Last Day of Student Teaching

I finished my last day of student teaching this past Friday.  It was a bittersweet day.  I of course am happy to be COMPLETELY done with my bachelors degree but I am going to miss my class and my cooperating teacher and all the teachers I worked with.  My student teaching experience was a dream come true.  My cooperating teacher is just a perfect teacher.  She is organized, kind, creative, and fun.

  We got along extremely well and I learned so much from her.  With about 3 1/2 weeks left my cooperating teacher found out that she needed to go on part day bed rest because her blood pressure was extremely high (she's pregnant).  The day she found out she e-mailed my university supervisor to let him know she would need to take half days and would just have me be signed up as the sub.  Neither of us thought it would be a big deal but my university supervisor came rushing in that morning to talk to us about it.  Apparently  he didn't think the university would approve that situation. But he agreed to let it go (after drilling me about why I wanted to do it and telling me I was just doing it for the money). Okay subs in my school district make like $25 for a half day, I'm obviously not doing it for the money.  And ya, Sara and I totally planned for her to have high blood pressure so she would have to go on bed rest so I could make money (insert sarcasm). I just explained to him that I had already developed relationships with my students and other staff members and I was in the middle of teaching my unit and other projects with the students. I would have been devastated if I would have had to switch classes and it totally would have set me back having to adapt to another classroom. The school principal said he felt comfortable with the situation as he had observed me teaching and trusted both Sara and I's judgement. Luckily I was able to stay and had such an amazing experience. Our last day of school we had students present their magazine research reports that they had been working on for months to their parents and then there was a school wide family picnic.

Thomas came to the picnic and hung out for an hour or so afterwards as we watched our third grade program.  Sara's dad is a videographer and he filmed our program from a couple weeks ago and made DVD's. 
I had my first interview for a big girl job this week! It was for a local school district and was what they call a "screener" interview.  So they have a random principal interview you and take notes and then they fill out a rubric.  The rubric is sent to HR and the candidates who score the highest get called for a second interview.  The principal who interviewed me was really nice and I felt at ease. 

 This bookmark is my favorite.  It says "My favorite thing about Mrs. Giles is she's fun and when she teaches stuff that is normally boring like states of matter she makes it fun."

I love, love, loved my student teaching experience and will always think back on this time fondly.

Student Teaching Week #6

I love weekends.  Friday night Thomas picked me up from school and we headed to the foothills for a 5 mile run.  It sucked! First of all because it's all up hill and dirt but we both just felt so tired.  I was ticked at those darn hills! We made it through though and headed over to USwirl frozen yogurt, our new favorite frozen yogurt shop.  I found my favorite combo: coconut and mango peach swirl with cherries and mini gummy bears.  Delish!
Saturday I went with Tess to hot yoga.  Yoga is now an important part of my weekly workouts.  I try to do one workout video during the week and then go to a class on the weekend.  I honestly feel like it has improved my running and it really helps with soreness and tight muscles from stress.  Once I got home from yoga Thomas and I went around our neighborhood because the HOA organized a neighborhood garage sale.  It was a BEAUTIFUL day out and we had fun walking around checking out what people had.  The neighborhoods here are huge and they all have names.  So people will commonly say "I live in Hobble Creek neighborhood".  We ended up getting a pretty much brand new snowboarding jacket for Thomas for $20. 
I have been really wanting to get a bike that I can use for duathalons or sprint triathalons and some people we ran in to at a garage sale suggested a bike shop here close by.  We stopped by and chatted a bit but it wasn't too much help.  It's kind of scary getting in to a new sport you know nothing about.  I hardly know anything about bikes but am starting to get an idea of what I want.  I want to be able to use it on dirt trails but also on the road so I'm thinking about a hybrid bike like these:

I had an 11-miler this weekend and was on my own.  I did a big no-no and didn't eat before running so about 25 minutes into the run I was starving! I had brought along some sharkies but wasn't planning on eating them til 6 miles in but I dug in at mile 2.5.  I was planning on taking the greenbelt the whole way but after three miles it was closed because the river is too high.  So I took one of the main roads pretty much right into downtown Boise.  Mentally it was a tough run but I maintained about a 9 minute mile the whole way.  My goal for this next half marathon is to maintain an 8:45 pace the whole way. 
Our pool opens this next Friday but Thomas and I went out this evening and layed out for about an hour.  The weather is just perfect and I ended up dozing off outside laying on my towel. 
Wonderful weekend! This week should be exciting, we have our third grade program and so Monday and Tuesday we will be practicing the last half of the day and Wednesday all day and then the program is Wednesday night.  Since it is a performing arts school the program is a huge deal. We have somebody record it and sell BluRay DVD's of the performance and the props are big, detailed, and very creative. 
The school district's levy did not pass so it doesn't look like they will be hiring at my school.  I'm bummed about it cause I love my school so much but I've started applying to other teaching jobs around the area.  Crazy!!!

