Happy November!

I can't believe tomorrow is our 50th day of school!! Our kids had a FIVE day weekend due to parent teacher conferences and Halloween. We had PTCs on Wednesday evening and all day Thursday. We all got Friday off. Today was a professional development day.

We finished our business centers. Pointless. Our new Superintendent of Elementary-in training is an idiot. Seriously. The only reason he's making us do this stupid stuff is because his school made AYP last year and he can show off. So..if it doesn't work for the rest of us..because our kids are not the same kids he had last year...can we cut the busy work? I know I haven't been doing this a long time, but this is ridiculous. I know that every place has issues. Nobody is like us. My district is so ridiculous sometimes. If my school doesn't get AYP this year, it's for sure going to be handed to us. There's a possibility that the state will step in and we'll all have to reapply and interview with the state. Ugh. I don't even want to think about that.

There's so much stress and tension in the building that it makes focusing on the teaching difficult. As a new teacher, I feel like I'm drowning.

Oh well, right?

I was supposedly groomed to be an urban teacher....to withstand the drama and trials to last longer than most urban school teachers. I'm supposed to go longer than the average turn-over rate. Yah...I'm sure I'm going to go under it. I am too young and too ill-equipped to deal with these pressures. I don't know how anyone can do it with a family. I would quit. Just up and quit.

I love my students. I love teaching them. I love sharing stories and learning with them. I love learning from them. I love opening a new world to them. I love helping them through struggles. I love giving them praise and teaching them how to act appropriately. I love the hugs and pictures.

I would really love to be able to close my door and teach. Maybe that's what I'll work on this quarter.

Still alive..

Much has happened since my last post.

My all-boy student moved (with his family, of course) to Egypt. Not going to lie..that was a blessing from God. I love the boy, but I knew he would be quite the stretch for me. And with my current lack of creativity, passion and motivation, that would have just not been pretty.

I lost two girls a few weeks later. :( Taking me down to 20 students. Twenty is seriously the perfect number for a class. It lasted for like a week and then I got two more..a boy and a girl. And I'll be getting a new boy on Monday. This turnover is ridiculous. It's like never being able to get into a smooth routine. We started really focusing and moving the week we were at 20. This is possibly the worse part of my job. But..we deal and it all works out great. I couldn't imagine my class without these students.

We're currently pushing into the second phase of Vicky Gibson's Differentiated Instruction model. Since when it is it ok to put all your eggs in one basket?

Thankfully, I have an instructional coach that doesn't quite buy all of her ideologies and is willing to support my efforts to be a better teacher for my students. I am starting to explore the idea of flexible grouping in my classroom. Unfortunately, I haven't seen it done or really know the basics of it. (Thanks, University!) I've found some things on the internet and am just going to flesh it out myself. It's a big task to take on, especially 41 days into school. But....it's the first time I've been excited about teaching this year.

We've been asked to do ridiculous things, and the stress from the politics of teaching is really wearing me out. Why am I spending my time making interactive data bulletin boards in the hallway when data is up in the classroom and in student data portfolios and I could be using that time to really look at my data and figure out what my next steps are? Why am I creating a "business center" when all those things are in my classroom just not in the same place? My kids can't read all of that stuff anyways. Seriously? This stuff makes me want to jump ship.

On a positive note...My kids are already showing great academic growth as well as emotional/social growth. We went on our first field trip on Friday. We had a huge amount of parents that came with us. My group ended up being just two boys. And let me say, we may have challenging kids because of us being an "urban" school district, but my kids were so polite and aware of the kids around them. They didn't push to get to the activities that they wanted. They waited their turn and then didn't hog the activity the whole time. I couldn't have been more proud of them.

We have parent teacher conferences the 26th and 27th. Never look forward to them, but I think they'll be fine this year. But I am definitely ready for Christmas break. I wanna see my parents and friends. ha. Oh..the joys of school!

Help!

