A back that looks like a beard...

Today we had an author visit by the name of Matthew McElligott. Our librarian suggested we read some books before he arrives so that our kids would be familiar with his work before he talked to them. I read aloud Backbeard: Pirate for Hire and The Spooky Book. While I was reading these books aloud, I didn't think much of them...they weren't all that special. The kids enjoyed the ridiculous humor in them and that was good...isn't a book a good place to have some ridiculous humor?

Today during his visit, he really showed kids how much perseverance it takes to be an author. He talked about how many times he rereads his books, edits and revises before he can ever think about sending it off to the publisher. (Which was good because our kids think it's perfect after their first rough draft.) He talked about how many times the publisher might ask him to change things and then he has to rewrite again. I hope the kids picked up on the message that even though he's a professional writer, it's rarely perfect, even after 15 revision sessions.

One thing that truly interested me during the visit was his use of technology. I apparently did not notice while reading his books the real-ness of the illustrations. It turns out that he takes pictures of textures in his life and then uses Photo Shop to import them into his sketches. He demonstrated how he did this today with 3 kids from the audience. He took pictures of their shirts and then imported them as tablecloths, jackets, and a dress for a grandma. It was probably one of the coolest things I've ever seen. His website gives a more detailed description of how he actually goes about this...it's worth checking out.

Overall, I enjoyed his visit. Parts of it were tedious and a bit boring, but I think the kids really did enjoy what he had to say.

http://matthewmcelligott.com/wordpress/?cat=15

We Won!

I've been meaning to post that our Red Ribbon Week "Strike Out Drugs" door won for our grade level! My kiddos were very happy and as was I!

OMG...is this for real?

Some of these are too good or sad not to share.

It was hard for me to get over what had happened to my aunt Lila. It all started out when my mom, grandma, grandpa, and brother went to the doctor. My aunt and my cousin and I stayed home. My aunt told my cousin and I to go wake up Lila because my aunt was going to the store so Lila could watch us. So we ran up stairs to wake her up. She was laying face down on her pillow. We tried tapping her but she wouldn't wake up. Not we tried whacking her with her pillow. Finally my cousin noticed something on the pillow, a face shaped oval. We went downstairs to show my aunt. My aunt ran upstairs because we could say anything. We waited for her to come back downstairs. We slowly walked upstairs to see what had happened. The door was shut where my aunt was. I opened the door and hear my aunt crying. "What's wrong?" I asked in a scared voice. "Your aunt Lila is....dead." We started pouring with tears all day. My cousin Genny came home and heard what had happened to her mom. A week later after Christmas, we had her funeral. Over four-hundred people that were family showed up. Lila was an important member of our family.

My grandma told me a story about my aunt Lila and I want to share it. My mom, Lila, aunt Erica were playing on the stairs. They were running up and down the stairs chasing each other. My aunt Lila slipped and rolled down the stairs bumping her head on each and every bar. My grandma said, "She banged her head really hard and she had a seizure (a bruise on her brain). She didn't get a long life because she only like 29 years. She means everything to me because she gave me everything I wanted. Now she is going FOREVER. Father wanted her.

No I in "team"

Here's another one...

I lived to play kickball and everybody loved how I played. One day we had a tournament against the greatest team. I played. I was the catcher. It was really hard running after the ball. The girls kick very hard and when I caught their ball, they hurt my arm, but I know I'm dong good and my family knows I'm doing good. Then I got enough strength to keep playing this game and still I will not give up on my team. There is not an I in team is there? So I'm not going to give up on my team. I have been on that team for years and never gave up on them, so I hope they don't give up on me because I never will give up on them or on anything, so that's why you keep trying. Not bad stuff, but good. It was hard, but you will get through it.

Part of this paper sounds a little like an inspirational speaker http://www.dallasisd.org/keynote.htm from Dallas.

