I realize I just posted this morning, but I have to tell you all about this darling boy in my class. I call him Cosmo because he always wears BYU T-shirts, and he told me that's all he wants to be called all year. He didn't used to wear his shirts everyday. Now I'm sure mom does laundry a lot more than she used to so he can. Either that or they made a trip to the BYU bookstore.
Anyway, this sweet child has discovered the game Cat's Cradle. Someone showed him how to start it, and I showed him the next step and now he plays all the time. I would expect this from the girls, but at lunch while they waited in line, not one girl showed interest and all the boys were asking him how to play. And at the end of the day, they were getting pretty good.
I love my class this year! I love how good they are and I love that they can surprise me!
Friday, September 12, 2008
Fourth Grade Olympics or How Teaching is a Contact Sport
Fourth Grade can be rough. It's competitive and it's hard on the self-esteem. Especially on the teachers.
The first week of school we decided to have a Fourth Grade Olympics. We study Asia in fourth grade so it was timely.
Here's the reason we will never do this again.
One of the other fourth grade teachers is an athlete. She swims, plays water polo, and runs marathons. She is VERY competitive. I witnessed this last year during our softball world series. Which she will never umpire again if I can help it.
So, you can imagine, things got really . . . interesting.
When we planned this I "called" India as our country to represent. I worked with a teacher from India in the second grade for four years. I still work across the hall from her. I had access to some great stuff. A few days later, our overly competitive fourth grade teacher came into my room while I was teaching and said "We picked India, is that OK?"
My choices here are to be a poor example to my kids and say no way, or be a wuss and say okay. I chose to be a wuss. We hadn't even discussed the country issue in my class so they didn't know what they were missing.
I told the class that we would be Japan. Because I knew that the flag was easy to draw. And we spent an afternoon drawing red circles on white paper. I have talented children.
My overly competitive colleague got her hands on an Indian flag and then told me I couldn't get a Japanese one because she wanted to be the only one with a flag. It was one of those times when people say something and then they say "Just kidding." But you know they weren't. So I didn't plan on anything more than the paper flags we all made. I hate conflict. Besides. I am not an athlete. This is all about fun. Right?
All week, this other teacher was practicing the events with her kids. I kept forgetting. Oh well. I told them to practice at home. No biggie. I talked a lot about being good winners and good losers. I have a really sweet class.
What I forgot was that I have a Japanese student, and a student who visits Japan every other year with her family. And they came through on the day of the Olympics. Our class not only had a flag, we had Japanese treats and origami. My fellow teacher was not happy. I am not joking. She was really ticked off that my class looked as good as hers. It wasn't me trying. My class did everything.
That's what made it so awesome.
It was a mess to organize. She took it all a little too seriously. I did Olympics for four years when I taught sixth grade and you just need to play with the kids and realize that most of them are not athletes. She was yelling and getting mad because they weren't listening. I wasn't listening. Especially when she started trying to motivate them with the spirit of athletics and stuff. I motivate with candy.
So, I designated myself picture taker. That's how I got in trouble the first time. I took o finish line picture of the boys 100 yard dash. I showed it to her when I heard her results and knew she had the wrong kids. she said "That's why I hate those photos. They mess everything up." Before I showed her, the winners were all from her class. HMMMM.
Then I got in trouble because I only had 28 students that day and the other classes had 30 and I refused to run in the class relay. My fellow teacher ran with her kids. (yep. 30 kids ran one relay race. talk about chaos). I just asked if some of mine could run double legs. We hadn't practiced and I have a student who speaks French so I had to take time to explain to the students what a relay was. I was getting looks for not being prepared.
And then we won.
Oops. Didn't know we weren't supposed to do that.
In front of the entire fourth grade . . . that's 100 students . . . my fellow teacher says "You know you didn't really win that gold fairly, beacause you didn't have to pass off the baton as much."
Nice sportsmanship.
My class went back to our room, ate our Popsicles and danced to the "cars" sound track. Her class did yoga.
The first week of school we decided to have a Fourth Grade Olympics. We study Asia in fourth grade so it was timely.
Here's the reason we will never do this again.
One of the other fourth grade teachers is an athlete. She swims, plays water polo, and runs marathons. She is VERY competitive. I witnessed this last year during our softball world series. Which she will never umpire again if I can help it.
So, you can imagine, things got really . . . interesting.
When we planned this I "called" India as our country to represent. I worked with a teacher from India in the second grade for four years. I still work across the hall from her. I had access to some great stuff. A few days later, our overly competitive fourth grade teacher came into my room while I was teaching and said "We picked India, is that OK?"