So I have a very gifted student who is all boy! He is super busy and makes buzzing noises and whistles all day long. He goes to our districts enrichment program on Fridays. Here he gets to do lots of hands on science activities and such. It's fabulous for him. (And me too, because I need a break some days. :) )

Thursday he was goofing around in his reading station. I pulled him to have a little conference with him about why he was playing instead of working and found out that he'd rather play with toys in stations. We talked about how that probably wouldn't happen, but I could definitely see what I could come up with that would be something that he liked.

We talked about what things he was interested in learning about. Lots of boy things like: Transformers, Pokemon, Mario, bugs, science, food, outerspace, muscle cars and racing. He doesn't like writing, but I found that I could probably get him to write if I gave him themed paper.

I'm going to be searching for station activities that are very boy themed. Or creating them if I can't find them.

Here's where you can help....if you read this.....

Do you know of any boy themed literacy or math stations???

I teach first grade, but he's probably at a middle second to beginning third grade level (DRA's from last year are lost). I'm going to focus more on reading comprehension and building vocabulary because he pretty much has all the decoding skills needed. If you can help or point me in the right direction, I would be so thankful!!

Thanks!!

A brief update...

I've been a slack blogger, but I usually am. I go through spurts of wanting to write and then wanting to keep it all to myself.

Today was day #14.

I thought that as you continue in your teaching career things get easier. Well..not so much for me. I feel more like I am lost in a sea of papers, little people, data folders, smart goals, common core standards, PLCs and everything else. I feel like my classroom is in shambles and routines are nowhere to be found.

I feel like I can't even get things started or organized. It's like I don't even know what I want my classroom to be. It's absolutely draining and disheartening.

I'm so ready to just throw up my hands and walk out...for fear that I won't be able to get it together at all.

I love my 23 students. Well....1 of them gets on my nerves frequently, but that's to be expected. We laugh often mostly at ourselves and are learning lots of reading and math vocabulary. I am really proud of them.

It was a crazy start to the year. I was the fortunate teacher who had all but 1 of her kids show up the first day. The other two didn't and have been getting about 1 new kid a week. One of them got 2 in one day.

In a span of 5 school days, I had 3 throw up at school and 1 poop their pants. I've gone through about 6 boxes of Kleenex.

I have one sweetie who is so low. She's supposed to be getting tested soon. She is priceless!! We were working on numbers that come after other numbers. I asked my students to show me on their dry erase boards what comes after 49. She says, "forty-ten". Ha! She also has said that if you need to get rid of your hiccups, you can hold your breath for 10 hours. :) She cracks me up on the daily.

Despite feeling like there's no room in our classroom, I have had a good start to the year. I just feel like I'm not giving them enough and don't even know where to start. So frustrating!!

I don't even know how to ask for help....

Hopefully, things will come together soon.

Meet the Teacher

Tell us a little something about you...

I am originally from North Carolina but have been living in the midwest for 5 years this month! WOW! It seems like forever and then not long at all. My parents still live in NC, and I spent my entire summer there. Perfect!! I live with my sister who moved to them midwest almost 3 years ago. My brother moved out here about 10 months ago. Unfortunately, my parents will not be moving out any time soon. I played teacher as a kid. I honestly didn't have a strong desire to become a teacher when I finally decided to finish my bachelor's degree, but it was a perfect decision.

How long have you been teaching?

This will be my third year teaching in an urban school district. I'm fortunate to be teaching in the school I student taught at. I will also have my third principal in 3 years. I love first grade. Especially sharing stories with my kids.

You might not know...

Hmm. You probably don't know a lot about me. Honestly, I'm not sure I'm going to make being a classroom teacher my only career. I'm playing around with ideas for a Master's degree and hope to figure out just what I want to do. My mom is a social worker and so is my best friend. So..who knows!?

Oh...I also got stitches on my first day of my teaching career. Thankfully, it didn't happen at school, but it was a great story to tell my kids the next day.

What are you looking most forward to this school year?

I'm looking forward to working with our instructional coach. I am also looking at strengthening my small group teaching and classroom organization. I was not given the organizational gene and having 23 kiddos in my room this year is forcing me to be organized and focused. I'm also looking forward to sharing my extensive collection of books with my kids. I loved reading "Aliens Love Underpants" to them last week.

