It's that time again: it's time for star of the week. This week we have an entire class! That's right, there are twenty-three shining stars this week! I was so honored to be asked by a teacher to return to her classroom as her substitute. Tuesday I was back with the same fabulous fourth grade class in which I experienced my first elementary fire drill. Well, I thought these students were great before, but it seems as if these students are now even better. The teacher recently instituted giving points randomly to table groups as an incentive program for good behavior. The teacher instructed me to give out points to whichever groups whenever I wanted to. Because the students were so intent on getting points for their groups, they were pretty much silent the entire morning. Not that these kids don't know how to have fun! They were great at offereing suggestions and answering questions during our science discussion on water. I had such a great time giving points to "super chickens" (I'm not sure what that means, but that's whatthe teacher calls the points program). I hope I get the opportunity to visit these fourth graders again.
I also have two runner-ups for the week as well. Last Friday I subbed for an elementary drama teacher. I was so excited to see what an elementary drama class looks like. The teacher is currently teaching a dance unit and is teaching all her students how to tap dance. I was so disappointed I didn't know this and left my tap shoes at home. The teacher scheduled pairs of sixth grade students to come to each of her three classes for the day (grades K-2nd) and teach the dance lesson for the day. I am so impressed with the sixth grade students that taught with me. They did an excellent job explaining, showing, and helping the students master the different steps. My first two groups in particular were very patient and paced the class perfectly for such young learners.
My other runner-up is actually the teacher I'm working for today. He teaches high school social studies and left me the answer key to his current class's worksheet on democracy. Students were supposed to read through "democratic scenarios" and decide which democratic attribute the scenario failed to live up to. The teacher based each scenario on a real country or historical political system. My favorite answer was describing a democratic system that was used in order for a leader to become a dictator (based on Nazi Germany). The teacher also explained that many dictators have used democracy to come to power. His note said, "It (democracy being used to creat dictatorship) has happened many times, with Rome (Caesar), France (Napoleon), Hitler, and Chancellor Palpatine in Star Wars!" This totally made my day.
Thanks to my wonderful stars of the week and my equally fabulous runner-ups!
Friday, January 28, 2011
Monday, January 24, 2011
Last Weeks Star
Last Friday was a bit busy, so I didn't get a chance to post my star of the week. This star comes complete with a story about my day teaching band.
I have a bit of a musical background. I took piano lessons from my grandmother pretty much from the time I could sit upright on a piano bench through junior high. This foundation in music prepared for high school and now church choir with basic theory and note reading skills. I've usually been able to work through my music substitute positions on these skills alone. The upper level teacher's generally assume a random sub won't have much musical background and either assign a student to take charge or schedule non-music things for the students to do like watch a film. Sometimes I've had to direct a choir through a few warm-ups or exercises, but I never had to do anything that I felt was over my head.
Until last Wednesday. I substituted for a junior high band and choir teacher. The day I happened to sub the teacher only taught one class, but it was band. A huge seventh grade band. Oh, and I also had them in class for an hour and a half. They were practicing for a concert in a few weeks and couldn't afford to have the day off of practice. So I was given the score for their three songs and a little information about warm-ups. I was terrified! I've never really conducted anything, much less conducted a band through several songs I had never heard before.
The bell rings for class and the students troop in. They then noisily set up their instruments, and after a reasonable amount of time, I step up to the conductor's podium and begin the class. I tell the students we're going to be warming up with a B flat scale. I am then told I need to conduct them through it using the solfege sign language symbols. Great! I at least know that this exists, but I have no idea what they are. A helpful student pulls out his chart and I attempt to make the correct hand signals throughout the scale. The students somehow figured out when to play the next note!
