I Think I Can, I Think I Can

So far I've experienced 3 stages of summer school, which I believe are much like the stages of grief.  Or maybe totally different.

Day/Stage 1: "Where's the nearest escape route?"
Day/Stage 2: "At least it only lasts for 1 month..."
Day/Stage 3: "Wait, I kind of like these little guys!"

I wouldn't say that I've reached full blown acceptance of my summer school situation, BUT there have been major improvements since Monday. 

On Monday, I wasn't sure where to be, what to do, how to talk to 4th graders, and where the busses load...among other things.  Elementary is a whole new ballgame.  They require your attention 110% of the time.  They want to be the helper.  They aren't capable of choosing their own seats.  They cannot deal with "Hold on just one moment."  It is really and truly exhausting.  Pretty sure I took a 4 hour long nap on Monday.  It was more stressful for me simply because I didn't know the schedule or the building, plus I was/am teaching out of someone else's classroom.  I don't like being out of my element!

Fortunately Tuesday went more smoothly.  I knew where to send the kids and was somewhat familiar with how the bus routes worked.  I struggled a bit more with classroom management,  though.  I felt as if I had very little leverage.  There are no grades, so that's not a motivator;  students are whisked in and out of the room so fast that I feel like I can't really connect with them; and although the head of summer school helps with discipline it's not the same structure that I'm used to.  Basically all I'm left with is "please do your work" and "I'd hate to have to call your parents."  Neither of those inspire greatness.

Today I was actually dreading the lesson because I was going to ask them to work with a partner.  Based on the partner - work skill level of my 6th graders I assumed it would be tragic.  When it came time to work, I was shocked at how well the kids did!  They put more thought and effort into their work than some of my Pre-AP do!  Walking around the room, I heard kids say "Let's go back and look in the story," and "I said my ideas, now what are yours?"  Is this real life??  I don't even work with adults that well! ;)  I can only assume that they have some rockin' 4th grade teachers that have groomed them to be able to do this. I was blown away.  Even the kids that I initially labeled as troublemakers jumped in and worked well together.  It was awesome. (It didn't hurt that they were competing for candy :)

So, although they still exhaust me, these kiddos are really starting to grow on me.  I still think I am better suited for secondary, but I'm confident that I will survive the summer.

My first 4th grade rookie mistake?  Telling a student that I am not very good at teaching math, and that I didn't want to confuse him on his homework.  The student heard "I won't help you," when what I really meant was "You reaaalllyy don't want me to teach you math!  It's for your own good."  I've got to learn how to word things differently.  Maybe I should learn some math as well!

-Mrs. Combs

School's out for the summer....right?

The school year is over and summer is here!!

Well, almost.

During the month of June, I will be teaching summer school.  And not just summer school...summer school for 4th graders! It will be an entirely new experience.  My certification is only for grades 6-12, so I'm really scraping the bottom of my expertise barrel. I'll be in a new school with younger kids in someone else's classroom (probably the weirdest part).  Fortunately, I was given the "reading comprehension" class, rather than math or phonics- I would have really been out of my league then!  It looks like I will have 14-15 kids at a time for 30 minutes a day, with 5 total classes.  I am hoping that 30 minutes will be long enough for us to learn, but short enough for us to have few behavior problems.  Fingers crossed that these kids are similar to 6th graders in most ways.   

I was planning on changing my blog's name from "Rookie Mistake" to "Totally Professional and Experienced," but I'll wait until AFTER summer school to make that change.  I have a feeling I'll be learning quite a bit over the next four months.  

Here's to more silly mistakes and getting more teaching experience under my belt!  I'll keep you updated :)

-Mrs. Combs

(or should I be "Mrs. Kerry" for elementary kids??)

Don't Stare at the Evil Eye!

After having a bird fly in my classroom and a student staple his finger, summer is here!  Today was a crazy, hectic day- but there was also a healthy dose of excitement mixed with nostalgia.  I can't believe my first year is over.  Of course I'm already missing my kids- they got sweeter as the days grew shorter.  The number of hugs multiplied, and although there were still some discipline issues, I grew closer with many of them.  I really really hope they come visit me next year!

