Easter Activites

Happy Easter to Everyone! I hope you all have a great day with your families and in the meantime I wanted to share this cute idea I found for making the Easter holiday educational.

Click here to view the entry I found this idea from!

This activity can be modified easily for different grade levels, different content, or even just to suit your personal taste!  This is a matching game with an Easter twist, I couldn't find a picture but along with this egg carton you would need 12 plastic eggs (or I saw some cute plastic bunnies and chicks that would work well), each with a number on it and the students take turns matching the numbers.  This is a great game for kindergarteners or first graders, who need some practice.I also found some different variations for higher grades, 3-5th depending on the content you need.
 

Here are some suggestions...

• Take 2 different colored pom poms and toss them into the carton. 
• Then, depending on your grade have the students...
• Tell which number is larger or smaller
• Add/subtract/multiply/divide the numbers 

Last Day at Beckham Academy

Today was my last day at Beckham Academy with the third grade boys! I was surprised how upset I was leaving and knowing I would not be coming back next week.  When I first started this placement I was terrified because of the neighborhood and the location.  But this class was well worth it! Everyone of the students I worked with was bright and energetic.  I will miss them all very much!

Before lunch today they all surprised me by giving me a good bye card.  Mr. Williams also gave me a copy of the book "Some things are Scary" that all the students had signed. I was so thankful that all the students worked hard and were genuinely upset that I was leaving.  I think that these students have so few good role models that they were sad to see one of them leave.

I did promise to come back before the school year ends and visit them again! This will truly be a class that I will never forget!

Just Breathe...

I found this picture while working on my Management Plan.  It has a great message for not only education students, but anyone who has so much on their to-do list and they are so focused on all the things that must get done, right away, or else! And they forget to take a minute and step back to just breathe.

Don't let the stress make you forget why you are doing this in the first place :)

Making Connections with Picture Books

My field this semester has been very different from anything I have ever experienced.  Up until this semester I have only worked with kindergarten students.  All of my 70 volunteer hours were in the same kindergarten class and then last semester I was placed with kindergarteners at West Utica Elementary. THIS semester I am in urban Detroit with third grade boys! Needless to say I had a bit of culture shock when I began.  Sadly I only have one week left, I truly believe that 30 hours is not enough for one semester.  As a future teacher, I would love to spend as much time as I could in the field and learning from experience rather than sitting in a classroom reading a textbook. As a student, I am so overwhelmed with the workload that I am glad the field is only 30 hours XD 

This past week my field teacher asked me to choose a book to read it the students and then we could have a discussion about it.  The book that I chose was The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein.  This book was written in 1964 and the students still really enjoyed it! For those who've never read it, the boy and the tree were friends until the boy grew up.  The boy then only comes back to visit the tree when he needs something. Before long the tree has nothing left to give the boy.  All the tree ever wanted in return was that the boy was happy.

They all had very vocal opinions about how ungrateful they thought the boy was.  I was extremely impressed when the students starting making connections to other stories they had read.  All the teacher needed to say was can you think of any other stories where a character is ungrateful?  

Rumpelstiltskin is a classic fairytale in which a millers daughter marries the king and is then ordered to weave an entire room of thread into gold! A little creature enters and says he can spin the thread into gold. She keeps trading things for his help.  She finally has to offer his her first unborn child! When the king lets his wife out of the tower, they have a child. Rumpelstiltskin comes for his payment. They make a deal.  She must guess is name.  A service women overhears him bragging that she will NEVER guess his name!  When she does, Rumpelstiltskin is forced to leave.

Classroom Management Tips

My management plan has been the number one thing on my to-do list lately! I know I'm going to be a teacher and procrastination shouldn't be in my vocab, however, I am still your average college student. I have slightly more than 5 days to complete an entire classroom management plan and I have just begun! Panic mode has started setting in, thankful the internet has plenty of resources for teachers to "steal." I love the quote that Harry K. Wong states "You are looking at the biggest burglar in the entire world!"

I found a few websites that might help when working on a classroom management plan.
Super Teacher Worksheets
The Teacher's Guide: Classroom Management Page
Sample Classroom Management Powerpoint
Classroom Management Printables

Most of the resources that I have found when searching for classroom management are examples and sample plans that teachers have used and designed. I hope some of these websites help for my fellow future teachers and that you all make very successful management plans!

Remember is okay to steal :D

Designing The Perfect Classroom

Classroom Management is a skill unique to classroom teachers.  To my knowledge, no other profession must learn how to manage a room of roughly 25 children!  This course includes everything that teachers are required to do and create in order for their classroom to function and the children to learn and become engaged.  My ideal grade would be first grade.  The students are full of life and excitement for learning.  Part of any classroom management course involves creating your ideal classroom, from the layout, rules, technology, procedures, and expectations. 

Several Different Sample Classroom Layouts

I believe the most important part of this process is the layout because all the other "stuff" depends on how your room is set up. Do students need to leave the room to get backpacks or use the restrooms? Do you have an area for circle time/group lessons? Where is your desk compared to the students? All of these questions are vital to deciding what rules and procedures you want to put in place. While attempting to create my ideal classroom layout I came across many different websites that can be used.  Most of them are NOT good for designing classrooms! They are more advanced and better suited for designing homes. The BEST website I have found is Classroom Architect! This is the website used to create the examples on the first website.  My only complaint would be that you have to make your own shape for the door, windows, bulletin boards, and white boards.  I guess I can't be picky because I am sure not going to turn a job offer down because the classroom layout was less than ideal ;D 

Motivation!

Just wanted to share a quote that I found while exploring other teacher blogs (There are a TON of these out there nowadays! The good ones can serve as a great resource for students, parents, student teachers, and veteran teachers alike!)

"In a completely rational society, the best of us would be teachers and the rest of us would have to settle for something less, because passing civilization along from one generation to the next ought to be the highest honor and the highest responsibility anyone could have" -Lee Iacocca 

This quote speaks mountains about the value that society SHOULD place on teaching.  In one of my pre-professional courses last semester we talked about the issue of teaching being "semi professional" or "professional."  I would strongly argue that teaching is one of the highest professional professions because teachers CREATE all other professions.  Without teachers society would not have advanced as quickly, education affects everyone and the world will always need teachers to create the next generations politicians, doctors, lawyers, and everything in between!

Teachers help us learn from yesterday, live for today, and hope for tomorrow!