Student Teaching Week #5

I'm halfway done with student teaching! It is going by so fast and I know will be done before I know it.  I really am enjoying my student teaching experience so much.  I love the kids and am learning so much from my cooperating teacher. 
The science unit I am teaching is on the states of matter and so we have been doing little experiments with evaporation, condensation, and freezing.  The kids learned this past week that salt lowers the freezing point of ice water and so today (Monday) we made ice cream.  They loved it and at classroom meeting almost all of them said that was their favorite part of the day.  Thomas and I made some last night and tested it out and it was so good.  Homemade icecream is the best and who knew it was so easy to make?!

• 1/2 cup milk
• 1/2 cup whipping cream (heavy cream)
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1/4 teaspoon vanilla or vanilla flavoring 
• 1/2 to 3/4 cup sodium chloride (NaCl) as table salt or rock salt
• 2 cups ice
• 1-quart Ziploc^TM bag
• 1-gallon Ziploc^TM bag
• themometer
• measuring cups and spoons
• cups and spoons for eating your treat!

Procedure

1. Add 1/4 cup sugar, 1/2 cup milk, 1/2 cup whipping cream, and 1/4 teaspoon vanilla to the quart ziploc^TM bag. Seal the bag securely.
2. Put 2 cups of ice into the gallon ziploc^TM bag.
3. Use a thermometer to measure and record the temperature of the ice in the gallon bag.
4. Add 1/2 to 3/4 cup salt (sodium chloride) to the bag of ice.
5. Place the sealed quart bag inside the gallon bag of ice and salt. Seal the gallon bag securely.
6. Gently rock the gallon bag from side to side. It's best to hold it by the top seal or to have gloves or a cloth between the bag and your hands because the bag will be cold enough to damage your skin.
7. Continue to rock the bag for 10-15 minutes or until the contents of the quart bag have solidified into ice cream.
8. Open the gallon bag and use the thermometer to measure and record the temperature of the ice/salt mixture.
9. Remove the quart bag, open it, serve the contents into cups with spoons and ENJOY!

Thomas and I are both learning that when you have a spouse who is a teacher, you get roped in to doing a lot of teacher stuff.  For example: grading papers, cutting things out, making copies, going to the store for supplies, volunteering at school events, and helping with projects in the classroom.  Today, Thomas came with me to help get everything ready for making ice cream. He's such a good teacher's spouse :)
As I was walking home from school today I had to take a picture of the little park I walk through.  It is just the perfect example of springtime.

Student Teaching Week #3

Another great week at Pioneer Elementary.  Our principal does the daily announcements over the intercom every morning and he always ends it with "learn something new out there pumas!" It makes me laugh every time.  He has the best announcers voice.
One experience this weekend that kind of broke my heart was that one of the girls in my class told me two days in a row that her snack had been stolen.  Everyday the kids get about 5 minutes to pull out a snack around 10:30am.  Some other student said she saw one of the boys eating the peanut butter crackers that the little girl was missing.  I looked in his desk at recess and saw the wrapper of the crackers.  So my cooperating teacher talked to him and let him know that some snacks had been taken and if it was him it needed to stop.  She let me know that his mom doesn't send him with a snack ever.  I guess he get's his breakfast and lunch at school and then the school even sends him food home over the weekend.  It broke my heart the next day seeing him watch while all of the other students ate their snacks.  I was teaching a math lesson about fractions that involved cutting apples and so I made sure to have him help and then let him have half the apple along with another boy who had forgotten his snack.  Then on Friday when he got his food for the weekend put in his backpack, during snack he ate a ton of it! He pulled out a fruit roll up, a little single serving box of frosted flakes, and a poptart.  It made me so sad to think that he might be so hungry.  I know that the other students don't realize that he doesn't bring a snack but it must seem like they do to him and I can just imagine how that makes him feel :( 
This next week I will be pretty much full time teaching.  Most of my Saturday's are spent lesson planning with a little fun filled in there.
This Saturday I went to another hot yoga class with Tess.  This time the teacher she normally goes to was there and it was Bikram yoga which I hadn't done before.  I really liked it and am excited to make it a part of my regular weekly workouts.  This coming Saturday Thomas and I and Tess and Ryan will be participating in the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure 5K so we won't be able to go to Jaime's class.  But Tess and I will be going to the 6am Friday class with Don, our instructor from last week.