My choices here are to be a poor example to my kids and say no way, or be a wuss and say okay. I chose to be a wuss. We hadn't even discussed the country issue in my class so they didn't know what they were missing.
I told the class that we would be Japan. Because I knew that the flag was easy to draw. And we spent an afternoon drawing red circles on white paper. I have talented children.
My overly competitive colleague got her hands on an Indian flag and then told me I couldn't get a Japanese one because she wanted to be the only one with a flag. It was one of those times when people say something and then they say "Just kidding." But you know they weren't. So I didn't plan on anything more than the paper flags we all made. I hate conflict. Besides. I am not an athlete. This is all about fun. Right?
All week, this other teacher was practicing the events with her kids. I kept forgetting. Oh well. I told them to practice at home. No biggie. I talked a lot about being good winners and good losers. I have a really sweet class.
What I forgot was that I have a Japanese student, and a student who visits Japan every other year with her family. And they came through on the day of the Olympics. Our class not only had a flag, we had Japanese treats and origami. My fellow teacher was not happy. I am not joking. She was really ticked off that my class looked as good as hers. It wasn't me trying. My class did everything.
That's what made it so awesome.
It was a mess to organize. She took it all a little too seriously. I did Olympics for four years when I taught sixth grade and you just need to play with the kids and realize that most of them are not athletes. She was yelling and getting mad because they weren't listening. I wasn't listening. Especially when she started trying to motivate them with the spirit of athletics and stuff. I motivate with candy.
So, I designated myself picture taker. That's how I got in trouble the first time. I took o finish line picture of the boys 100 yard dash. I showed it to her when I heard her results and knew she had the wrong kids. she said "That's why I hate those photos. They mess everything up." Before I showed her, the winners were all from her class. HMMMM.
Then I got in trouble because I only had 28 students that day and the other classes had 30 and I refused to run in the class relay. My fellow teacher ran with her kids. (yep. 30 kids ran one relay race. talk about chaos). I just asked if some of mine could run double legs. We hadn't practiced and I have a student who speaks French so I had to take time to explain to the students what a relay was. I was getting looks for not being prepared.
And then we won.
Oops. Didn't know we weren't supposed to do that.
In front of the entire fourth grade . . . that's 100 students . . . my fellow teacher says "You know you didn't really win that gold fairly, beacause you didn't have to pass off the baton as much."
Nice sportsmanship.
My class went back to our room, ate our Popsicles and danced to the "cars" sound track. Her class did yoga.
Monday, September 8, 2008
I expected this in Rosepark
At 10:00 tonight I was trying to decide if I wanted to watch Intervention or Jon & Kate plus 8. And I was trying to decide how important a Diet Pepsi was to me (meaning, did I want to get up and go to the 7/11 to get it). Then I heard voices outside my window. My window looks over the parking lot. I left it wide open (whoops). So I looked out and I see a dozen people or so clustered around my car, which is parked right in front of our duplex. Upon closer inspection I see a police car. Blocking me in. And the cop to go with it.
I texted my roommates to make sure they weren't in any trouble down there. Then I came down stairs for a glass of water (for a better view from our living room window).
that's when I saw another cop car, paramedics, and a guy sitting on a gurney. Hmmmmm.
As I am typing this they are taking this guy away, and my roommate has just informed there were three cop cars, an ambulance, and a firetruck. She was waiting on the street to come into the parking lot for a while.
Who says there's never a cop when you need one. There's one blocking me in right now so I can't go get a Diet Pepsi.
I'll wait down here and see how this thing works out. Sometimes I miss Rosepark. The programming on TV tonight was looking pretty boring anyway.
I texted my roommates to make sure they weren't in any trouble down there. Then I came down stairs for a glass of water (for a better view from our living room window).
that's when I saw another cop car, paramedics, and a guy sitting on a gurney. Hmmmmm.
As I am typing this they are taking this guy away, and my roommate has just informed there were three cop cars, an ambulance, and a firetruck. She was waiting on the street to come into the parking lot for a while.
Who says there's never a cop when you need one. There's one blocking me in right now so I can't go get a Diet Pepsi.
I'll wait down here and see how this thing works out. Sometimes I miss Rosepark. The programming on TV tonight was looking pretty boring anyway.
Friday, September 5, 2008
Update
I know everyone is dying to know . . .