What do you need to improve?

Organizational skills. Small group instruction. Time management. Rigorous centers.

What teaching supplies can you *not* live without?

My SMARTboard. LOVE IT!! My kids love it too. I'm excited about letting them use it more.

Post-its...and the good kind. Love making charts with my kids.

Fun markers. Love Mr. Sketch. My kids are already enjoying their scents. I use them for checking their morning work and desk work. They love the smell.

Carl's Corner and other websites that help me not have to make my own stuff and give me ideas of what to use with my class.

A New Year...

I really took a long break this summer. I ended up staying home in North Carolina for 8 weeks instead of 4. Best.summer.ever! I was not looking forward to coming back to the midwest and having to work.

I had a wonderful class last year and was very nervous about the group I would be getting this year. I ended up not getting the class I wanted and got a kid I retained from last year. I felt really down and disappointed for a couple of days and then decided that whoever is supposed to be in my class will be there and whoever isn't there isn't supposed to be there. From then on I have been getting more and more excited about the group coming into my room.

Unfortunately our numbers kept going up. All 3 classes are at 24 on their rosters. However, not all 24 have shown up in our rooms. I'm at 23. The one student missing is the one who was retained from last year. PRAISE THE LORD! He was the one I was dreading the most. I did not want to deal with the same kid again. He apparently doesn't live in our district; his family life is tragic. If he does come back, we'll make things work. And if not, I hope that he gets put with a great teacher and a great class.

So..we've been in school for 2 days. It's been difficult to transition from a wonderful group of kids to some I'm not sure about or don't know very well. I miss my kids from last year but am excited to see them move on to second grade. And I love that they're still on my hallway.

I am loving my kids. We're so cramped in our room, so we're spending time discussing how we can be respectful and how important it is that we keep in our areas. I'm launching the clip-up/clip-down behavior chart that so many teachers use this year. I learned about it from reading lots of blogs and browsing lots of pictures. It so fits my personality better than just flipping cards. My kids seemed so excited that they could actually move up and earn more rewards. They were given the compliment of "best class in art" today, and as a reward, I let the whole class clip-up. None of my classes before have ever gotten that compliment. The kids were so excited and proud. I also shared with them about earning class compliments. In the past I've use plastic chain links to make a chain to the floor. It usually takes about 45 compliments to hit the floor. We had to wait a bit to go into Art today. The kids waited so patiently and were complimented by the Art teacher. I congratulated the class on their first compliment. One of my boys asked me if we could put stars up rather than links. What a brilliant idea! I immediately die-cut stars and got one up on the wall. I love this because I can put the date and who the compliment came from. We ended up getting three today!!

I can foresee a few problems arising, but I think we'll be ok this year. But TWENTY-THREE!?!?! (9 boys and 14 girls) My biggest class was 20. Which I realize is only 3 less...but 3 bodies makes a big difference. I can get rid of two tables in my room with 3 less kids.

I am so glad to be excited about this. I was not thrilled about coming back to work after experiencing a great summer. I definitely think these kids are going to make the transition easier. :)

10 Things You Don't Know About Me..

I'm joining up with Mrs. Owen's who is hosting a linky-party where you get to share 10 things about yourself.

So..Here's 10 things about me..

1. I am from North Carolina, but I have been living in Missouri for the last 5 years.

2. I have 4 nephews in their 20's. The oldest is only 3 years younger than me.

3. I wanted to be a lawyer when I was a kid.

4. My favorite movie has always been "Meet Me in St. Louis".

5. It had no influence on moving to Missouri.

6. My friend Jordan caught me a jellyfish this summer for me to bring back to show next year's class.

7. I am slowly becoming a Diet Coke addict. I think it's a requirement for all teachers. :)

8. My mom's social work career was a big driving force behind becoming a teacher.

9. I've had so much sweet tea in my life that I think it runs in my veins.

10. I have only worn closed-toed shoes 3 times this summer. I've been living in my sandals practically all summer.

Now it's your turn!!