Devil Stuff

This was written as part of a composition for a writing benchmark:

"It's about to be Halloween! When it's Halloween you can dress up as a scary person. Like me, I dress up as a scary person, or not. the only thin that I hate about Halloween is that some times people dress up more scarier than me and I go crazy. But the real part that I really hate the most is...I'M NOT ALLOWED TO GO TRICK OR TREATING SOME TIMES! Because my mom and dad are Christian, that's the good thing, but since they are Christian, I can't go because they say that Halloween is like devil stuff like dressing up as a devil, scaring smaller kids than you, pretending that you are really the scary person that you're dressed up as, scaring kids when they try to get candy out of those buckets that you put candy inside and once you put your hand inside and touch the bucket, a scary hand comes out grabbing your arm and scream like a little girl in a party being drunk. And sometimes they say that bad people put like bad things in the candy so when the kids eat it they get suck. But I guess kids don't know that, that's why they trick or treat. But what I do when I can't go trick or treating is I watch scary movies, play with my toys at home, go for a family hang out at stores and just hang out outside, buy new things at the store and the most fun thing is...GO TO SLEEP! And you know why I go to sleep? Because I'm lazy at my house, but I have to do my homework and do all sorts of things at home. And it's kind of fun at my house so that is what I do at home. It's kind of fun without going trick or treating and hanging out with my family.

I hope you found as much humor in this paper as I did, without me having to point out specific moments!

Red Ribbon Week

Of all weeks, this week we had Red Ribbon Week...Drug Free is the way to be! We had activities we had to do correlating to the theme. We had of course to talk about what it meant, sign a pledge to be drug-free, wear something special each day of the week, remember to wear our red ribbons every day, and decorate our door with a drug-free theme.

I just wanted to share the door that one of the students in my class created...idea and construction.

Is it fixed yet?

This week was a bit of a struggle in more than one way. We had two early release days, afternoons filled with conferences, Red Ribbon Week activities, and NO COPY MACHINE! Well, let me rephrase that. We have 3 copy machines in the school, but individual codes for each teacher that only work on one machine. The machine I use was broken. It actually broke last Thursday and the repair man was supposed to have it fixed by Monday. It was finally repaired by late Thursday afternoon (one week later).

If you've ever thought about how hard it might be to teach without a copy machine, amplify that by about 10. Not only were we unable to copy homework, but we were also unable to share writing plans that we only had hard copies of. Maybe it wouldn't have been so bad if all the other stress factors hadn't been present this week. All I hope is that next week is marginally less stressful and tiring.

HOLA!

Wednesday I was informed that I would be getting a new student on Thursday. Surprisingly I was excited about this...you see, I didn't have the maximum amount of kids that I could in my class and it's better to be maxed out so that you aren't the revolving classroom door later in the year. I welcomed a new student this early in the year.

The next thing I found out is that she does not speak any English. She had been offered the chance to attend a school in our district for Spanish Bilingual, but parents denied those services. The thought of having a student with no English ability might have concerned me if I didn't have an aide in my classroom all day who is fluent in Spanish. I also have two students who speak Spanish at home. AND...I did spend a summer in Paraguay, pretending to speak Spanish. Well, this all came in handy when she came in my classroom. My aide greeted them and I think reassured the parents that she would be okay. Immediately, some of my Spanish came flowing back. Some words I have to search through my internal dictionary for while others were found in my two other students. :)

Friday rolled around and everything seemed well. My aide translated a math assessment in order to see what she knew. Unfortunately, she doesn't know division and that is a bit of a concern because we have already learned that. Specials came and I sent the kids off to run like crazies in PE. When I picked them up, Alexandra was hysterical. She was complaining that her stomach hurt. I told her to go to the bathroom and she started babbling and doing everything to avoid the bathroom. She did not want to go to the nurse like I was telling her to. (Yes, I was saying all of this in Spanish.) I eventually had her ushered to the nurse by one of my Spanish-speaking students. Apparently she hadn't eaten in a few days and hasn't slept well due to all of the changes in her life right now. She ended up going home sick and probably a bit scared. It's going to be an interesting year for her and myself. I know how I felt in Paraguay where nobody spoke English, so I understand her confusion and even pain. I've spoken more Spanish in the last two days than I have since I returned from Paraguay...hopefully it will ease her transition.

Parent Conferences

This week we had two early release days so that we could have the afternoon for parent conferences. Seeing how most of my class is very well-behaved and almost on grade level, I wasn't too concerned. I had it planned out that they would share something with their parents they've done or like about the class and then we would talk about their goals and what they need to do.

