The One with the Minute of Silence

So, like I've said, teaching is quite the roller coaster for me. One moment my class has this peaceful energy, they're getting work done, and I can just observe. Other moments someone might as well be shouting "RELEASE THE KRAKEN!"

For example, during math we were reviewing coins and how to add them. I set the class on a journey to play Race to a Dollar. Disclaimer: I did not make this fabulous product.

Click here for the link!

They had the above spinner with varying coin values on it and a dreaded "Start Over" section. It was really easy for the kids to identify what coins they landed on and gave them that little bit of movement while playing. I will say that the pennies are hard to read when using black and white copies. They were still darker than the rest though, so the ones that were playing didn't have trouble identifying it after we went over it.

Honestly, my kids were great. I could hear everyone playing the game, see them out of my peripherals writing their coin values down, but they. were. so. LOUD! I was working with a small group on more coin identification activities at my floor table. I did not realize that I had actually been shouting at them.

"WHAT COIN IS THIS? YES, WASHINGTON HAS THE CURLY HAIR AND JEFFERSON DOES NOT."

Three claps to get their attention, a reminder to watch their voice level, and we all went back to what we were doing. Maaaybe 10 minutes later. Three claps. No really, watch your voice level. I'm shouting again. Back to what we were doing. THREE CLAPS. Again, they were doing what I asked them to do. It just became this domino effect that I have come to recognize:

• One table gets excited and starts to shout
• Other table can't hear each other so they proceed to get louder
• Table across the room begins to hear loud voices and wants to match that excitement
• Last table doesn't even realize they're doing it and begins to shout the loudest

We had to pause and I announced a minute without sound. I did reiterate to them that they were doing what I asked them to do, absolutely. We just kept getting so noisy that I couldn't teach. Their little heads were nodding and agreeing, so we had a nice moment of our day that was devoid of sound. We all put our heads down and enjoyed it. I've started to grasp the idea that sometimes we need it. It's hard with  6 and 7 year old minds and bodies to just stop and wind down. It's also hard with a frustrated 23 year old mind and body to not let frustrating moments get the best of you. I've used this minute without sound before for myself. We stop whatever we're doing, put our heads down, and breathe. It gives me a moment to process my feelings immediately get over them because I can't let it become a battle. 

Side tip from me to you: it's not about winning. Don't let yourself get so worked up and frustrated that it turns into a battle because you will honestly lose in the end. Take that extra moment to stop everyone and all breathe when you really need it. It works wonders and you can get back to being the teacher that you want to be. The teacher that comes before the minute is not how you want the kids to remember you. If you are a high school teacher, please take a picture of a room full of teenagers with their heads down. It would make me giggle and we can have a good laugh together. Seriously, don't be afraid of doing a minute of silence with the big kids too! I can only imagine how beneficial it might be for some of them to slow down and just breathe. Give those hormones a rest for a second.

My absolute favorite moment of the day was my read aloud though. I went to our local resale bookstore, Recycled Books, and found a Holy Grail of picture book series...Black Lagoon books!! About five them all snuggled together in the bin. It was a proud moment for me. I shared this with my kids as well, but I remember devouring these books in elementary school. I loved the humor and it paralleled my anxiety about having new teachers. I was such an anxious kid and they gave me the opportunity to laugh at myself for thinking such crazy things. I was right about apprehension for Mrs. Craddock's hissing cockroaches in 4th grade. Those really were from the Black Lagoon.

Anyways, I also talked to the kids about picture books also having series. Elephant and Piggy, If You Give a..., and the Black Lagoon are all a series even though they're not chapter books. The reading interventionist at my school really opened my eyes about how important it is to introduce any type of series of books to kids through read alouds. If they're hooked, they have so many more to read on their own! And boy, were they hooked! I will say that for books like this I have a flare for the dramatics. I make my voice high or drop it low; I flail my arms for emphasis; and I go silent for the climactic pause. (If I didn't use those semicolons right, feel free to correct me.) We came to a certain part of the book, towards the end I think, where the kid has detailed all of these horrifying things about their new gym teacher he's heard. The kid says "and the worst part is...."

QUICK! Turn to the person next to you and tell them what you predict the worst part is! *Insert frenzied conversation* 3, 2, 1, stop!

"...square dancing with the GIRLS!" Oh man, if you could have seen their faces and heard them the second that they heard it, processed it, and the second they reacted. Silence and then boom! They were equal parts shock and awe. It was hilarious! Read alouds have to be one of the most consistently favorite parts of my day. The kids are the most focused I see them all day and we get to share amazing stories together. If I could capture it in a bottle! 