I'm sure I'll write more lovey-dovey and eloquent posts later, but I wanted to share some of the funny pieces of advice that my kiddos left for my upcoming class.  I received a lot of very touching pieces of advice, but you know I love their humor. :)

"If you sleep in Mr. Johnson's class, he will yell at you and you will need ear surgery."

In my defense, I didn't implement this rule until after I found gum on the floor.

So, there's a minor spelling error here, but the locker monster is a real thing.  It raids kids' lockers and steals important papers that they PROOOMIIISSEEEE they finished at home.  Sneaky locker monster!

I wish I knew what "talk moments" referred to!

(Mrs. Combs DOES like worked turned it.  This is true.)

She really did bring me cookies...

BEWARE!

Or don't fight anywhere?

Yes, because I'm super scary!

"Listen and pay attention and be quiet and give Mr. Massey oreos."
Cookies seem to be a theme....

WHAT??! 

Good advice for anyone!

"Have a lot of fun, but don't do anything dumb!!!!!"
-Yes, please!

She WILL send you to the office!

"Don't ever stare at Mrs. Comb's evil eye when your in trouble"
HA!  I like to think of it as more of a "stern eye." :)

Aren't they adorable?  I'm off to lose myself in a book.  Happy summer!

-Mrs. Combs

Countdown to Summer!

School's [almost] out for the summer!  Only 5 days remain, which is truly insane.  I can't believe my first year is coming to a close.  I'm now in the awkard position of needing to finish strong, but wanting to plan for next year.  I've learned so much throughout the year that I want to create and implement the new procedures and lessons NOW!  For now, however,  we must finish our book report mosaics.  (They should look super sweet when they are complete!)

One thing I'm excited about is the possibility of using interactive notebooks.  There are many ways to use them, and they require a lot of time and prep, but I think I'm up for the challenge. My kids never found a solid way to take and retain notes (I blame the locker monster), so this method should help.  Plus, they will get to color, glue, and create, which is way more fun than regular notetaking.

In other news, Maniac Monday turned into Maniac Monday/Wednesday.  Halfway through 3rd hour, we started getting rained on. We toughed it out for 20 minutes, but finally "called it" and went back in.  Unfortunately I had to teach the last 2 hours of the day in soaking wet jeans and a tee shirt, hair tied up.  According to the words of a student: "You don't look like like a teacher, Mrs. Combs."  Classroom management becomes more difficult when you don't look the part.  Thankfully Wednesday was beautiful and we were able to get back outside and have some fun.  Wish I could post pictures!

Here's to a smooth last week and zero goodbye tears!  (Yeah right...)

-Mrs. Combs

Is that your suitcase?

Alright, guys.  I have nearly as many post in my "drafts" folder as I do my "published" folder.  For some reason I haven't been able to complete a post for a while.  Maybe I'll combine all of the drafts into one super post one day.  It would be an amazingly disjointed, passionate, mess.

School is so close to being let out!  I can't believe that I've already gotten one year under my belt.  I tell my kids that this year they are my guinea pigs, and next year I'll be PERFECT.  There will be no more typos on quizzes, no misspellings on the board, no failed mathematics, and certainly no misplaced Promethean board pens.  Oh yeah, and no more calling kids by the wrong name.  That one has to go.  We'll see how far my perfection lasts next year.  (I give it 2 minutes)

One of the things that I LOVE about teaching is the humor- whether a kid says something witty in my classroom, or whether I just catch one of our two hundred sixth graders lost in their own little dance in the hallway.  Today's humor was a little more serious, though, and it had absolutely nothing to do with students.

