E.T. Phone Home

Today I made my first phone call home.

.................Da Da Daaaaaaaa !

I was nervous while dialing those numbers and crossing my fingers that I got the answering machine. I had an irrational fear that the parents would ridicule me and defend their child.

The first phone call went to voice mail, I stated who I was and said something positive about the student. Then I explained the new procedure of calling every parent who's child is sent to time out. I said why I sent her little darling to time out and that I know we can correct this behavior. Then reminded the parent to sign the behavioral notice I sent home. I think it went well but then I was wishing I could have talked to the parent instead of leaving a voice mail.

The 2nd phone call the parent answered and I danced around the real reason which is the attitude her daughter is giving me instead I showed some tact and said that "she is being disrespectful to me and Ms. C" . I stated that she is a good student and recalled the A she got on the science quiz. The parent was very understanding and said that her daughter has had this problem before in 4th grade and that to please call her when ever about this. Then I ended on a positive note and said that "she is very smart I know she can follow directions lets nip this in the bud."

I don't want to get in the habit of calling home only when there is a problem so I also made a good phone call home to our best behaved and very bright student Dwayne. I told the parent that this was a good phone call home and that I wanted them to know what a gentlemen their son was and what a pleasure it is to have him in our class. I also gave them the good news of his math test that he had the highest score. (He scored higher than the 4 gifted students).

After making the calls I felt empowered and sure that I had made an impact. I'll find out tomorrow.

Know Your States ?

The geography lesson went very well and I hadn’t planned it at all!

I used the resources in the classroom,websites with interactive games, and puzzles that I had prior experience with to pull it off.

What happened was that Mrs. C took away the recess for the entire class but didn’t have anything planned for the time we now had to fill. I suggested that we have the students who caused the class to lose recess to write about the incident while I put the other students into centers.

So I first put 6 students on the computers to play a geography game ( http://www.pibmug.com/files/map_test.swf ) where they match up the states to the names of the states, and it’s timed. They love challenging each other to see who gets the most in 2 minutes.



Then with another group of 4 I broke out one of Mrs. C's puzzles of the United States (that she has never used) and they loved that too and worked well with each other. With the remaining students I opened up BrainPopJr.com and under “geography” had the students do a map reading activity on the Smart Board.

I felt in control, the students were engaged and learning some Social studies at the same time. All this when the alternative was worksheet or crossword (what they normally do) in silence.
I don’t mind students getting a little noisy if they are all on task and talking about the subject at hand. I know the difference between a chaotic classroom and an active one.

More Geography Websites
- Your Child Learns : http://www.yourchildlearns.com/mappuzzle/us-puzzle.html

-Sheppard Software : http://www.sheppardsoftware.com/web_games.htm , says the state name and gives information about it.

-Know Your States : http://www.jimspages.com/States.htm , gives states and student places them with out outlines, give miles you are off and averages them at the end plus give your time.

/m/ /a/ /d/

This week I’m starting to get more responsibility in the classroom and taught the low readers a phonics lesson.

For the phonics lesson I took the 3 low readers in our class to the library, two days in a row where it was quiet. I taught the same lesson as Mrs. C but a step below. We reviewed the vocabulary, played a site word bingo game (i created), and pair read the story “Gloria sees the light”. The vocabulary went alright, but the reading showed me where these students really are.

We suspect that one of our low readers (who should be in the 4^th grade) has something else going on that we don’t know about because he cannot blend sounds together to sound out new words. He failed 3rd Grade twice , moved to another school where he was in 4th grade, changed schools again (asked to be held back in 4th grade), changed schools again, and entered Duval as a 5th grader. How does this happen ?

One of the girls in my group is on alternative assessment and Mrs. C is pushing to get her into the self contained classroom.

The third student did benefit from the approaching level of the reading series but she is in ESE and most of her problems are behavioral. She tries very hard but gets stressed out from tests and shuts down.

I felt that I was prepared for my small group (lesson plan wise) but not prepared or qualified to work with 3 ESE students. I'm not certified ESE teacher, I've had one online class that discussed children with exceptionalities (visually impaired, autism, hearing impaired etc.) but nothing to prepare me for ESE.

Ug frustrating, because it's the first time I could teach a lesson my way in this classroom and I feel like I was set up for failor. I am not a babysitter for the low kids so Mrs.C didn't have worry about these three disrupting the class.

Open House

I thought we already had "open house" ?

What is the difference between "meet the teacher" and "open house" ? It's like having a 2nd grand openings. Just more stress and even less parents showing up I guess. At least the interns were acknowledged this time around.

At six the entire school staff met in the cafeteria to greet the parents. It looked like our numbers would be down again because half the cafeteria was filled with teachers, teacher aides, teacher tutors, and interns (4). Who were all introduced by the new Duval principal Ms. Donna Jones.

Not even half of the other side of the cafeteria was filled up with parents and students from all grades. So when the teachers were dismissed and retreated to their classroom our team came together in one. In all of 5^th grade we had 8 parents show up and 2 students came by themselves. Mrs. Christian did most of the talking for the 5^th grade team because she has been at this school the longest and knows most of the parents. Mrs. Christian introduced me and I gave a little speech about myself and what I hope to learn from this experience.

Most of the questions that night were about the discipline plan, the new steps to be part of the safety patrol team, the importance of getting your child vaccinated, and how to sign up for after school tutoring . But because our class only had two families attend open house and one left in the middle of our presentation. It was not productive,a waste of time. Everything we talked about was already sent home with the students.