My meeting was a total waste of time last night. We got all that information during a summer conference in June. And at my table I saw the following from teachers:
My meeting was a total waste of time last night. We got all that information during a summer conference in June. And at my table I saw the following from teachers:
- grading papers
- planning lessons
- texting (that was me)
- sleeping
- playing games on the cell phone
- playing games with pennies . . . that's boredom
No one at our table was listening.
We were about to go when some yahoo at another table asked a question that made the meeting longer. My first thought was, "Shut Up!" My next thought was "You were listening? I wasn't that interested in June." But we left our information so we can get paid. After taxes I can probably go to a really nice meal at McDonald's. And we stormed the doors. One dude sat by some doors that were hidden by drapes and got out before all of us, while Miss Goody-Two-Shoes was asking her question. We were all jealous.
At least the dinner was good.
Just so you know what your tax dollars were going to last night.
I still missed Smallville.
Thursday, September 4, 2008
Meetings
I have a meeting tonight . . . from 4:00 to 7:00. What genious planned a meeting for teachers that is right after a work day, and lasts three hours? I can gaurantee three things you will see:
- papers being graded
- lessons being planned
- games being payed on cell phones
I can also gaurantee that we will listen for about ten minutes. And no one will hide the fact that they aren't listening. Teachers make the worst students. I hope no one says anything important.
They finally had to offer dinner and $60 to people so they could get ANYONE to R.S.V.P. Anytime you have to bribe people to a meeting with food and money you shouldn't hold the meeting.
Teachers take their freetime very seriously.
Don't mess with it.
We get very cranky.
Plus, I'm going to miss Smallville.
P.S. If you haven't been keeping up with the comments on our stud of the month, Mr. May wins, and two of you lied and said you didn't like the muscle bound look.
Monday, September 1, 2008
Stud of the month
My roommate has a "Studs 'n' Spurs" calendar, which is in our kitchen. Guys, we are three single girls. Don't mess with the cowboys in our kitchen.
So we changed over to Mr. September today and my roommate Jennie was authentically mortified. She compares all the "studs" to Mr. May. None of them compare apparently. I just think Mr. September looks a little dim, but lets face it. These guys aren't on our kitchen wall for their brains.
I'll let you compare:
Mr. May
So we changed over to Mr. September today and my roommate Jennie was authentically mortified. She compares all the "studs" to Mr. May. None of them compare apparently. I just think Mr. September looks a little dim, but lets face it. These guys aren't on our kitchen wall for their brains.
I'll let you compare:
Mr. May
Mr. September
Friday, August 29, 2008
A cluttered desk is a sign of . . .
This has been a very strange week. We started school on Monday at 8:35 a.m. At 8:30 a.m. I had two brand new students walk through my door. I have 6 students who are brand spanking new to the school. Two are from out of state. And one is from France, who doesn't speak any English. Yeah! You can imagine, things were not as organized as I would like them to be that first day. However my desk doesn't usually get too bad until the second week of school.
Anyway, on Tuesday, the second day of school, I had to leave at 12:55 because I was sick. I don't get sick very often, so this was odd. But I went home.
Bless the other teachers who helped out, especially with my little French student. (How do you say, "Sorry your teacher ditched you while she was reading a story. Come here and silently pretend to read this book." in French?)
When I got in the next morning, feeling much better, there's this note on my desk from the librarian. She had come in to watch the kids and do a little teaching. The note said:
"I taught lesson 1.1 in math. We couldn't find your planner so we read the first chapters of Fablehaven. Hope you feel better!"
A teacher's planner is huge. It takes up the entire desk, and the two pages that are open show a full week. It is a difficult thing to lose. And here it is the second day of school and already people are telling me they can't find things on my desk.
I cleaned it that morning.
Happily the, the rest of the week was much smoother, the class is DARLING, and I need to learn French. Fast.
Anyway, on Tuesday, the second day of school, I had to leave at 12:55 because I was sick. I don't get sick very often, so this was odd. But I went home.
Bless the other teachers who helped out, especially with my little French student. (How do you say, "Sorry your teacher ditched you while she was reading a story. Come here and silently pretend to read this book." in French?)
When I got in the next morning, feeling much better, there's this note on my desk from the librarian. She had come in to watch the kids and do a little teaching. The note said:
"I taught lesson 1.1 in math. We couldn't find your planner so we read the first chapters of Fablehaven. Hope you feel better!"
A teacher's planner is huge. It takes up the entire desk, and the two pages that are open show a full week. It is a difficult thing to lose. And here it is the second day of school and already people are telling me they can't find things on my desk.
I cleaned it that morning.
Happily the, the rest of the week was much smoother, the class is DARLING, and I need to learn French. Fast.
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