The Bow Tie Teacher

End of the Semester party the award show

As of January 2012 I'll be a 2nd grade teacher. My principal felt that my skills would be better served in the lower grade. So the next couple of days I need to get my class moved and ready to roll when we get back from the break. 

We're having an End of the Year/Semester Party next Tuesday. My theme is 1st Semester Awards. I'm working on some fun awards to dole out. Thinking about some of these

• Good and Plenty: Read good and plenty of books/ideas
• Milky Way: For being a star student
• Almond Joy: Always being joyful
• Snickers: Able to make others snicker/laugh
• Whatchamacallit: known for asking more than your fair share of questions
• 3 Musketeers: Couldn't separate you from your friends
• Payday: Everyday is Payday cause you come to work every day! 
• Skor: You do a great job and make a great effort

Since someone told me it wasn't "fair" for me to ask each of my students to donate $3 towards our party I'll just foot the bill and get each a candybar. I geuss it's fair for me to dole out $23 than for each kid to bring $3 so we can have food/drinks at our party. 

I should give that person a "Sour Patch" award for trying to rain on my parade. 

Monday we're having an all day reading event. They're bringing in hot coco and the kiddies are going to read pretty much all day. I have some final educational activities for them to do while I'm packing my room, showing a video and maintaining order. Shouldn't be a disappointing day at all. 

 

Themed Thursdays

My students really liked Wordless Wednesday. So much that they didn't buck at all when I told them it was their wordless Wednesday and that they had to communicate sans words for 75 minutes. 

So this Thursday I'm thinking of having a themed day. I was considering using football lingo all day. Maybe the kids could do the "touchdown" signal when an answer is right, maybe the "no point" signal for wrong answers. Since I have an observation Thursday it better be good if I'm going to roll out something new like this. We'll see. 

Considering:

Football-Use football terms through out class. Also a small football to pass around when one is speaking. Might wear a jersey or ref shirt.

Poetry day-Have to ask all questions in a rhyme. Students have to snap for applause

Thoughtful Thursday- write a sincere complimentary note to a classmate telling them something about their school performance you think is neat or notable.  

Wordless Wednesday the recap

I started out today planning to do a Wordless Wednesday. I was going to not speak to the whole class, not until 2:15pm. There are always some housekeeping things that go on at the end of the day that I need to give some directions for. Back to Wordless Wednesday. The kiddos would have to a) follow board directions or directions on a particular assignment b) consult a classmate who did follow the board direction c) I did write some directions on the board and even scored work using my smart board. 

I have three different math classes and a homeroom. The homeroom is only 15 minutes so that goes as smooth as silk. Some of the babies aren't awake enough to cause any fuss. Now the math groups. My morning one has been whipped into shape and they took the Wordless Mr. Whitaker as a nice change of pace. They were quiet and quickly powered through their work. They're not (on paper) the strongest math group, but I'm sure I'll see a great deal of them move up and do well because it's a small group.

The group right after lunch can be a hand full. More rowdiness and certainly more talking. One reason they're coming from lunch. Makes me wonder if the cafe served a strict Paleo or Zone lunch menu what would change with this group. This group had already heard about Wordless Mr. Whitaker and wanted to get me talk to them. More time was spent trying to be funny than moving along in the assignment. Sadly, more kids lost points on Classdojo than I would like to have seen. This group is going to do well over all. I know that if I can really spark their brains, make them excited about the next lesson the silliness will be left at the door. It's not really a matter of what they ate at lunch as much as it's about me really lighting a fire in their minds about the wonders of math. I have a few ideas for them. 

My last group, is considered a middle group. I seriously think this group is just tired by 120pm. They've been in school all day and this is their last class just like it's mine. They don't really have the drive to push into hard concepts and would be just fine chilling all day. The boys LOVE to goof off and a football field sized room isn't big enough to keep them away from each other. If it's not talking about another's parent, throwing something gross or just being rude by talking, it's something else I haven't been privy to. There are some really, great kids in this pack. They want to learn and do their best to stand out (in a positive way) from the pack. I often apologize to them when the day really hits the fan cause I can see it in their eyes that they want this material.

Needless to say this group needed me to give it some direction at 215pm. Wordless worked well, but not stellar with them. I couldn't stand over each of the offenders in order to get them all to quiet down and refocus at the same time. Wordless Wednesday didn't work so well for them. Next time I just do Less Words Wednesday for that group. I'll only say 100 words or something. LOL!

For all my groups they have to do a Ticket out the Door. I usually ask a question recap of the daily lesson and have them write a response on a note card as the Ticket. Today I asked them a bonus question "What did you think of Wordless Wednesday"

Here are some responses:

• I didn't like it. The kids were bad. 
• I liked it, because I had to listen. I talked to my neighbor and got a few answers. 
• This was hard! I didn't like it at all. I had to be quiet to understand what was happening. 
• Don't do this again!!! I didn't like it. 
• We should always be quiet cause I learned a lot more about angles today. 
• Measurement is ok, but you not talking to us was hard. Why did you do this to us? 

I have some other daily ideas. I think what I'll do in the future is quash it for the last class and just teach that one as normal. I believe we're going to change schedules in 2012 so my last class might be my first class and all this could totally change.

My biggest take away is that I have to really kick my lessons up a lot to make the gray matter start sizzling. But here are somethings I also picked up.

• The roughest kids want to know what's going on. If they feel left out they'll quickly try to figure it out or just show out. 
• Having classroom managers seems cool, but if it takes to long to train them it's a moot point. 
• Maybe doing a Wordless day in the AM would throw off the afternoon group because they heard that Mr. Whitaker isn't speaking to us again. Only to find out that it wasn't true when they come to class. 
• For some reason I think I make more noise than the kids do. When I'm not talking, repeating, strongly repeating myself. The kids don't have to make noise over me. This isn't always the case. Maybe, just maybe I'm the problem. 
• Spotify is killing me! At one point they played "My Favorite Things" by Miles Davis. I almost said, "This is my jam".  Almost ruined my scheme. 
• One of my co-workers said I shouldn't talk to anyone, children or adults on WW. I think I'll just ignore her all day tomorrow just for kicks. 

I got my butt kicked at Crossfit South Cobb after a good day at school. No words on how horribly I did.