Don’t leev.

Back in January, this day seemed like the day you finally realize you are a grown up – a day you know is coming, but in complete denial about when it will arrive (I’m still in denial about growing up). Well, bam. It’s here. Today was it. The last hurrah. The big shabam. I rolled my desk chair to my car and packed up my pencil cup.

It’s totally bittersweet. Yes, I’m ready for my own classroom (or really just ready to make some ridiculously awesome bulletin boards) but what’s going to happen to these kiddos who’s minds I’ve been blowing since August? What if their teacher next year isn’t mind blowing? What then?

Even more bittersweet is that I am at a complete loss of what to do with myself until graduation. I don’t have to wake up at 6am. I don’t have to pack a lunch. I don’t have to write lesson plans. I don’t have to teach. What do I have to do?

Oh yeah. Find a job. Right-o.

I couldn’t have asked for a better end to this year. Poems from every student, a totally teacher-esque handprint canvas bag, and an incentive to start building my classroom library. And ice creem and kaik. Yes!

So goodbye, loyal readers, my student teaching experience has officially come to a close. It’s been real. Who knows – this blog may become active again in my first year of teaching. We all know that will be a treat.

Until I have a job…

E

Drugs and Rum and Cannibals, oh my.

So much for worrying about where babies come from. Oh no. In 2011, first graders have  investigatory minds concerning drugs, rum, and cannibals. Yep.

For the most part, I brought all of these questions upon myself. But that’s besides the point.

It all began with a cool lesson on service dogs. Remember TIME for Kids? The “magazine” that came weekly that was really just one paper folded in half? Quality news articles. Anyways, our class subscribes to “Weekly Readers”, and I was stoked to have one all about guide dogs. I mean, my family did apply for one. Still waiting, but hey, the kids thought that it was super cool. We’re reading all about guide dogs, their training, and when it’s okay to pet them (NOT when the vest is on, if you were curious.) I forgot to mention one difference between your nostalgic TIME for Kids and our Weekly Readers. It comes with a completely interactive website, news links, and video clips. Videos are basically the pixie stix of elementary pedagogy.

There is a video link on how service dogs help police officers at airports. I click the link, and we all begin learning about how dogs are trained to sniff drugs hidden in suitcases. Hands in the air before the 90 second clip is over.

“Ms. Haver, what are drugs?” — “Another word for medicine.”

“Why do the dogs smell them in the suitcase?” — “Well, sometimes, people try and sneak drugs on airplanes.”

“But one time my mom brought medicine on a plane? (We’re still learning the difference between questions and comments. Right now, sneakily changing the inflection at the end of the sentence qualifies as a question) — “Well, dogs only sniff out too much medicine. Like, an entire suitcase filled with the same type of medicine. That’s like stealing.”

Each student is now envisioning an entire suitcase filled with stolen Flintstone Gummy Vitamins.

Later in the week, we were learning about bartering. Yes, bartering. It’s still being taught. Remember when you learned about rounding? And how it was applicable for about twenty seconds? That’s how our bartering lesson was supposed to go.

I was super excited that I had found a video clip explaining the history of money. Unfortunately, the kids came back in from recess before I could watch the entire clip. Note to self: never wing-it with videos. Especially when you don’t realize they are Australian.

At first, the news clip was very informative. Money, yada yada, bartering, yada yada, criminals who first populated Australia and traded with rum, uh huh. You see where this is going.

“Ms. Haver, what is rum?” — “Rum is kind of like juice. But it’s only for grown-ups.”

“Well, where did they get the money to buy the rum?” – “That’s a good question. The video just says that they traded rum, like bartering.”

“Maybe we can study more about rum?” — “Hmm, maybe.” And we all know that maybe means no.

One of my most vivid memories of elementary school was listening to my teacher read us chapter books right after recess. Accordingly, I read fun chapter books I remember reading to my kids right before recess. We just finished Mrs. Piggle Wiggle, and now we have entered the world of the notorious Pippy Longstocking. For those of you who haven’t read the series, Pippy is a spunky young girl who lives by herself. Her father is a pirate near islands that are inhabited by cannibals.