After yoga Tess and I both ran home to shower and get ready and then her, Ryan, and little Graham picked Thomas and I up and we went to the downtown Boise's farmer's market.  I was surpised at the number of samples of food.  There was meat, salsas, bread, cheese, and lots more.  I bought a bag of vanilla bath salts as a treat for myself for after my long runs.

Which speaking of long runs... I finished my second one of this training cycle this weekend.  It was another 8-miler and this time a little more flat since we ran on the greenbelt.  Thomas ran 5.5 of it with me.  He ran the first three and then started walking back while I ran one more and then met up with him with about 2.5 left.  The greenbelt is just a couple miles down the street from our apartment and is so pretty it runs along the river and has tons of parks that you run past and tons of walkers and joggers.

Student Teaching Week #2

I really loved hot yoga.  I told my cooperating teacher on Friday that I was so excited to go so that I could finally be warm.  Our school is kept really cold during the day so I am constantly freezing. I was a little worried it would be too hot but I guess living in Arizona for a year and a half helped me deal with the heat.  Tess checked the thermostat and the room as 95 degrees.  The teacher Tess normally goes to didn't show up so another teacher took over.  His name was Don and he was a husky guy with a beer belly but he could get way deeper into those poses than I could.  I was feeling sore from the 8 miles the day before and it felt so good to stretch.  Tess and I both bought a pass for 5 classes for $25.  Can't wait to go again :)
Saturday night Thomas and I had a date night and used a movie ticket he got for Christmas from the hospital he was working at.  We saw Water For Elephants.  We both really enjoyed it and it made me want to read the book again.  
This week at school:
The students haven't been getting a paintbrush after they go to the art specialist or the book from the librarian (which they get to display outside their classroom door to show they were well behaved).  So my cooperating teacher had them write a letter to the specialists apologizing.  One of the girls in my class who is so sweet and well behaved decided to write a letter to me too. 

One day I was sitting at the teacher's computer typing in grades when the kids were putting stuff away in their cubbies.  Someone tossed a note on the desk right next to me and this is what it said:
I really love these kids.  They make me laugh everyday.

It cracks me up that the boys like tracing and coloring these little Bratz doll coloring sheets.  And it makes me smile that some of the kids call me Miss G.  Makes me sound pretty gangsta :)