Here they come...and I'm the smiling, happy teacher their kids hopefully talk about. I tell each of them how much I enjoy having their child in class, how they participate, they turn in their homework on time, and how respectful they are. It's almost the same spiel after spiel, differing a bit depending on how many multiplication facts they know and what difficulties they're having with reading, if any. Every student and parent get the same spiel about preparing for the writing TAKS test in late February and what will be expected by then.

Now, I do have a few students that have very talkative and playful personalities and those conferences were a bit more difficult. If I learned anything from my student teaching cooperative teacher, it is that you have to address the problem as it is. The issues that needed to be addressed were nothing new, their parents were aware. In fact, we talked about it like a real problem and how it was going to be fixed and what happens if it isn't. All of the parents were very supportive and understood the problems. They are going to talk about appropriate behavior in order to improve what's happening at school. It helps when the kids know the parents know what's going on and they will be concerned about it and keeping in touch.

Overall, I was very happy with the way the parent conferences turned out and I reassured them all they have wonderful kids and they are assets to our class.

So many thoughts, so little time.

I have quite a few blogs I want to write, but am too tired to write them tonight. I will get them all in this weekend...

- Parent Conferences
- New Student
- Victor and Elliot
- William Quits
- Copy Machines
- And whatever happens tomorrow!

Are you refusing to work?

I have a very difficult students who I'm sure I've talked about before, but can't remember his alias. I guess I'll rename him with...Elliot. Elliot is severely unmotivated in most content areas, but especially in reading and writing. He often does not participate during reading mini lessons or write during Writers' Workshop. I've tried many things to get him going, but he just doesn't seem to care. I would like to rephrase that. He does seem to care, because when I talk about his behavior or refusal to work, he often gets a very angry look like he is upset with himself. In most cases, I understand where a child's anger or dislike for a certain type of work come to play, but with Elliot, it happens so often that I'm confused by it.

Today during math, we were noticing patterns when multiplying by 10s, 100s, 1000s. The class had a sheet to follow along with. We talked about the pattern, the answer for each one, and how we would figure out the next. Well, we excluded Elliot. I sauntered (we're learning about verbs of steel as well) to his desk only to notice all the blanks were filled with question marks. The first words out of my mouth were, "This is unacceptable!" I said this first because this was a discussion I was about to have for about the 10th time with Elliot. We've talked about it being unacceptable to write a question mark in the blank when we are working as a group and when there are 2 teachers to help (myself and my aide). I erased all of the question marks for him, tried to get him going again and he just put his head down. I asked, "Are you refusing to do your work?" He nodded his head.

-- I am documenting exactly how I handled the situation. I would not handle this type of situation like this every time, but I have given this child about 300 chances in many different settings within our classroom. You may not agree with this, but at the moment, and still during reflections, I agree with what I did. Also keep in mind that I already have a conference scheduled for tomorrow with this child's parents.--

I asked Elliot to leave my classroom. My door was already propped open, so I asked him to sit right in the doorway. When I got the rest of the class back on track, I asked Elliot if he was ready to re-enter our classroom and return to work. If he was not, I told him that he could go sit in Ms. H's room next door. (She is aware of this student's behavior and is very helpful in stressful times.) He followed me back to his desk and immediately put his head down. I said, "Grab your paper. You are going to Ms. H's room." "I don't want to go in there." "I'm sorry. It is not a choice. I gave you a choice to work and you chose not to. You have no more choices." He went to Ms. H's room and sat for the remainder of math.

I obviously have to figure out some way to motivate this student to work, but I'm stumped. He HATES cooperative work (and we do a lot of that), he hates anything that takes too much energy, he hates talking in front of the class (which I don't force on any child), and he hates when I ask him to do something. This child is very bright in math (commended on our state test last year) and fairly competent in reading. Unfortunately, he has only shown me that he is incapable of doing work without my step-by-step-by-step guidance....uuuugggghhhh!

Back in the old'en days!

Yesterday, the fourth graders at my school ventured out to the Bob Bullock Texas State History Museum. I was well prepared and knew my class would be well-behaved.