“Ms. Haver, what is a cannibal?” — “Cannibals are people who, erm, well, they eat other people.”

“Like for dinner?” — “Yes, for dinner. And other meals, too, I guess.”

“Will cannibals eat us?” — “Probably not. There aren’t very many cannibals anymore. And they live on far away islands.”

The next day:

“Ms. Haver, I told my mom about cannibals. She says that they are still alive.” — “Well, yes, they are still alive. But they are alive far away from here.”

“So they won’t eat me?”

Ice Creem and Kaik

Sounds dellishus, right?

Today was the beginning of the fourth quarter. The last nine weeks of school. The home stretch. I will only be teaching for 13 more school days. Whaaa?

At the end of the year, we have to put together a writing portfolio of each student’s work for them to stay in the cumulative folder for the entirety of their elementary lives. There is no prompt, a limited amount of time, and an place to illustrate. I give you the writers of room 7. (It’s a sample, I may have the patience to teach first grade, but I don’t have the patience to scan 19 stories).

A Birthday Story

Computer Codes

A Trip to Washington, DC

Planting a Flower

What I am is…Osum.

Yes, believe it. Your favorite blog has returned.

I knew it had been a while since I last posted, but I didn’t realize that I had left you dedicated readers out of the loop since February. In my defense, pollen and germ-tastic children have not been kind to me these past weeks. In the eyes of a teacher, antibiotics are like manna from heaven.

This is my third week of full-time teaching. Meaning, all the lesson plans are mine. All the homework assignments are mine. And oh yeah, all the kids who don’t understand the math concepts we’re learning are my fault. Hellooo responsibility!

Honestly, it hasn’t been that bad. We’re finding interesting words when we read, like “choster-all” (read: cholesterol, not sure what we’re reading in first grade that mentions said medical vocabulary, but we find it nonetheless). We wrote Instruction Manuals on  topics such as How to Make a Balloon Sub, How to Tie “Sqwair Nots”, and How to Make Ants on a Log. Life skills, really.

The most exciting bit of all is that this week we started a unit on writing poetry! Next Friday we’ll be hosting a “Poetry Slam” complete with dim mood lighting, bongo drums, and snaps for applause. Granted, we may have to learn how to snap before then…too bad nobody attempted to write How To Snap.

We’ve written poems about colors, haikus, and our favorite things (and if you have to ask if we listened to Julie Andrews in the Sound of Music, shame on you. Um, duh.) When I wrote my own “favorites” poem, I included what was not favorites of mine, and upon writing “Camping” on the board, the reaction in the room was if I had just shown them a video of Michael Vick and puppy dog fighters. The gasps could be heard from I-40.

I’ll leave you with this video (Yes, it’s Sesame Street. Get over the dancing muppets and listen to the meaning. And to Will.i.am) that my class has personally contributed 35 views to it’s Youtube count. It’s our inspiration for our next poem, “What I Am”. And it’s “osum”.

 

Borokobawma.

Instead of narrowing in on Black History month, we celebrated February as American History month, spending two weeks learning all about American presidents, monuments, landmarks, symbols, and, well, Borokobawma.

Presidents, we learned, are amazing citizens. When questioned how we could be amazing citizens like Abraham Lincoln, my students replied “Get in a Civil War?” “Marry Mary Todd?” (Note: we spent about five minutes laughing at the Marry Mary joke.) And in case you were wondering, Abe was a PC man. When we illustrated our timeline, the date 1836: Lincoln becomes a lawyer and works for the Illinois government was represented with Lincoln working in an office, papers flying everywhere, a phone off the hook, and our main man Lincoln hunched over a flat-screen Dell monitor.

And what did we learn about George Washington? He has wooden teeth. And still lives in the White House, according to half my class.  At least we know all know he’s the first President.