Background information: We (the other reading teacher and myself) are currently teaching the book Maniac Magee to our kiddos.  Maniac does a lot of "crazy" things in the book (besides bringing up a whole lot of racial issues....which is f-u-n to talk about).  For instance, he can outrun any kid in town, unties an impossibly large knot, intercepts a football from the star quarterback, etc.  From the beginning of the unit, we knew that we needed to take our kids outside and let them have fun doing some of the things Maniac did.  We are calling it MANIAC MONDAY and it will take place this next Monday.  We are using it as a motivational tool- students have to keep their grades up and stay out of trouble in order to attend. Right now, out of my 95 kids, 25 are on the no-go list.  That means only the kids on top of their game get to have a fun day.  The others will be inside with our instructional coach who has promised a "painfully" educational lesson.  Yikes!

We are planning to have Maniac Monday in our school's outdoor learning environment.  The kids will be contained, which is especially important as we are doubling up our classes.  Today we decided to go take a look at the area and figure out how to set it up.  The other teacher had just gone down to the 7th grade room to borrow a suitcase from someone.  We thought we would use it in one of the activities.  When we stepped outside, she left the suitcase by the door, and we propped the door open with a rock.  Not 2 minutes later, the assistant principal came out the door and started asking us questions about the bag.  Little did we know, but we had set up the perfect school emergency situation: leaving an unidentified piece of luggage in the central area of the school, and exiting the building.  What makes it even worse/better is that our assistant principal had very recently been to a training that covered issues like this, so he was on the lookout for situations just like the one we accidently created.  At least we know how it would be handled if the situation DID arise!

12 days to go!

-Mrs. Combs

But First, Let Me Take a Selfie!

TESTING IS OVER!

I repeat:

TESTING IS OVER!

At least for Language Arts.  Math is Monday, but who cares about math, right?  ;)

We don't know what constitutes passing/not passing- still waiting on the State to figure that out and surprise us.  I did get some feedback from the curriculum instructor, though, who said...and I quote "I thought they looked pretty good," when referring to the kids' raw scores.  Most people would think "pretty good" is lame...but I'm all about it!  I can breathe now.

While breathing today, I allowed my kiddos to take one of their favorite quotes and draw/write it on pages of old books.  It is a hobby that I had taken up a while back, and thought that the kids would enjoy the rebelliousness of destroying books in a reading class.

Some of the quotes I got were sweet...some were inappropriate, and others were funny.  Here are my favorites!

I think I'm rubbing off on them!

Oh dear...

Girl is very self-aware!

So, if you become president, you won't know?  Scary!

These are a few of my favorite things!

ME EITHER!

True.

#precious

Let's pretend the spelling was on purpose...

-Mrs. Combs

Fingers Crossed!

It is official.  I have absolutely zero minutes left with my kiddos before they take their state reading test tomorrow. 

I wish I could say that I felt confident about how they will all perform, but I can't.  I'm actually kind of petrified, for several reasons.

1. I'm a first year teacher in a tested subject.  Although it may not be true, I have this thought in the back of my head that if they don't test well, my employers won't be happy with me.

2. The way that test questions are worded very easily trip them up.  My kids know how to find the main idea, but will they understand "To which paragraph does this subheading belong?" Thou art confusing, question!

3. The reading test requires them to GO BACK TO THE TEXT to find the answers...and some of mine are barely motivated to read it once...let alone twice. 

4. It is 50 questions long.  If you have the attention span of a gnat, 50 questions is daunting.  Squirrel.

5. It's on MONDAY MORNING!  I can't even form complete sentences until Tuesday afternoon.

6. The kids are stressed..and it's our fault. The pressure that the state puts on school districts is filtered down to the kids. They know very well that they HAVE to pass or people will be unhappy.  

 7. Not every kid thinks in multiple choice.  I recently had a girl answer a poetry interpretation question by drawing a diagram of how the metaphor compared the sea to a dog. By test score reports, she is very low....but I saw something completely different.  Not only did she understand it, but she could portray it through art. She won't have that chance tomorrow.

I could go on and on.  Basically, I know that tests are "necessary," but I'm not a fan. I can't wait until they are over so that I can go back to teaching. I'm tired of practice tests. 

-Mrs. Combs