Stripes: The Crying Zebra

I find it funny how some things just come to my mind during school and then work amazingly well. I call that the grace of God! :) Well today my students were extra talkative. I told them that they should not ignore our zebra friend who tells us what talking is allowed on our stoplight. The zebra (Stripes, as my students originally named him) usually stays on "No Talking" except for fruit break and group work time.

Well I was in a silly mood today and said, "Please stop ignoring Stripes. He will soon start to cry and leave a puddle on our white board which will be messy." The kids and I laughed at this and then I thought...."Hey! What if he really does start to cry every time they ignore him??" So when my students ignored him again, I walked over to the board, picked up the blue marker and began drawing tears coming down from Stripes. The kids laughed until I drew three lines on the board: "1 minute", "2 minutes", and at the very bottom "5 minutes". I explained that if Stripes' tears reached one of those lines that would be how much recess time we would lose that afternoon.

Seems a little young for third grade, but it was silly enough and novel enough that it seemed to work. Well...okay we got down to 3 minutes on the tears scale and so sat quietly for three minutes during our recess time. Longest three minutes of my life. My students looked miserable too - which was kind of a good thing I think as they seemed to understand.

So, that is my tale of crazy ideas and Stripes the Crying Zebra. :)

Teacher Wish List Online

A couple weeks ago a teacher at my school shared this opportunity with the rest of us. It is to create an online class wish list that you can then send to parents via email or print out a copy and give it to them. The teacher who introduced me to this also won a $462 grant to use in her classroom through simply creating a class wish list online. Bounty is sponsoring it and they even have some coupons available through this site. Hopefully (if I did it correctly...) you can click on the picture below to take you to the website.

I created one for my class and plan to send home information about it to my parents through email and through a hard copy this week.

Also, every school that has 5 or more teachers enter a class wish list will be entered into a drawing to win a $25,000 art room makeover for their school. How exciting!

If the link through the picture didn't work, check it out through this link: http://teacherwishlist.com/

Pen Pals!

This past week in English we learned where to put commas in letters, addresses, and dates. To practice this practically I have set up my third grade class to be pen pals with a third grade class in Alabama for the year! The neat thing is, the 3rd grade class in Alabama is also at a small Christian school and my dad is the principal of that school. Gotta love connections to make things easier. :)

So, we wrote letters to our Alabama pen pals on Thursday. I had the students put their letters in an envelope so they could practice addressing envelopes. I then put all the letters into a large envelope and mailed them today!

My students asked so many questions about Alabama. One of which made me laugh (it was either laugh or cry about it...hehe). He asked, "Do they write in the dirt in Alabama?" No, dear....Alabama is not a third world country....I wonder what misconceptions the Alabama students will have about California? This should be a great learning experience for everyone involved!

Here are some class pictures I printed off and stuck in the envelope for our pen pals.

Versatile Blogger

Abby at Third Grade Bookworm and IamNan from Third Grade's a Hoot have given me the "Versatile Blogger" award. Thank you, ladies! :)

Now for the rules. When you receive this award, you must thank the person who gave you the award, tell seven things about you, and pass this award onto 15 blogs that you feel deserve this award.

And so....

Seven Things About Me:
1. I am a follower of Jesus Christ.
2. I will randomly burst into song throughout the day when a phrase or a word sparks a song.
3. I love to travel and desire to see the entire world someday. So far I can mark off Kenya, Italy, Hungary, Croatia, and Romania.
4. My idea of a nice Friday evening is a night in with a good mystery or a good movie/tv show.
5. My favorite sport to watch is hockey.
6. I enjoy playing the piano. I'm not very good, but I still like to play. :)
7. I absolutely love the Tennessee mountains and miss them very much right now.

15 Blogs I think are Versatile:

1. Busy Bees
2. Blackboard and Beyond
3. Target Treasures
4. Doodle Bug Teaching
5. Lifelong Learning
6. Literacy and Laughter
7. Little Literacy Learners
8. Mrs. Randall's Learning Library
9. Primary Connections
10. Runde's Room
11. The Sweet Life of Third Grade
12. The Schroeder Page
13. UCreate with Kids
14. We've Been Doing This Since September
15. Wiggins World

(PS I am still not sure how to grab buttons....so please excuse the lack of cute buttons for each of these blogs. They all have cute ones I just don't know how to grab them yet....)

Have a wonderful weekend, yall!

20s Day

Today was the 20th day of school and it just happened to fall on September 20th! And....we were on chapter 20 of our read aloud book (Trumpet of the Swan). These things naturally lead to a "20's Day" Celebration - what else could we do??

So this morning I strung up some streamers, put a sign on the door, and got ready for the day. On top of my craziness of doing the 20th Day celebration it was also school picture day and their first book reports were due. Oh, and my twins were bringing in cupcakes to share with the class. (Can you believe we actually got Bible, History, Math, Spelling, and Reading done too?! I'm amazed, to be honest.)

Our "Wake Up Your Brain" activity was about the number 20:

I hid 20 number 20s around the classroom. Students could search for them after seat work was done.

We also wrote down 20 facts we have learned about Christopher Columbus in History:

And since we are learning to round numbers in math we wrote down the 9 numbers that can be rounded to 20:

What a fun day!

Reflections

The fourth week of school is about to begin. I can't believe that - the fourth week of school. I have survived the first three weeks. I must say, this upcoming week will be the most "normal" week of school as of yet. The first week was...well the first week of school. The second week I changed classrooms and had parent teacher night. The third week was a short week due to Labor Day. This fourth week will be a five day week with nothing too major going on besides vision screening for a bit on Tuesday. A "normal" week of school.