Week #1 of student teaching

I have been so blessed with where and who I am teaching with.  The elementary school I am teaching at is a magnet school.  How a magnet school works (at least ours) is that students are admitted through a lottery.  First preference is given to siblings of students who are already enrolled, then to students who live in the school's boundaries, then in the school district, and then out of district students.  They are focused on the arts so there is a ton of art work that is integrated in to all subjects.  The hallway walls are covered with student art work and it's really good work.  Students attend a lot of specialists.  They attend an art class, music class, keyboarding/piano class, P.E., computer, and library class.  It seems like there is less time than a typical classroom to teach math, science, and reading but this is a very high performing school.  I personally think it is better for the students to be moving a lot and going to these different specialists rather than just sitting in the classroom the whole day listening to the same teacher.  I am teaching in the third grade and there are 21 students in my class.  I love the smaller class size! At this school third grade class sizes are capped at 24 students.  That seems to make a huge difference as well.  My cooperating teacher is very well organized and very willing to help me.  I think I was put with a perfect teacher. 
This week I have mostly been observing.  The schedule they have is different everyday and that will take some getting used to but my teacher has a great routine and effective procedures in place that keep the class running smoothly.  I have been writing down all the ideas I am getting from her example in a notebook and so far have some great ideas.  After I took a motivation and management class a few years ago at school I became really interested in Love and Logic.  Well it just so happens that my teacher used Love and Logic in her classroom. The basis of Love and Logic is that kids need to be given choices and then held accountable for those choices through natural consequences. 
The students in my classroom are really well behaved and fun kids.  The first day I made it a point to memorize all of their names and I successfully did so.  Our classroom has a ton of parent volunteers.  Every morning and afternoon we have a different parent who volunteers to help out with things in the classroom.  I've never seen a school with so much parent support.  The school is in a really nice area and most of the students seem to come from family with a high socio economic status so that probably has something to do with it. 
Here are some of my favorite little happenings this week:
- At the end of each day we have a classroom meeting.  At the classroom meetings students can say their favorite part of the day, something they learned that day, and give a gold star to somebody who helped them out that day.  Well my cooperating teacher was asking them what very important, big event did they need to be ready for on Monday.  One little boy raised his hand and said "Mrs. Giles is going to start teaching!"  My teacher and I laughed and she told him that yes, that was very important but what she was referring to was their ISAT testing.
- One of the boys T in my class just had a new baby brother this past week and has been having behavior problems.  He was at the back of the line with his head down, frowning, shuffling his feet and I asked him what was wrong.  He told me that nobody at the school liked him.  Then he told me "You better get used to people saying mean things to me around here!"  I asked him "Like what?" and he replied "Like shut up!" I let him know that that wouldn't be happening while I was around.  It was just kind of funny cause I thought he'd say the kids were saying a lot meaner things but nope apparently to a third grade shut up is a really mean thing.
- The kids had dance tryouts for the program they will be performing in June.  It was so fun seeing them waltz together.  One little girl S who is super out going was dancing with a little boy and he dropped his hand from off her back while the teacher was giving instructions.  She immediatley grabbed his hand and put it right back on her back for him. 
-When my cooperating teacher was about to announce who made the dance tryouts.  Little H who has been in dance since she was like two years old sat up really straight in her chair and got this smug little smile on her face and crossed her fingers and her arms.  Her smile was priceless when her name was announced.  Her best friend K didn't make it and this made her sad.  K was going to stay after for puppet tryouts during lunch recess but when she found out H couldn't stay because she had already made it for dance she decided she wouldn't try out for puppets anymore cause she wanted to play with H at recess. It makes me laugh because I remember that friends were so important at that age and I totally would have done the same thing.
- One little girl C is so quiet and sweet.  I noticed during free time she was writing something and I asked her what it was.  It was a classroom newspaper with things like lost and found, bad news, announcements, and games!

I was so impressed and asked her where she got the idea.  Apparently it was from a book she read.  Some other kids came over to look and they were so excited and wanted her to make copies for all of them. Then they all decided they wanted to make a class paper and assigned different roles like "comic artist".
- The students at this age are really in to little knick knack things.  The boys all trade these little erasers that come in weird shapes like hamburgers and pop cans.

  The girls really like these sheets of paper that have the outline of a girl traced on them (it looks like a Bratz doll) and then they stencil in the features like the hair and eyebrows.

I totally remember loving little things like that too. I think pogs were the cool thing back then.
So far student teaching is going extremely well.  This next week I am teaching all the reading, cursive, and spelling lessons. It will probably get a lot busier, as my online class also beings this week. 

Last Day of Middle School

My last day at the middle school was last Thursday.  I felt so loved by the students and left feeling satisfied with my teaching and very happy with the relationships I developed with the students.  One of the students who is considered by other teachers a "troublemaker" just stole my heart from the beginning.  He is a short little guy with a tough personality.  I remember one of my first days he wasn't doing his math homework and I asked him if he was planning on doing it at home and getting help from his parents.  He told me his parents can't help him cause they don't know how to do the math he is doing.  That broke my heart.  He had a para educator who would help him and a few other students during math class.  I found that most of the time he just needed instructions repeated one more time and then he would get right to his work.  One of my last days after math class he went up to my cooperating teacher and asked him "Did you plan that math lesson or did Mrs. Giles?" my cooperating teacher told him that I had planned it and this student responded with "Oh that's why it was so fun." My cooperating teacher was a little  insulted by that comment but we laughed about it and it was a huge compliment to me.  That lesson they were learning about area of rectangular prisms and how to find it.  They used blocks and dice to fill up a box and then would count how many cubes it took to fill it up.  They then figured that they knew how to find the area of the base (length x width) and then they just had to multiply that by the height of the rectangle.  I found it is so important to use manipulatives and to have kids working together and it really makes a lesson so much better.
My last day this student came in before school to get help with math.  As I was helping him I told him I was going to miss him and this tough little guy just said really sweet like "Same here!"  The students made me a big card and they all wrote on it.  So sweet.  Some of the girls stayed for a bit during my lunch period and before they left gave me hugs.  Here are some of my favorite notes on the card:

 The student who made the front of the card has better handwriting than I do! That's a 6th graders handwriting!