We started out seeing an IMAX movie about Texas, which I really enjoyed. I sat next to Victor during this movie, which I also really enjoyed. He seemed to love the movie and also asking me which city every clip was of. After the IMAX, we had some time to view the exhibit before lunch. My kids broke off into their groups and went to work on their assignments. (Yes, they had an assignment!) There were specific parts of the exhibit that they had to answer questions about or compare to another part. As the teacher, I took the most difficult group of kids. They aren't necessarily badly behaved, but this group of kids tends to get over excited and that affects their behavior in a negative way. I took these guys for myself so I wouldn't have to later get onto them for not listening to the chaperons.

Overall, the reports from the chaperons were all wonderful! The kids were very well-behaved, followed the agreements we made about behavior in a museum, and represented our school positively. Now, we were not the only school at the museum. There was a school from another city who must have not discussed museum etiquette. While I had my group looking at part of an exhibit, this other group of kids pushed their way in front of my class and was grabbing everything. They were also running around other places and yelling loudly. I once asked them to not yell, but it was ineffective. I would have been completely embarrassed if it was my class behaving in that manner. In the same respect, I do understand the struggles of managing all of them and am grateful that I didn't have to take last year's class to the museum. Regardless...if my kids had behaved like that, we would have sat in the lobby instead.

We are taking one more field trip later this year and I am very excited about it. We head to a Christmas Tree Farm that sets up "A Little Bit of Texas Tour" for 4th graders about Texas settlements. My favorite part is the tetherball at lunch time...this is when I get to show all these 4th graders how to REALLY play tetherball. I should tell them to start practicing now.

Never Leave Victor Unattended

Today was one crazy day! We had school pictures and library time, along with rainy weather for 90% of the day. You have all figured out by now that craziness often means good blogs, as long as I'm not too tired to write it. Well, this was another interesting and humorous day in the world of Victor.

Because it was picture day, Victor didn't want to go to his usual class, but wanted to stay in class so he could go to pictures on time with us. I obliged and let him stay in class. During this time, my portable-buddy and I co-teach social studies (it's something we are "researching"). We were all in her classroom and while we were helping other students, Victor got loose. I turned around to find Victor twirling in Ms. H's chair and trying to use her computer. He thought it was perfectly fine. (If you remember, I wrote a blog warning teachers to never leave rolling chair unattended.) We talked about personal space, AGAIN, and how that space was not for him. With that settled...

Our pictures were scheduled for the science lab. The kids were all wonderful waiting in line and letting me fix their hair and make sure collars were in place. While waiting for everyone to finish, Victor made friends with the skeleton. At first he was holding hands with the skeleton and then using the skeleton's hands to poke people. I then turn around after some primping to see Victor with the skeleton's arm wrapped around his neck. He was trying to dance with the poor skeleton. If I had had a camera, this would have been a really cute picture. I was unable to stop laughing and admired Victor and what he truly brings to our class...a little bit of ridiculous humor.

Near the end of the day, I was again helping other students and turned around to find Victor behind my desk. This time he was playing with the trinkets I have on my filing cabinet. He removed one item and wanted to walk away with it, while he rearranged all the others. I tried to make a deal with Victor in order to play with it in the future, but he didn't really care for that. (He doesn't tend to like things for the future. He needs to talk about the present.) We'll talk about this again when I feel like he earns some time with the toy.

My goodness...trying to assist 20 kids and always keep an eye on Victor is my biggest challenge.

Education, Go Get It!

We recently had a special week at school called, "Education, Go Get It Week!" It was meant to show our kids that they need some type of education to 'survive' in an adult world and that they are each capable of receiving some type of secondary education. I think this is all a wonderful idea and in fantasy land, it's even better, but I don't work at Fantasy Land Academy.

I teach at a school where most of the parents did not attend college and work somewhere that has minimal potential for advancement. These children might know someone who went to college, but it is probably not a close connection that provides positive support for them. Before I say too much, let me remind you that we do have many parents who attended college and have careers (rather than jobs), but the majority of our parents do not.

We have been reinforcing the fact that even if you don't think you can afford college, there are plenty of ways to pay for it. This is where I see a problem. I was raised in a middle class family with parents who had careers and could afford some luxuries. Regardless of this, paying for college was still difficult. My parents will be paying for my college for years to come, as will I. I know that I still have at least a decade of loan payments ahead of me and my parents probably have the same. This is something that many people would struggle with. I struggle with it and I do have a steady income. How am I supposed to honestly tell my class that they can afford college regardless of anything else? Yes, there are scholarships out there, but not as many as people claim. At least that's what I noticed 5 years ago when I was looking for them. I feel this is all false hope for these kids. Hopefully they will all prove me wrong in 9-10 years!

