September 20-24th, 2010

On Monday, we had a meeting with a parent about a student on our team. He has been low performing and just not with us mentally in class. After reviewing his file, we discovered that this is not normal behavior for him. He has been an A, B student in the past and never had any complaints about his attention. He has suffered a tragic event over the summer, a death of immediate family member and we knew that this was on his mind. We called the meeting to talk with his parent to see what we could do to help him. It was a very emotional conference to say the least. We discovered that he loves talking about his loved one and that is how he is grieving. Also, we learned that he loves motor cross. After finding out these two facts about him, we are now able to think of ways to keep him engaged or just feel like we really care about his situation and what he is going through.
In Science on Monday, we continued our unit on Measurement. We learned about the SI units (metric system). I could not get the students to understand that we do not use the English system in Science. I thought that the lesson went fairly well, but I know that there a lot of things that I could have done differently. For example, I should have used concrete objects to explain the different quanities and units, such as length and meter. I could have showed students a meter stick and explained to them that this is how we measure length. I could have even taken that farther and discussed centimeters and milimeters. My reasoning for not doing this in the first place was that throughout this unit we will be covering all of these quantities and discussing each in detail. I realize now that students probably would have had a better understanding if I did a general overview that first day of SI units.
On Tuesday, we had a 504 meeting with a student's parents. She has brittle bone disease and is very fragile. We were thinking of ways that we can make her life easier. We decided that we would send home an extra copy of the textbooks so that she didn't have to carry them back and forth. This seemed to be the best solution. We also discussed many other things that would work well for her, but she is a very independent girl and doesn't want the attention. She realizes that she is different from the other students and does not want attention brought to her.
Also, today I dealt with my first puking in the classroom incident. A little girl came up to me and said she wasn't feeling well so I told her to go to the nurse. She didn't want to miss class so she said she would go after. First mistake on my part, I allowed her to stay. No more than five minutes later she was standing over the garbage can throwing up. I thought for sure there was going to be a chain reaction. I ran her as quickly as I could to the bathroom and sent a student in with her while I ran to the nurse to let her know what was going on. Needless to say, she ended up going home. It was quite an experience to deal with, especially when the sub and I had no idea what to do.
In Science today, we continued our unit on Measurement. In the beginning of class, students had a bell ringer. It required them to fill in the missing parts of the SI unit charts. I didn't allow them to use their study guide because they were informed yesterday that they needed to start studying. Also, I wanted to see how much they retained from the day before. This bellringer turned into a 20 minute thing. The students were trying to hard to recall the information, but it just wasn't there. After the bell ringer, we went right into length. We talked about meters, centimeters, and millimeters. Students completed a hands-on activity called: How do you measure up? Students were required to measure themselves with tape measurers. They had to do everything in centimeters. Before measuring, they had to estimate. Their estimations were pretty far off, but that is because they haven't really dealt with centimeters before. Many of the students approached me and said that this is the best activity they have done all year! This made extremely thrilled.
On Wednesday, we had a two hour early release day. I ended up completely changing my lesson plans for today to fit the 35 minute class periods. In reading, I assigned students a family portrait and write up and allowed them to work on this during class. In our book, The Summer of the Swans, there are very little details provided about what the characters look like. I wanted the students to get creative and draw what they think the characters looked like and then I wanted them to tell me why they looked this way. The students did an excellent job on this!
In Science, I allowed students to continue working on their How do you measure up? worksheets because many of them did not get past the estimate phase of the assignment. They had a lot of fun doing this and I felt as if it was a less stressful assignment to do in a short amount of time. The students worked really well and seemed to really enjoy it for the second day.
On Thursday, we got caught up on chapters in Reading. Although, all of my teachers have told me in classes not to use popcorn reading, I did (ooops)! In my opinion, it worked out great! Everyone in the class had a chance to read and it forced them to follow along because they had no idea when they could be called on. I was really surprised that it worked out the way it did because for the first time I was able to hear how everyone was able to read. I usually don't put students on the spot to read because I understand some students have anxiety about reading aloud, but this seemed to work out okay and everyone did great!
In Science, we had our SI units quiz. This quiz took almost the entire period. I was not expecting it to take this long at all! At this point in the week, I was still unfinished with what I had planned for Tuesday so I was hoping that this quiz would only take about 15 minutes and we could move on. Again, I needed to rethink my lesson plans. As students finished, I gave them a measuring worksheet where they practiced using centimeters and milimeters. It all worked out in the end, but we were still days behind.
After the students left, we had Faculty Senate. During this, teachers presented ways that they were using technology in the classroom. The one that I enjoyed the most and became very interested in was the use of Google Earth. I never realized that students could go on there and take a 3-d tour of building and landforms. I think that this would be extremely interesting and engaging for students. I have started thinking about when I go back to Suncrest and do my Mexico unit. I think that this would be interesting for students.
On Friday, students in reading, completed a bell ringer that again turned into a 20 minute thing. It wasn't such a big deal though because this is stuff that they need to know and I wanted them to take their time working on it. After their bell ringer, they partner read Chapter 15 in the book and then discussed it with their partner.
In Science, we finally finished Tuesday's lesson on volume. Students seemed to really enjoy this lesson. We discussed the two ways to measure volume, the meniscus, a graduated cylinder, milileters, immersion, and displacement. We then did a lab where students saw first hand how to measure volume and displacement.
While thinking about my lesson plans for next week, I came up with many hands-on activities for next week. I am so excited. In reading, I am going to have students create a life size game board of the obstacles that Charlie faces while he is lost in the woods on his way to the lake. I am not quite sure how I want to do this yet so I have this weekend to figure it all out. Also, I am going to have the students pretend to news reporters and interview a character in our book about the disappearance of Charlie. The students will work in pairs and will be video taped. I think that they will really enjoy these activities.
I think that everything is going really well provided the circumstances. Although I am often overwhelmed with school, work, and taking on the responsibilities of my teacher, I am really enjoying myself. I am going to be so upset when I have to hand the teaching over to my sub. I really enjoy working with the students and I am learning something new everyday. This has been such an amazing experience for me and I wouldn't do anything to change it.