 Why? Why? Why? This totally is how this student talks she's hilarious :)

 U Rock! Totally reminds me something you would write in your friend's 6th grade year book.

 This one says: Thank you for making there be something to look forward to in math. I hope you have a great time in wherever you are. Thank you for making my year :)

 This cracks me up: "Thanx you For your vist"

My cooperating teacher had told the students since the beginning of the year if they got a class average of 90% on their math test they would get a smoothie party.  Two weeks before I left they earned one :)

Placement!

I received my placement!!! Third grade here I come! I can't wait, third graders still think their teachers are rock stars.  I have such fond memories of third grade and I adored my teacher, Mrs. Chalkley.  I can't believe student teaching is almost here!! We got some more happy news about our new apartment.  Since I'm teaching we get half off of the normally $300 deposit.  I guess teachers have a good track record of taking good care of their rentals :)

Practicum Happiness

This week I had my last formal observation by my professor.  I was nervous because I was sick over the weekend and still not feeling well.  He observed another math lesson and it went really well.  I love being creative and finding fun ways to teach math.  There are some lessons were it's really hard to find manipulatives and real life examples to help teach the students but this lesson had some good hands on activities that I used.  My professor said he has been impressed with my lesson planning and teaching.  I still need to work on using less teacher talk and working on my questioning techniques so that students are answering their own questions instead of me just "telling". 
I was so happy this Thursday when I witnessed a small miracle with one of my students.  This particular student has selective mutism.  So he has such bad anxiety he can't talk in public.  There are 18 people that he will talk to including his family.  And when he is in public he will only whisper (to those selective people).  Thursday morning he was in the classroom with his mom before class.  His mom asked if they could talk with me, so my cooperating teacher had all the other students leave so this student wouldn't be so scared.  I guess he had a goal to be able to talk to me :) And he DID!!!! I was soooo happy! He told me about his two hamsters and a little about his family as well.  He did whisper but in a louder than normal whisper.  I asked him if there was anything I could do to help in not feel so anxious and he said not really but we made a deal that when I am teaching math if he doesn't understand something I will go and ask him one on one if he has understood everything (he won't raise his hand in class).  I had made a personal goal to make him for comfortable enough that by the end of the semester he spoke to me and he did :) That made my week.  That is what teaching is all about. 
This weekend we have plans to go snowboarding and I can't wait to get out of town and have some fun with my lover :)

I heart sixth grade

Thursday was my first day at the middle school where I will be doing my senior practicum.  I was so relieved when my old roommate Tiffany let me know that she knew the wife of my cooperating teacher and that she was way nice so she assumed he would be too.  And he was :) He is really laidback and manages his classroom well and the kids really like him.  My first day I kind of just observed and got to know how the classroom runs as well as introducing myself to the students. 
There are six periods in the day and we teach five of them, one is our prep hour.  The first two periods are math, one grade level the other advanced, then there is social studies, another grade-level math class, and then another social studies class.  All together there are about 70 students that I will need to learn names for.  I can't believe how huge class sizes are! 31 students in one class!?
I was nervous about teaching older students (6th grade) but I already really love the kids.  They love to talk and to get to know me. First thing when I walked into the classroom a group of 3 or 4 girls come up to me and were excitedly asking if I was their student teacher.  The first thing one of the girls said to me was "You are really pretty." :) Being a teacher is a huge self esteem booster. I'm telling ya, you feel like a rock star going into a classroom full of students.
My cooperating teacher teaches math and social studies.  Next week I will start teaching math and will have my first formal observation from my proffesor and then the following week I will begin the unit I make on social studies.  I've started planning the unit and already feel a little overwhelmed.  I want the information my students learn to be pertinent to their lives and not just memorizing facts about the mayans, aztecs, and incas (that's what the unit will be on).  There isn't really a teacher textbook to get ideas from it's just whatever what I want to teach.  I like the ability to be creative but there is just so much information, it's hard to know what to teach and what not to.  I'm super excited though to practice my lesson planning and teaching:)
Thursday was a long day because I spend from 8:30am-4:00pm in the school and then head to the college for a seminar from 4:30pm-6:00pm.  Even though my days are long I've been feeling great cause I have made sure to exercise in the mornings, seriously that helps me be alert and have energy all day long.  Plus I go to bed at like 9:30pm every night.  This weekend will be a long one because of Civil Rights Day on Monday and Tuesday is teacher inservice day at the middle school so that means no school for me :) Lots of time to lesson plan.