I saw this on social media yesterday, and it made today's moment even more hilarious to me. 

Put everything you have into those read alouds. Especially with the littles. You could be the spark that makes them love reading. However, don't downplay read alouds to the big ones too. No one is too old to be read to. You can pull out a picture book or classic chapter book and have teenagers in a puddle on the floor, engrossed and excited about reading again. Most importantly though,

don't underestimate your influence.

You are valuable. You are loved. You will be remembered.

Ms. K

The One with the Fog

"What happened??"

The question I asked myself at the end of today. How could it possibly be that I had an amazing, blog-inspiring, head-in-the-clouds day yesterday and I ended today with my brain in my lap?

To quote many a TV show, it started like any normal day. I was more excited about the start of today with our new floor table and ocean wall ready for eager little eyes as they came in. I had everything prepped for the day. No crazy running around looking for the papers I set down two seconds ago off the printer/copier. The kids start to trickle in and they crack me up with their observations.

"Hey, something's different..." "Uh, EVERYTHING is different!" "Psst, look at the room!" "It's like a new room!"

They are the funniest things in the world when they think I'm not listening.

Morning work transitions into tinker time as the kids finish. Insert gripping side note about my tinker boxes that might take another blog post. Tinker time transitions to that carpet. I compliment the kids on their fabulous work putting away the tinker boxes (the lids actually closed!!), We read Tattletongue to help sway the reemerging tattling. Things start to click.

Aaaaaaand then comes math.

Accursed math. You were a friend, and today ye be a foe. We're working on graphing and collecting data. An actually fun topic when it comes to the discussions we have and the little bit more you find out about kids through class surveys. Today's data stemmed from sorting buttons and trying to put that information on paper. I modeled a graph. Helped them figure out possible grouping for buttons. Sent them on their merry independent way. I was able to get some small group work with one of my low kids, helping him with strategies and supporting his understanding. The rest of the class is focused and I hear good conversations going on. As I finish with my low kid, I start to walk around the room. Some. Aren't. Graphing it! They did the sorting and were just listing colors of buttons on the paper or creating groupings in circles across the page. Valuable, yes. But it wasn't what I wanted.

How could this be?! I explained it. Modeled it. Guided it. Ugh! It just set the day and I in a funk. From then on it seemed like I was playing Whack-A-Mole (without actually hitting anything, so you know). 

Stop putting your hands on him. You CANNOT leave the room without telling me. Turn around in line, please. Why would you get up just to go hit him? Your voices should be off. 5, 4, 3, 2...STOP PUTTING YOUR HANDS ON HIM! 

Specials time was a Godsend. As I was folding report cards, I just stopped and stared at my hands. Massaged my face. Rubbed my eyes. Trying to work the fog out from behind my vision. I felt like one of those exaggerated dark clouds they have float over people in cartoons, dropping rain and thunder on the person below. What was happening? How could I fix it? I wasn't sure. I brought the kids back and we talked about our research, watched a Reading Rainbow on whales that was amazing, and actually got to go outside for recess. I still felt like that cloud floating through the rest of the day. Staff meeting and then lesson planning for next week.

I sit here now thinking, is this going to be tomorrow too? I guess we'll have to see. My problem is I want to be perfect-ESPECIALLY on the first try, leaving myself no room for error. This quote from Education to the Core's blog post sets my mind in a better place to finish off today:

"You are not perfect.  You will never be perfect.  Do what you need to do to be effective and successful.  You are going to have to learn as fast as you are going to have to think.  Many things are going to be hard the first time.  Things are not going to be comfortable, so throw perfection out the window.  You may get pretty darn close one day, just not anytime soon."

Fingers crossed for tomorrow. Good night.

Ms. K

The One with the First Blog Post

Can I do that? Can I steal title ideas from Friends? I guess I'll go with it.

Welcome to my first blog post! I decided to start this blog because I had a really awesome day as a teacher and wanted to chronicle it. A wonderful instructor I had in college, Mrs. Alexander, always told us to write things down. This way we can see ourselves grow and never forget that we were once new.

It's an incredible thing to be a new teacher. They are definitely not lying that it is a whirlwind of emotions. You can go through a series in a matter of minutes, hours, days, or maybe weeks. I have filtered through sadness, anxiety, happiness, bewilderment, utter joy, depression, and a serene contentment. I'm sure there are others, but that's what I remember from the past couple of days. :)

One of the things that is always looming as a new teacher is this:

am I good enough?