It won't work!

This week, we began working on division with remainders. Most kids picked it up fairly quickly and the others got it a few minutes later. But, there was one kid who did not get it...poor Victor. As I wrote down a problem on the board and waited for the kids to solve, Victor shouted, "It won't work!"

Me: "I know it won't be even. That is what we are practicing."
V: "'No, it doesn't work. You can't do it."
Me: "You can do it, but you will have some leftovers."
V: "No. 31 and 4 don't work." (Keep in mind I used 31 because it's his favorite number and thought he would like the problem.)
Me: "I know. 4 can go into 31 some. How many times can it go in?"
V: "7, but it's not even!"
Me: "There you go. How many are left over?"
V: "It doesn't work."
Me: "It's not even. There are leftovers. That is what we are learning. So how many are left over?"
V: "3, but it's not even."
Me: "There you go. What's the whole answer?"
V: "7 remainder 3, but it doesn't work because it's not even."
Me: "So what is the answer again?"
V: "7 remainder 3"
Me: "Good job, you got it!"
V: "It's not even!"

We continued more practice and I had this discussion for each problem we did! He knew the answers, but didn't like "uneven-ness". We'll see how the follow-up lesson goes on Monday and see if he's learned to cope with the remainders by then.

Can I wear your glasses?

I have a student who has an obsession with glasses. He wants to know why people wear them (each one specifically), when are they going to get Lasik, and if he can wear their glasses. At times, this can be quite funny and at other times, it's quite annoying. Some things that are a part of his obsession are as follows:

- Continually asks me why I don't want Lasik. "It's not a big deal. A surgeon does it quick and easy. He just opens your eye and fixes it."

- Wants to wear my glasses, or my mom's when she visited, or anybody else's that are within his reach. He will almost steal them in order to try them on if I leave mine laying around.

- Once wore a pair of glasses to school that were not his. He told everyone they were his, but mom said they were not and she had no idea where he got them from.

- Wants to know the day people got Lasik if they did (or if they aren't wearing their glasses for some reason that day).

- Wants to know if every first grader is the little brother of a kid in our class who wears glasses.

Today he was trying to wear my glasses because they were temporarily left unattended on my desk. When I told him he should ask before picking things up, he asked, asked again, asked again and again until I couldn't stop laughing. When I said no he could not wear my glasses, he was trying to see through them without putting them on. He looked through the front and then through the correct side. He was so interested in what it feels like to wear my glasses. I have to keep an eye on where they are so they don't disappear at a random moment.

BrainPop

As a teacher, there are many resources available. As a new teacher, it sometimes takes a bit of time to discovery everything you might need to use as a resource in one year...it is a never-ending process. Well, one resource I did discover quite quickly was Brain Pop! If you don't know anything about Brain Pop, let me clue you in to this amazing site...


As a 4th grade teacher, a site like this can help me teach EVERYTHING! Let me clarify...it can help me teach clouds to division, blogging to writing about senses, and health to art/music (which I don't teach, but could if I wanted to). The kids LOVE these videos. There is a regular site and Jr. site and my kids know the names of the hosts for both shows. After each video (which are usually 3 minutes or less), there is a quiz that you can take there or print out. The Jr. site even has reading connections for each topic along with a choice of easy or hard quiz.

There is no limit to what this site can teach. I can imagine, just like any other teaching resource, that it is work-in-progress and topics are always being added to the site. The kids love the simplicity of Brain Pop Jr. and I love the depth of Brain Pop. I know that Brain Pop saved my inferencing lesson today during reading time.

Unfortunately, this is a subscription only website, but if your school won't purchase it for you, it is well worth the individual purchase price! Maybe I could send Brain Pop this blog and see if they'll send me something for free...hmmmm?

Christmas in October

Last week, I received an e-mail from one of my professors from college. I had e-mailed her asking for recommendations for beginning of the year chapter books. She finally e-mailed back responding with some recommendations and also asking for my school address so she could send me some books for book clubs. I was already thanking her before I received anything. I figured she might have some older books that she might need to clean out of her closet.

