize these areas.