Next, I jump into the songs. I pick one of the three to start with and ask the students sitting closest to me to give me an approximation of the songs starting tempo. They thankfully let me know that it speeds up in two different places of the song and then give me the starting tempo. I then gripped my pen as if it were a magical wand that would somehow give me conducting prowess, and I flapped my arms imitating the movements I'd seen my choral conductors use. Perhaps my pen did have magic because the students began to play. We made it through the song without any major incidents, though I did get a little lost in the score halfway through and kept flapping my arms for a measure after they finished playing. I decided they needed to practice the song again, just for good practice and I repeated the same movements with my magic conducting pen.
Then we moved on to their second piece. I once gain had the front row students give me the tempo and swished my arms through the song. Miraculously, I even had tips for the students to work on in our second time through the song. The brass section was pushing the tempo too much when they joined the clarinets in the middle of the song. We tried the song again, and they took my advice; the song was much more in control. Finally, we moved on to the last song. This is where my magic wand failed me. The students obviously did not know this song as well as their other pieces. I was also told the tempo was fast, but changed a few times throughout the song. Even worse, the time signature changed from 4/4 to 3/4 for random measures throughout the piece. Well, my three attempts to get the class through this song dissolved into utter chaos after the first random time signature measure. Finally, my helpful tempo-keeping student volunteered to try and conduct the class through the song since she was more familiar with the piece. She somehow got the class through the song, though it was quite rough. After that, the class wanted to play through their pep band songs. I obliged, and we played through some classic pep songs like "Louie Louie" and some non-traditional ones such as "Bad Romance" (Yup, bands are playing Lady Gaga, took me by surprise too). After we played through all their pep songs, there was about ten minutes left of class. I figured the students worked very hard and they told me they rarely played the entire class period when they had a long period. I gave the students the time to pack away their instruments and just hang out.
As for my star of the week, I couldn't have gotten through this class without the wonderful clarinet player that gave me the tempo for all the songs as well as a few tips for getting the class's attention. She totally stepped up and gave conducting a try, which was probably as terrifying for her as it was for me. So, tempo-guru clarinet player, you're my Star of the Week!
I have a bit of a musical background. I took piano lessons from my grandmother pretty much from the time I could sit upright on a piano bench through junior high. This foundation in music prepared for high school and now church choir with basic theory and note reading skills. I've usually been able to work through my music substitute positions on these skills alone. The upper level teacher's generally assume a random sub won't have much musical background and either assign a student to take charge or schedule non-music things for the students to do like watch a film. Sometimes I've had to direct a choir through a few warm-ups or exercises, but I never had to do anything that I felt was over my head.
Until last Wednesday. I substituted for a junior high band and choir teacher. The day I happened to sub the teacher only taught one class, but it was band. A huge seventh grade band. Oh, and I also had them in class for an hour and a half. They were practicing for a concert in a few weeks and couldn't afford to have the day off of practice. So I was given the score for their three songs and a little information about warm-ups. I was terrified! I've never really conducted anything, much less conducted a band through several songs I had never heard before.
The bell rings for class and the students troop in. They then noisily set up their instruments, and after a reasonable amount of time, I step up to the conductor's podium and begin the class. I tell the students we're going to be warming up with a B flat scale. I am then told I need to conduct them through it using the solfege sign language symbols. Great! I at least know that this exists, but I have no idea what they are. A helpful student pulls out his chart and I attempt to make the correct hand signals throughout the scale. The students somehow figured out when to play the next note!
Next, I jump into the songs. I pick one of the three to start with and ask the students sitting closest to me to give me an approximation of the songs starting tempo. They thankfully let me know that it speeds up in two different places of the song and then give me the starting tempo. I then gripped my pen as if it were a magical wand that would somehow give me conducting prowess, and I flapped my arms imitating the movements I'd seen my choral conductors use. Perhaps my pen did have magic because the students began to play. We made it through the song without any major incidents, though I did get a little lost in the score halfway through and kept flapping my arms for a measure after they finished playing. I decided they needed to practice the song again, just for good practice and I repeated the same movements with my magic conducting pen.
