The One with the Memes

WHAT IS GOING ON?

Seriously, it feels like I'm not even in the room anymore. I'm the adult in the Peanuts comics going "wah wah wah wah wah wahhhhh." I literally opened my mouth - hadn't even started talking - and half the class started talking. I held it open in awe of what was happening before me. Is this normal? Because right now I feel like a crazy person. No matter how many times I tried to catch their attention today, it never seemed to fix itself. I tried positive reinforcement, I tried having a conversation with them about what we can do to make it better, I tried consequences...NOTHING HELPED. I was doomed from the beginning. They're getting antsy, and I feel so lost throughout the day.

Yup, doesn't seem to matter how many times I tell them. I've modeled. I've repeated. I've had them freeze. Turn their bodies. However, never fails.

"Little Bobby, why have you been sitting here doing nothing?"
"I didn't know what to do!"
*insert steam coming out of my ears and inner brain explosion*
Then I proceed to slowly, and carefully reexplain everything I had already repeated 3 times before.

I cannot be the only one this is happening to. I have wasted SO much time having them line up, lather, rinse, repeat.
Jimmy, turn around. Francine, stop talking. Betty Jo, ON your line spot, not next to. Becky, keep your hands off the white board. Nevermind, EVERYONE go back to the carpet to start over.
I frequently needed a pillow to scream into today. As my teammate coined, it was like bopping gophers.

My kids are increasingly losing things. Books, pencils, bathroom passes, their sanity...I mean, my sanity. They're both pretty gone. Anyways, I've had to make a deal with my class that if the bathroom passes aren't hanging by the door when we leave the room, that group (boys or girls) loses the privilege of using it. That results in them having to ask me every time they go to the bathroom, I may have made it harder on myself with that one, but they have to get it. My kids also know that if it is an emergency and they are about to wet their pants (insert giggles), then they may go to the bathroom if the bathroom pass is being used. Yet, here comes little Devin, "MS. KRASTIN I HAVE TO GO TO THE BATHROOM IT'S AN EMERGENCY." Now if this was once, I wouldn't be bothered. However, this has been just about every day. I have repeated that he may go and that I don't want him going to the bathroom on the floor. You'd think a joke like that would help them remember!

Spinning in place? Check. Crawling across the floor? Check. Jumping up to hit hanging posters? Check. Laying under tables? Check. I'm waiting for one of them to stand on their head or jump on the table Robin William's style and revolt. Maybe an elephant makes its way through the door. You never know.

Kiddo, I am right next to you. We locked eyes as I said it. Seconds before you just did it. Yeah, you're done.

It's like that part where the whole house is covered in jungle vines and trees and it's hard to find your way around. Somehow tables are 90 degrees from where they should be and there's a misplaced chair when everyone is sitting in one already.

Last but not least, I leave you with my favorite:

Goodnight.

The One with the Surprise

Surprise!

You ready for your field trip in 15 minutes? Good! Sounds fun. By the way, you get a new kid tomorrow!

Well, not so new. He's from the other class. The one that laughs at consequences. The one that causes trouble. Yep, coming to your room!

I almost wanted to laugh, but at the same time I felt fairly calm. I know these last 16 days I can't do much to change his behavior. He's been the same all year for his original teacher, and his kindergarten teacher had the same trouble. If I'm lucky, there will be a honeymoon period where he does well for me. I have to get over the fact that I may not get the turn-around I would want in a mere few weeks (the LAST few weeks of school, mind you). However, I have to try, don't I?

Honestly, it kind of wakes me up. Especially at this time of the year. I feel this cheesy, strange, renewed sense of purpose. Even though I have the lowest class size, and he wouldn't fit in in the other rooms, my principal would not have given him to me if he didn't think I could handle it. Fingers crossed for us in the last stretch. More to come when I've had an actual experience with this kid. I'm excited to learn more about him.


On another note, we broke out our big new number line today! The collective gasp when I rolled it out. Ha! We were working on missing addends, and I told the kids that my favorite strategy to use is the number line. I can see the number and I can see the jumps, so it's what works best for my brain.
My fabulous instructors in college always told me that making personal connections makes things more meaningful for students, and I have found that to be true in application. The kids are always fascinated by the little pieces of you that you reveal.

So, we brought out the number line and worked on a few problems as a class. We talked about what was the whole and what was the part that we knew. Started at the whole, counted the hops to the part we knew, and BAM! There's your answer. They loved it. I then sent them off to work on this really awesome set of problems from Miss Emily Rose on TpT.

I used this one with my high/middle kids. The great part is that the FREE pack has different versions of the same thing if you ever want to practice it again. They could use the number line in the front of the room while they were working. It was really funny to look over and see their little feet hopping down the number line to solve the problem.

I wish I had taken a picture of some of the work we did on this with my low kids in small group. We used the above sheet and they ROCKED it! I modeled the first problem and we worked together on the next two. I had them circle the whole so they knew how to fill in the ten frame. They then had to underline the part that they knew. This told them how many dots to cross off from the ten frame. I set them loose to solve the rest and I saw them circling, underlining, and crossing off like champs. It was a beautiful sight! They actually understood what they were doing and how it got them to the answer. I live for moments like that!

The most important part is that I met them where they were. I could have struggled and tried to force them to use the other page, but what good would that have done? I would have been frustrated, they would have felt unsuccessful, and nobody would have gained anything by it. Differentiation is one of the best things you can do. You're not just "making it easier." That's not differentiation. You're still teaching the same things, but modifying it to meet the needs of the kids. Trust me, it can be difficult sometimes to make three different sets of the SAME thing. If I didn't though, I wouldn't have moments like I did today that were stellar. End rant.

