So I disappeared

I took a break from blogging, aka my life has been chaotic!

In short, I've been playing catch-up in real life, school, and college classes.

This week we're doing all leprechaun and March wherever I can fit it in!
I LOVE LOVE LOVE St. Patrick's Day.
The boyfriend and I were in Tulsa for Sunday, so we celebrated with my parents, but I got a cute smiling picture out of him!

I also worked at my daycare all Spring Break. I KNOW it wasn't much of a break, but I love and miss my babies. The naughty leprechaun came Thursday night, so Friday was all kinds of green filled.

He spray painted the fence, the dog, peed green in the toilet, left leprechaun poop (gotta love potty training), and turned our milk green. They had a BLAST.

      Last but not least I got a guided reading "hat", because although my teacher has one, I'm really weird about sharing hats, so I got a crown. Isn't it lovely?

Tomorrow the leprechaun is coming to visit, and is bringing my kiddos a sneaky gift (some chocolate coins). They were so excited about making their leprechaun boxes. Hopefully I can remember to keep this up too.

Toodles!

Woah Buddy

I get to start almost full days next week!! Yay!!!! 

I also have my first observation by my university supervisor... NERVOUS

So for my observation I'm going to do a lesson about the pronouns he, she, it and they. Still brainstorming what I'm going to do, but I'm planning tonight after my sorority meeting, so there's that. This is a short week since we have a professional day this Friday, so I don't get to do all the cute things I wanted to do, so that's a HUGE bummer. 

Off to my meeting I go. Have a glorious rest of a Sunday evening!

I still have energy!

I still LOVE LOVE LOVE student teaching.

I know it's going to be difficult when I go to full days, but I truly think if you love what you're doing, the days just fly by. I've already seen progress in my few weeks there, and it warms my heart. My students, parents, cooperating teacher, and all of the other teachers are so wonderful, helpful, and supportive.

We weren't going to do anything for the 100th day of school next week, but I totally can't do that, so I found a couple activites, and found a way to adapt them to what we're learning, so we can still do some cute small fun things.

We're working on reading maps in literature and social studies starting Tuesday, and I found the PERFECT activity to go along with that. Several bloggers have mentioned having students estimate where 100 steps will take them, well we're going to estimate and map out where 100 teacher steps will take us. My cooperating teacher is taking half of the kids down one way, and I will take the other half the other way to include some variety. I made up a worksheet and everything. It's super basic, but I'm proud to say I made it myself haha. Thank you bloggers everywhere for your ideas. I totally took ideas and adapted from several images on google. 

We're also going to do this cute math warm-up Thursday morning. This is precious and courtesy of Fun in First Grade. My kiddos will love love love it. 

Well I'm off to spent the evening with my parents, niece, and nephew. I'm super excited that I already have my teaching for next week planned AND have some extra activities to include.

Ms. Payne

Ups and Downs

Well today was TONS better. There are good days and there are bad days. Yesterday was bad, today was good. I'll take it. 

Today was all scrambled. My teacher had a scheduled observation today, which actually didn't happen, but ended up with a fun activity. We completed a push and pull activity where the kiddos made boats from foil bread pans, clay, a straw, and paper. They then figured out how pushing and pulling the boats affected them, and had a great inquiry model lesson even though no one showed up to see it.

My math review went tons better. I was relieved to see that I don't fail at life, and my kids actually get it. However we are so far behind and have so much to do, so for the next few weeks we'll be chugging through some math. Tomorrow we're doing a lesson on hundreds place and reviewing place value AGAIN, and Friday I'm gonna introduce greater than and less than. That is my FAVORITE thing to teach, and my kids are gonna be the bomb.com at learning it.

  Knock on wood.

"Cause you had a bad day

You're taking one down

You sing a sad song just to turn it around"

-Daniel Powter

You Live, You Learn, and You Grow

Well today was not the best showing of my teaching skills. Those darling kiddos or my loving boyfriend got me sick. Either way I woke up this morning with a lovely burning sensation in my throat. Not a fan...

I started working with my crazy smarties in math today. Boy oh boy are they smart. They caught on to what I was teaching, and flew through the stuff I gave them. I was seriously impressed. Next time for one of my seriously gifted ones I will have to make sure I have something harder. 2nd grade material here I come!

I also got to feel what a train wreck lesson looks like. We introduced ones (cubes) and tens (longs) yesterday. They TOTALLY got it! Today not so much. So we're totally with it on tens and ones, but when it came to more than 10 ones it BLEW their minds. We struggle bused it through the lesson and I will definitely be reviewing tomorrow. They also don't want to write it or draw it out EVEN though it would definitely help. One of my sweet little honeys got SO distracted by the cubes and longs that she wasn't able to keep up. Needless to say, tomorrow we will be using whiteboards instead of manipulatives.

On a non teaching note, I didn't get a job that I applied for, but this opens me up to start my teaching career this fall. Everything happens for a reason, and I know this is one of those situations that I just have to be okay with.

First Lesson!

I got to teach my first lesson today!!! 

Note my extreme enthusiasm. I'm back in my comfort zone of actually getting to teach students, and not just sitting down and helping kids while someone else teaches. My little honeys did so well! I was like a proud momma.

The first thing we did was work on the rough draft of our winter poems. Oh boy were they rough. These little darlings need a little help, but that's why we have rough drafts right?

We did brainstorming with our friend Weston, who likes winter, and I think it really helped them see that they needed to look at where each of the 5 senses come from. We're going to put them neatly on stockings and hang them in the hall sometime this week when they don't look so rough anymore. Finished pictures to come :)

I also got to start teaching my FAVORITE subject. MATH!!!! 

We started with our warm-up on estimation. Boy oh boy do those kiddos have a sense of humor. They estimated how old I was, and I got anywhere from 19-116. 

We then used our longs and cubes to make numbers. They really got it. I was actually surprised how fast they caught on. Tomorrow we're working on hundreds (flats) and what to do when you have more than 9 cubes. We will see if we can get all of the little honeys to stay with me. They actually got it so fast today, that we finished early, but that's okay. They worked hard and were so quiet for me. Part of that may have been because we started brownie points this week. 

So many of them were out with the flu. PTL I'm still flu free (now I need to go find some wood to knock on). 

First Week Down

Whelp I started my official 16 week student teaching last week. 

It is stressful tiring interesting.

I can't wait to dive right on in and actually get to be in charge of teaching.

I'm in an AWESOME school in a great part of town with fantastic parent involvement. I have 26 firsties, and I'm in a room with a very experienced teacher. I don't think I could have asked for a better situation. 

I've been reading teaching blogs for about a year now, and I love seeing all of their cute lessons. I can't wait until I eventually get to that level of experience. 

So not sure that anyone will ever read this, but any advice for a student teacher?