I miss my kids :(

Garden Of Success (stolen from my corresponding teacher)

 For a Garden of Success:

Plant 5 kinds of PEAS:
- Patience
- Perseverance
- Preparation
- Planning
- Positiveness

Plant 3 rows of SQUASH:
- Squash negativity
- Squash thoughtlessness
- Squash excuses

Add 5 rows of LETTUCE:
- Let us be positive
- Let us take responsibility
- Let us be in control
- Let us reward our accomplishments
- Let us do our best

No garden is complete without TURNIPS:
- Turn up with a positive attitude
- Turn up with a smile
- Turn up with new ideas
- Turn up with determination
- Turn up with success

and Let Your Garden Flourish!

My Crazy Corresponding Teacher

My corresponding teacher is out of her mind in the best possible way.  Nothing is too outlandish or difficult for her.  When the classroom pet was never delivered, she called every pet store in the tri-state area to find a newt that would work for our unit.  When I was nervous about finding a Smartboard activity that would fit my math lesson, she whipped one up herself in less than 10 minutes.
But my absolute favorite moment of insanity is when she announced that we would be taking all 20 of our kids to the outdoor classroom for an ELA lesson.  In the middle of the woods.  Near the river.  Sure enough, she found an empty spot and began hauling logs over as benches.  I had the kids sit down and began to read a story.  When I finished reading The Salamander Room, I looked up and noticed that my crazy corresponding teacher had cleaned out all of the thorny bushes and made a path with at least 15 huge logs.  Then she asked me if I would feel comfortable taking the children down to the stream to observe the habitat and touch the water.  I was more than happy to hop down and show kids (some for the very first time) what a river looked and felt like.
I am so grateful to work with someone as driven and adventurous as Jennifer Teichmann.

I know that it is easy to complain about administration without fully understanding the reason for their decisions.  Administration has the incredible challenge of having to balance the students' needs with the state/district regulations.   However, WHO THOUGHT FLIPPING THE KINDERGARTNER'S SCHEDULE WAS A GOOD IDEA?  Because of state testing, the elementary teachers have been made proctors and everything has been changed around.  There is no set schedule and less than 4 hours of actual teaching time each day.  And because their routine has been thrown out the window, half of this teaching time is spent re-focusing the children who do not understand what's going on.  For example, no one communicated to me today that the Library teacher would be coming to our classroom instead of us going to the library.  I had the class halfway across the building before the library teacher caught me and redirected the class.  Standardized testing is not my favorite thing.

Alright.  Vent over.

Today we made "Glue Goo," an interesting blend of Borax, boiling water, food coloring, and Elmer's glue.  My corresponding teacher and I made perfect worksheets and booklets, outlining how to use our senses in conducting an experiment.  The kids would write out how they used the scientific method by: 1) Observing with their senses 2) Making a prediction 3) Drawing a conclusion.  The worksheets were so beautiful I wanted to cry.
As we began the lesson, I noticed that our beautiful worksheets were covered in colored water and sticky liquids.  But the lesson was so fascinating and messy, and the kids were learning so much, that I couldn't stop to make sure that they wrote down the answer to every single question.  After a while, I collected the worksheets and put them under the table.  Instead we talked about what the goo felt like, what it needed more of, predicted what it would do next, used words like "dissolved" and "solution," and compared the texture to other things.  We were covered in corn starch, oil, and glue.  It. Was. Awesome.
Then I realized that although we had learned so much and covered so many topics, I still had four half-blank worksheets and booklets.  My corresponding teacher came over and said, "Don't worry about it.  They were engaged and they learned more this way than they would have writing out sentences.  As long as they met all the objectives verbally, you've done your job."  It was a great reminder for me that learning does not always come the way the teacher expects it to and that lesson plans are guidelines, not rules.

This is what ran across the room when I walked into the classroom this morning.  Oh Mondays. :)

LOVE!