I think this might be a good time for me to practice one of the key things I learned that teachers should do: reflect. It sounded so practical in college, but when have I had time to formally reflect on what I have been doing these past three weeks? Now it is 8:30 on a Sunday night, I am as ready as I can be from home for school tomorrow and I have some free time before sleeping. A good time to reflect I think.

Overall, these past three weeks have gone well. We have learned something in every subject. The students have been engaged for almost everything and their assessments have shown they are learning the material. So at least I am presenting material in such a way that they can follow it. However, I feel like something needs to change in my teaching. I feel like I am prepared to teach the material but at the same time "wing it" in class time. I want to make my lessons as engaging and interactive as possible but I often find myself just working through the text book with the kids. I could argue, when have I had time to make that extra effort? I am trying to hang on as best as I can as a first year teacher. But then again, why should I make excuses for that?

Then I look at classroom management. It is going pretty well. The students are getting the procedures. I am making a conscious effort to be consistent in everything. I need to continue to make that effort and I need to make sure I am being firm enough.

One thing that worries me is that my class seems to get on each other's nerves at times. I've had a couple days where they all just seem to be at each other's throats. How can I help them come together and work together? How can I help them each develop their strong leadership personalities but also teach them to learn to follow at times too? More group activities will probably help this.

What about the spiritual aspect? Am I being concerned enough about this throughout the day? Where are all my students at spiritually? How can I help them grow in their God-given gifts and help them come closer to Him? Am I showing consistent love and grace to them?

I often feel too young to be doing this and that is a terrible feeling. I am the youngest teacher at the school at 22 years old. I look young. I am young. But I am also qualified for this job. And yet, I have had days these past few weeks of thinking, what the heck am I doing? I am too young for this. I'm not qualified for this. How did I end up as the teacher for 15 little students? It is an overwhelming feeling. But, I know that I was brought to the school by God. He can use me. I love the passage in Jeremiah 1: 6-8:

The I said, "Alas, Lord God! Behold, I do not know how to speak, because I am a youth." But the Lord said to me, "Do not say, 'I am a youth,' Because everywhere I send you, you shall go, and all that I command you, you shall speak."

So, what could I do differently: a lot. Do I have a lot to learn: of course. But, are my students still learning: yes. Do they feel loved: yes. Am I hanging in there: by God's grace, yes. 

Crazy Day and Puppies to Top it Off

Well, needless to say this was a crazy week. Monday: Pack up room number 1. Tuesday: Move to room number 2. Wednesday: Unpack room 2. Thursday: Get ready for parent night. Friday: We survived the week and puppies came to visit our class. On top of all this I of course had to teach something too! hehe...The kids were pretty great about the move. They seemed to adjust pretty well in the midst of the craziness. But today, I think the Friday crazies struck my room! We got our tests done and a few little lessons but other than that it was just craziness.

And to end our simply crazy week/day a parent brought up two adorable puppies she is fostering for my class to visit. They were adorable! The kids loved it too - needless to say. :)

First Parent Teacher Night

Thursday night was my first every Parent Teacher Night. I must say I love all my classroom parents and was a little excited to see them all. I was also, of course, nervous as this was my first time to ever do a Parent Night! But it went well! There was a great turn out with ever student represented by at least one parent! But goodness - what a lot of prep work! On top of assembling information folders I also wanted to make our room a little more like a classroom. Here are some pictures:

The Paper People were made by my students as self portraits. I love them! During the classroom switch the parents who came to help me move thought that the "Cleaver's Cafe" sign hung up by the church was made by me. It turns out the parents really liked it! I guess I did too good of a job incorporating it into my room...hehe...but one of my mom's wanted to make me my own Cafe sign! So of course I said yes! I hung up her sign in the reading corner before parent night. 

We started science on Thursday! The students were so excited. We learned the parts of a plant and the students drew their own diagrams.

In our reading story this week we read about two friends who tied their wishes to a kite to let them fly away so they would come true. So, we made our own Third Grade Wish kites! Their wishes were really cute and it was a fun quick/easy to do activity. Plus, it provided something really interesting for the parents to look at in their visit!

Welcome Parents!

My New Room

Tuesday I moved into my new classroom. Thursday was the first Parent Teacher night. I needed to have my room some what put together by then! Not to mention have it function-able for class on Wednesday! Let the work begin.

Here are a few pictures of my new room:

2nd Week: Moving Classrooms

On Thursday of the first week of school, myself and another teacher were called for a meeting with the principal and superintendent of our school. We found out that we needed to switch classrooms. One of my student's parents has a physical limitation that limits her from safely climbing stairs. My room was upstairs. So, we were told we were switching rooms to accommodate the parent's needs. What an overwhelming thought! My thoughts were conflicting: Of course I want to help out this parent, but my room....I spent so much time getting it ready - my first classroom. Then the Lord helped me realize that I didn't come all the way to CA just to decorate a classroom. I came to impact lives and minister to families. This was a very practical way to live that out. And so, I packed up my beautiful classroom with some help from my students and we moved rooms.

I wish I had pictures to show you of the tremendous support and group of people that showed up Tuesday of this week to help move but I was a little busy running between rooms, directing traffic, and figuring out logistics. Parents from both classrooms volunteered to help. Teachers stayed late to help. It was an incredible moment of seeing a group of Christians coming together with one goal in mind. Even though the news of changing classrooms was difficult to hear, I must say that I love my school even more now after seeing the great community of people that are a part of the school family.

And now the unpacking begins again and the classroom redecorating and reorganizing begins - all before my first parent night on Thursday. :)