Then we moved on to their second piece. I once gain had the front row students give me the tempo and swished my arms through the song. Miraculously, I even had tips for the students to work on in our second time through the song. The brass section was pushing the tempo too much when they joined the clarinets in the middle of the song. We tried the song again, and they took my advice; the song was much more in control. Finally, we moved on to the last song. This is where my magic wand failed me. The students obviously did not know this song as well as their other pieces. I was also told the tempo was fast, but changed a few times throughout the song. Even worse, the time signature changed from 4/4 to 3/4 for random measures throughout the piece. Well, my three attempts to get the class through this song dissolved into utter chaos after the first random time signature measure. Finally, my helpful tempo-keeping student volunteered to try and conduct the class through the song since she was more familiar with the piece. She somehow got the class through the song, though it was quite rough. After that, the class wanted to play through their pep band songs. I obliged, and we played through some classic pep songs like "Louie Louie" and some non-traditional ones such as "Bad Romance" (Yup, bands are playing Lady Gaga, took me by surprise too). After we played through all their pep songs, there was about ten minutes left of class. I figured the students worked very hard and they told me they rarely played the entire class period when they had a long period. I gave the students the time to pack away their instruments and just hang out.
As for my star of the week, I couldn't have gotten through this class without the wonderful clarinet player that gave me the tempo for all the songs as well as a few tips for getting the class's attention. She totally stepped up and gave conducting a try, which was probably as terrifying for her as it was for me. So, tempo-guru clarinet player, you're my Star of the Week!
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
Fire Drill
The other day, I completed my first successful elementary fire drill. I found elementary fire drills quite different from high school fire drills. First, the other teacher announced to my class that there was going to be a fire drill that day. I am so used to fire drills always being a surprise to the students. I think part of the announcement was the students had to help me find the emergency bag and clipboard before the fire drill (they were tucked into a closet). I made sure I knew how many students I had and when the alarm sounded, we trooped out to the soccer field. Unfortunately it was a cold drizzly morning. Luckily it wasn't pouring rain like it had been the day before! Once on the field, I counted my students. Unfortunately there were only 26. I needed 27! Quickly I count the students again. Still 26. I think, the last student had come back from his ELL class fifteen minutes before the alarm. I try to yell at the kids to make a straight line so I can count again. Finally, the last teacher to get their kids counted, I get the last student (who I think was talking with a friend in the next line over). I was worried because when I worked at the junior high, I was told that sometimes the fire department "steals" a kid to make sure that teachers are actually counting their students. But, at the elementary level, it seems that the fire department isn't as sneaky. In fact, they weren't even there. The principal was running the fire drill show! Overall, I had a feeling that this year would be the year of the fire drill! Now the only substitute horror story left to finish is teaching sex ed. I still got four months left for that.
Friday, January 14, 2011
Star of the Week
This week I have a bunch of students that could be my Gold Star of the Week. Today, I am choosing the marketing/entrepreneurship class at one of the local high schools. This class runs the student store at school that sells school apparel, lunch food, and snacks during lunch. The students in this class ran the store all by themselves. The got everything together, ran the tills, and even closed out the tills at the end of lunch. I was very impressed with how professional the students acted. They did a fabulous job serving their fellow students even though half the class was gone on a field trip. I literally just sat in a chair and watched them work all class period long. And so high school Marketing/Entrepreneurship class, you're the Gold Star class of the Week!
Burning the Candle
Teachers work hard. Teachers work very hard! I found out just how hard a teacher's work really is last week. A few summers ago, I had a summer job nannying a two year old girl. Since then, I've filled-in for their school year nanny off and on. Last week I worked substituting and also nannying the now three year old after school.
It was quite the exhausting week. Three days I went directly from school to pick up the three year old from daycare. Wednesday I took a half day in order to meet up with a friend visiting from Japan (miss you already ReBekha!) Monday I left to teach at 8, went from school to pick up the child at 4, and went from that work to dance class. I came home at 9. Gone for over twelve hours. Uhhhh!