In writing, we’re getting ready to have a publishing party for our narrative stories. We’ve written them, the teachers have typed them (hunting and pecking at a first grade pace would have us working on this until next October) and we’ve illustrated them in our neatest drawings. As part of our stories, we wrote About the Author pages for the back page of our books. We included our names, age, some school and family info, and as a twist, I asked them to include an interesting fact that nobody else in the class knew about them. My two favorites? “I’ve only been in an RV once” and “I like chicken.”

I’ve spent most of the week stressing out over next week, when I’ll be flying solo. My teacher will be at a weeklong conference, so it’ll just be me, the kids, and a sub that reads large-print library books all week. Until 1pm, I’m fine. But at 1pm, we learn math. And Ms. Haver is NOT fond of math.

Stay tuned.

I broke a desk.

And a computer.

Today started as a great day. Good night of sleep, it is finally starting to be light in the morning so I’m not driving to work in the dark,  good coffee, and my teacher was going to be proctoring a test until 1pm so I got to have all the kids to myself.

So it’s 9:00 and I’ve been debating moving my desk around so I have some more space. The students are in specials until 9:15.  It’s 9:10 and I start shimming my desk around so I can fit a little table in between the wall and my desk, for extra desktop space.  9:14 and I start to push my desk back to close the desk and BAM. The two legs on one side of my desk completely collapse. Everything starts sliding off my slanted desks: binders, notebooks, my entire can of pens and pencils. All over the floor. Fabulous. Then, my computer monitor starts to slide, and crashes to the floor, screen down.

Just let that sink in for a moment. And add the loudest crash noise you’ve heard in your life. Maybe not the loudest ever, but close. Like fourth loudest.

I’ve never cried in any work setting, but this was about as close as I’ve ever gotten. It’s 9:15 and three teacher assistants run in, checking to make sure I’m not hurt. Then they gawk at the mess I’ve made in my room. I’m still in shock that there is a computer monitor face down on the floor of my classroom.

At 9:20, I run to get my kids. So they had 5 extra minutes of art. They should always get 5 extra minutes of art.

My supervisor is coming in to observe me in 10 minutes, and my corner of the room is still a mess. The kids are getting the kick out of the fact that I not only broke my desk, but a computer, too! Crazy Ms. Haver. The school pages the custodian to my class to wheel out the broken desk and wheel in a new(ly found) one. The technology teacher – the one I feared the most out of this whole ordeal – comes in to tell me not to worry and to rock my lesson. Booyah.

I start feeling a little better until I realize that not only are my kids wired from having the custodian come visit – I swear he’s their favorite person at school after the P.E teacher – but I fed them Valentine’s Day leftovers for snack. Sugar. rush.

Overall, the lesson was fine. We learned about compound words, and learned that “going” isn’t a compound word because, surprisingly to many, “ing” is not a word. Neither is “er”, in case you were wondering. Right.

My supervisor definitely picked up on the fact that something was off, but then again, everyone has off days. Plus, I ended up getting a bigger replacement desk than my old one, so I successfully made more space for myself. Score.

Teachers don’t wear dresses.

Unless they’re married, that is.

Today I made the mistake of wearing a dress to work. I got tons of compliments from the staff, but for some reason the students associate dressing nicely with getting married. “Miss Haver, you look so pretty! Are you married?” No, I tell them. “Oh, well when are you going to get married?” Note to self: no more dresses.

Continuing our unit on biographies, our students made “Paper Figures” – definitely NOT paper dolls, since our boys would’ve refused to make them – on a famous person they read about. Check it:

That's George Washington in the hat, Cesar Chavez with the flag and Betsy Ross with the hoop skirt.

We also used iTouches on Monday to explore sign language and learn signs to help us communicate (We learned about Helen Keller) and it is ridiculous how these kiddos can figure out an iPod in a tenth of a second. They are six and there is absolutely NO instruction needed for them to figure out how to turn it on, how to select an app, and how to play it. Ridiculous.

Cuteness of the week: In our reader’s workshop, we have been practicing self-responsibility and reflecting on how well we have been reading independently. I hand each student a sticky note and they write an anonymous reflection to turn in. Best one I got this week: “I was good today. I read the hole in tire time.”