Today when I went to the lounge for lunch, I was looking through the packages that came in the mail. I rarely get anything, but love to look anyway. As I was browsing the packages today, there was one for me. I knew I hadn't ordered anything from Amazon and wasn't sure what the box was. As I was opening, I noticed sets of books. This meant sets of books for book clubs. I immediately knew who these were from. Let me restate that I thought my professor was sending me used books she needed to get rid of. Now let me clarify that I received 9 BRAND NEW book SETS (of 4) from Amazon. The receipt was in the box and I could not and cannot get over the fact that she ordered and had these books sent to me. It was something I would never ask anyone to do and she was generous without thought. I knew she was a special lady before she sent me these books, but this reaffirmed my thoughts. I know she did it because she loves me, but more importantly, she did it so my kiddos will have great books to read...considering she was THE READING GURU.

This was one moment in my life when I was touched by overwhelming kindness. I don't know what I'll do in order to demonstrate my appreciation.

P.S. - If you haven't already figured out, I had the best professors in college that anyone could EVER have!!!

Summon the Beast

It was my day back after 2 sick days. I felt like a celebrity! My kids were ecstatic that I was back and other teachers asked me all day how I was feeling. Some acted like I had been diagnosed with SARS and others were were just glad I was back and "healthy". I'm not going to lie, it was a bit hard to be back all day. It took a lot of energy out of me and my kids, although grateful for my return, weren't so cooperative all day. I was very happy that I only had to return for one day and then the weekend would be in full swing.

Of course in the midst of trying to stay alive today, there was some humorous "activity". The books that my class were so patiently waiting on arrived today and were waiting for them on their desks when they walked in this morning. One student ordered a book that sparked interest in many students. He took it to lunch so they could read it. While walking out of lunch, they were holding up a piece of paper to the sky. I tried looking at it to see what they were seeing and it must be a kid thing; I couldn't see anything! "What's it for?" I asked. "Summoning the beast," replied Juan. "WHAT? What beast are you talking about?" "The one from my book." "Okay, whatever."

During recess, I observe a group of student gathered around Juan and his popular book. They seem to be dancing around and and doing some strange behaviors. I know they are goofy 4th graders and do goofy things, so I didn't ask much about it. When I called the class to line up for recess, they were still trying to summon the beasts. My co-worker is very concerned about this and tried to warn them of what might happen when the beast arrives. I just thought it was funny.

I thought it was done with for the day, but I was wrong. During Writers' Workshop time, we had some drama (some vomit was spewed in my classroom). While I was responding to this, a few girls got their hands on this book in which you can supposedly summon the beast. I got onto them for not working on writing and then Juan comes over and asks who was misusing his book. I let him know and then he lets me know that he's actually kind of scared of the beast he's been summoning all afternoon.
J: "Ms. L, I'm a little scared of the beast."
Me: "Why?"
J: "Because when I get home from school off the bus, I have to walk a long way to my house by myself. What happens if the beast comes then?"
Me: "I don't know. I think you'll have to read your book and see if there's something you can do to protect yourself when the beast comes."

This provided quite a bit of entertainment throughout the day...enough to keep me going through not so great health. I love my class!

They Miss Me!

I received a phone call today from my portable-mate at school. She had a few things to tell me, one of them being that my class keeps asking when I'm coming back. It makes me feel better just knowing they miss me.

I will hopefully be returning to school tomorrow, as long as I am fever-free when I wake up in the morning.

My First Sick Day

The worst thing in the world, to me as of right now, is waking up and realizing you are too sick to go to work. That's what happened to me this morning. Once I was out of the shower, I realized that I just can't make it. With most jobs, it's no biggie...you just call in sick. With teachers, it's much different. There are 22 little people relying on you. Luckily, I have a great portable-mate who took care of everything for me so I wouldn't have to drive to school to make lesson plans for the day. And I also have an aid who is able to teach if needed. I'm not really sure what was done, but I'm sure it all went fine.

Unfortunately, I am unable to go to school again tomorrow because I have strep throat. This also means that there is no reason for a blog update tomorrow. Hopefully I'll be back at school on Friday.