It wasn't just the hours that were long either. One day I showed up and the teacher had no idea I was coming. This happens occasionally when the teacher is absent because of a class or meeting for the school district. The district sometimes puts the substitute position into the system and if the teacher forgets about the class. Thursday night, the child decided to scream at me for 45 minutes mostly because she didn't take a nap and was exhausted.
I am so glad that most days and weeks I don't have a second job. Most days I would just go home and go to bed at the end of the night. I can hold on to double duty days for a little while, but I'm content to just work one job! I'm also so happy I didn't have to worry about grading or planning for teaching.
It was quite the exhausting week. Three days I went directly from school to pick up the three year old from daycare. Wednesday I took a half day in order to meet up with a friend visiting from Japan (miss you already ReBekha!) Monday I left to teach at 8, went from school to pick up the child at 4, and went from that work to dance class. I came home at 9. Gone for over twelve hours. Uhhhh!
It wasn't just the hours that were long either. One day I showed up and the teacher had no idea I was coming. This happens occasionally when the teacher is absent because of a class or meeting for the school district. The district sometimes puts the substitute position into the system and if the teacher forgets about the class. Thursday night, the child decided to scream at me for 45 minutes mostly because she didn't take a nap and was exhausted.
I am so glad that most days and weeks I don't have a second job. Most days I would just go home and go to bed at the end of the night. I can hold on to double duty days for a little while, but I'm content to just work one job! I'm also so happy I didn't have to worry about grading or planning for teaching.
Friday, January 7, 2011
Star of the Week
This was an interesting week to pick a Gold Star award. Everything seemed to go by in a blur. I am very grateful that all my classes this week were absolutely fabulous. I came to a second grade class on Monday expecting the worst. I assumed students would be wild and crazy from their holiday break. I was pleasantly surprised to find that students were pretty quiet and respectful throughout most of the day. I had my first elementary school fire drill this week that went mostly well after I found all my students. I also got to teach at a special district school that primarily teaches classes to home school students. Children and their parents choose which classes their student to take and they go to school for only those classes. I had mostly small classes that day and great students. I am so grateful to have had wonderful students this week because I've been pretty busy (too much to explain in this blog, but perhaps I'll write again over the weekend or on Monday).
I have to give my Gold Star award to a group of sixth grade boys. Wednesday I taught a half day for an elementary special education teacher. She primarily did reading, writing, and math support for mainstreamed students. I was playing some word games with these students and quickly realized I had some very strong personalities in the group. I started to play a game that was a lot like Million Dollar Pyramid. One student would pick a card and have to describe the word or give examples of the category to the group until they guessed the right thing. It took several rounds for the students to understand how to play the game. At first they tried just describing the words, which doesn't really work for a category like things in the refrigerator. Then they had trouble not saying the words on their card. Finally they all understood the game and really got into it. There were several rounds where the game got super intense and the students started shouting out answers. It was exciting to see them so excited, though shouting isn't really a great idea when you share a classroom with another teacher. I am very proud of these boys for sticking with the game even though it was difficult at first. I had a wonderful time with them and the hour went by quickly and with little problems. So, sixth grade special education reading class, you're my Gold Star of the Week Winners
I have to give my Gold Star award to a group of sixth grade boys. Wednesday I taught a half day for an elementary special education teacher. She primarily did reading, writing, and math support for mainstreamed students. I was playing some word games with these students and quickly realized I had some very strong personalities in the group. I started to play a game that was a lot like Million Dollar Pyramid. One student would pick a card and have to describe the word or give examples of the category to the group until they guessed the right thing. It took several rounds for the students to understand how to play the game. At first they tried just describing the words, which doesn't really work for a category like things in the refrigerator. Then they had trouble not saying the words on their card. Finally they all understood the game and really got into it. There were several rounds where the game got super intense and the students started shouting out answers. It was exciting to see them so excited, though shouting isn't really a great idea when you share a classroom with another teacher. I am very proud of these boys for sticking with the game even though it was difficult at first. I had a wonderful time with them and the hour went by quickly and with little problems. So, sixth grade special education reading class, you're my Gold Star of the Week Winners
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