We also went on our field trip to the aquarium today. I won't go into too much detail, but the kids LOVED it. It was particularly special because the kids had done research on ocean animals a few weeks before. They were able to see their animals in action and were amazed at meeting them. They were spewing facts about what they ate, where they lived, etc. My little scientists!


All in all, I'm tired, I'm sweaty, and I need some chocolate.

Ms. K

The One with the Bullet Points

I want to highlight a few moments from today in my post.

Oh, you like bullet points? Well here are a few:

• I had a great cause and effect teaching resource.
• I had a kid do nothing today.
• I had a bad report from specials.
• I had a fun moment being "sad."

Today we were talking about cause and effect during our read aloud. We had a brief review about cause and effect before hand because we've talked about it before. I always use Chris, my fiance, as an example when it comes to eating things. The kids were funny and said, "yeah, like when Chris ate your almonds and you had none left." Exactly, kids. Exactly. Anyways, we're reading Steven Kellogg books this week, so I opened up Jimmy's Boa Ate the Wash. Read alouds are always more fun when they're interactive. That's why I had them use ANOTHER skill - double whammy -  which was inferencing. Each time we read they had to guess what caused the event that happened. For example, the book said, "The farmer ran into the bale of hay." "Why did he do that?" *insert inference from the class* "Because he was yelling at the pigs on our bus." It had the craziest situations in the book, so it was fun to read that together. Collective "OHHHHHs" or "WHAT?s" ensued. 

Moving on.

You read that second bullet point right. I had a kid do nothing. Now, I do have to be honest. He did get ONE thing done today. Wooooo. Handbells ringing. Maracas shaking. One. Thing. He wasn't even being defiant or argumentative about any of it. He simply wasn't getting anything done. I separated him from distractions, he laid on the floor. I had him work during indoor recess, he wrote a couple of words down. When he knows he's not doing what he's supposed to be doing, he shuts down and won't communicate. Therefore, I couldn't get any reason out of him as to why he wasn't working. In all seriousness, I think he just didn't feel like working today. He wanted to chat, or sit there and stare, or do. nothing. My other idea is that he did not have a good morning. I'm sure most people understand this by now, but the way the little ones start of their morning has a HUGE affect on how their day rolls out. Something exceptional must have happened this morning because he's never done this before. I called mom and haven't heard back yet, so the saga continues.

I like to pride myself in being able to communicate with my students and figure out how to help them be successful. If they cry, I want to know why. If they shut down, how can I bring them out. If they are angry, what made them upset. Today was a bust for me when it came to him. I hate that I couldn't reach that point with him and it turned into a product-less day.

Check and check.

The last two bullet points run together. I almost want to chuckle when thinking of them which may seem strange. Laugh? About a bad report from special areas? About having fun while being sad?

Here's the low-down. I drop my kids off at art, thinking nothing of it. They had been pretty good for me today, so I wasn't anticipating problems. When I come to pick them up, it is dead silent. I see 3 out of the 4 kids separated at a table are mine and the art teacher does not look happy. I put on my serious face and step into the room. She tells me that they were "awful" and how out of character it was for them. We play it up a bit, like the good actors we are, because that's what we do when we're talking about the kids in front of them. Teachers are a triple threat, guys. I walk them down the hall and they know how disappointed and sad I am about the situation. They didn't say one word. It was like nothing I'd seen before. Now, the part that I was peeved about was that this exact situation happened to the class right next to us last week. They heard about it in the hallway, we discussed it in the room, and we talked about how we were not going to do it.

That was soooo last week, Ms. Krastin. 

Apparently so! I put on my stern voice (not loud, stern) and told them there was no mystery object to find. Their only goal was to clean the room and I expected to see it clean when I walked in. I talked to my 3 kids in the hallway that had done well in art and I talked to my 3 kids that had to be separated from the group. The former received tickets for our drawing and the latter wrote apology notes to the art teacher. I turned and walked into the room and you could have heard a pen drop. They were so quiet and the room was spotless. 

We had a brief discussion on their behavior in art together. 

*On a side note, don't drag conversations like that out. They know what they've done and the more you talk either a) the worse they'll feel or b) the more bored they'll get at being berated and they'll do something to make you more frustrated.*

During our discussion, it really was more of me talking and their choral responses. This was one of those moments, which I explained to them, needed no excuses on their part. We had SEEN what happened when another class acted like this, we had HEARD what they did, and we DISCUSSED how we would not do something like that. Yet, here we were in the same place as last week's class. We talked about what they could do better next time and we assured that it would not come to this again. My own personal favorite quote of mine during my soapbox moment:

She used the adjective awful to describe our class. Awful.

That's right. Tying language arts concepts into a stern talking-to. Can I say...boom? Boom, baby!

Here's the fun part about me being "sad" about their behavior: they were perfect. I had no one try to talk while I was talking during our science lesson and they didn't even want to *test* the boundaries I had set forth. It was hilarious yet interesting how much I affected them. It really didn't take much to get that either. I was talking to a few of my coworkers after school and wondered how long I could ride out being disappointed! I mean, I wouldn't do that...not a lot...maybe just for one more day...like tomorrow morning and that's it...just through calendar time?

Even after everything, I feel strangely serene about today. I can't really explain why. Maybe I'm just not shocked by anything anymore or I might be getting the swing of things. Maybe it's because it's Teacher Appreciation Week, and I'm feeling pretty good about my career choice. Who knows, really.

Until next time.

Ms. K