I ask myself this every day. I've been working on text and graphic features with my kids, so I illustrate the question as such for a purpose. It's this small, nagging question that never goes away. Sometimes I wonder if it will ever go away. There are moments where I feel like, "yeah! I totally am!" Others, not so much. I guess there's really no way of knowing. No way that will satisfy me at least until my kids are old enough to verbalize whether I impacted their trajectory in life, and trust me, I just might track them down to ask.

"Excuse me, Bobby? Yes, from what you can recollect of your first grade year and this 5 point scale I have constructed, how would you rate me as a teacher?"

It may work. Until then, I'll just have to fumble through, learn from the hard parts, and make myself better for them.

*tires screeching* Hey, let's get back to the good day, shall we? So I passed through a couple of  (self-proclaimed) milestones today.

1. Introduced a new call back to the kids. What I love about my kids is that they feel a part of everything I do when I explain the teacher logic behind it. I explained that some of the things we've already done are called call backs and that I found a new one. Cue GASP! "Scooby Dooby Doo..." "Where are you?" They loved it. I was just happy that Scooby Doo is still a thing. (Side note: Even though you may start out young as a new teacher, you start to realize that the generation you're teaching may not be aware of your childhood joys.) They progressively got louder with their response throughout the day, so that was hilarious to watch unfold.

2. They are mesmerized by me singing.  I'm not saying that I'm the songbird of our generation. I'm just saying that 6 and 7 year old ears think that I'm the next radio star. All I do is sing my countdown for them to transition and it's like the next best thing since sliced bread. (Will they even use that phrase when they're adults?!?!) "Ms. K, you should sing all the time." "Ms. K, you should totally be in choir." Children, stop. But go on. But stop. They crack me up.

3. I made an ocean wall. You read that right. It's not the most teacher-y constructed wall, but my fabulous teammate gave me the resources and this is what we put together. I cannot wait to see their faces when they walk into the room tomorrow.

4. We got to discover together. So, as you may have gathered from my ocean wall, we are studying ocean animals right now. I'm walking my kids through conducting research this week so that they may do it themselves next week. We collectively decided to study the Megamouth shark as a class. If you are not familiar with the Megamouth shark, there's not much information on it. It was discovered in 1976 and less than 100 have ever been seen. Perfect for in-depth research, right? Actually, it kind of is! The mysterious element really draws the kids in AND I don't think any of them has heard/seen anything about them before. I found this fabulous page on the Megamouth shark today that we explored. You can find the link at the bottom of this post. I have never studied the Megamouth, so this was a new adventure for me as well. We watched videos, we expanded on our schema, discussed the differences between various sharks, and straight learned. It was one of the most fun moments I have had teaching. And all we did was explore one web page together. It wasn't planned to sit there for 45 minutes and do it. I'm sure other teachers would frown upon my use of time. "They weren't moving!","They had no part in the web page!," etc. But you know what? We got to discover together. We had fun. That seemed worth it to me. 

5. I made a big, little step on alternative seating. Today I had our AMAZING custodian (Gary, for the fans out there) help me take the legs off of one of my extra tables. I bought a cheap carpet at Wal-Mart and put the table on top of it. Simple, right? It's just so exciting. Tomorrow I'll make it available to kids who want to sit on their pockets and work during certain times of the day. The next step is to buy yoga balls for seating and look into standing tables/desks. I have so many different needs in my room, and I think this is a good step for them. 

Ignore the mess behind it. 

6. My kids were fabulous. I mean really, really fabulous. I don't know how to explain it. I just truly felt like a teacher today because my kids flowed, my teaching flowed, and it made a cloud of greatness. We were able to use M&Ms during math (for education purposes, of course), and no one ate them before they were supposed to!! If you know first grade, that is truly impressive that no one ate one preemptively. We had a great writer's workshop time, read to self, and Daily 5 rotations. My small groups did amazing retell work during our time together and my spur-of-the-moment tech use really paid off. I had some special smiles today from kiddos too. I saw a smile from a kid whose dad surprised him for lunch, a smile from a kid who was taken to the office for a GOOD phone call home, a smile from a kid that I complimented who went and adorably whispered to his friends that I did, and a smile and bonus hug from a kid who said that I hadn't had one in a while. 

Image courtesy of the wonderful Doceri app. Poor finger handwriting courtesy of me.

Stick around, fellow newbs. It's worth it.

Ms. K

Megamouth shark link: http://sharkopedia.discovery.com/types-of-sharks/megamouth-shark/