New Year, New Job

Summer is coming to an end quickly. While I have had a lot of fun and exciting experiences this summer, it is always exciting to get back into the swing of things at school. However, this year I will be changing positions, as I will now be a 6th grade Special Education teacher at a new school. While this is very exciting, I am also nervous because this will be a completely new job for me. However I will learn and adjust to the differences of being in a middle school, rather than an elementary school. The decision was difficult to make, but I will no longer have to drive 40 miles each way everyday. I will be employed with a great school in an excellent district. I look forward to blogging about my experiences in my new position throughout the year. :)

Creativity

I continued to be amazed by how much creativity kids really have. In my classroom a lot of my assignments are differentiated by giving choice to my students. I allow them to decide how they want their projects to look, and what they want to do with their projects. I give them the assignment and what I am looking for and they get to decide how they get there.

One assignment that my students just completed was to create their own folktale/fairytale/children's story. I was amazed by how creative and thoughtful these stories turned out to be. One of my students created a story that was like Hansel and Gretel, except in his story they were out for a walk because their mother sent them out to get some exercise. They weren't able to to walk very far because they would get tired quickly. Eventually they ran into this house of candy and they started to eat it. So far sort of like the real Hansel and Gretel, that's where his creativity started to blossom. He used detailed words and kept the reader interested in what was going to happen next.

It is amazing to see how much our students grow throughout the year. They are able to expand their knowledge in so many ways. The young boy who wrote the Hansel and Gretel story was upset with how I would have him expand on his writing at the beginning of the year, but to see how much he has grown and to see him explore new words within his writing has been such a great accomplishment. I am very proud of all of my students and the growth they have shown me throughout the year so far.

Conferences

All of the prep work has been done and the parents have been met. There is something about conferences that make you feel excited, nervous, and anxious. I am always excited to be able to sit down with the parents and talk with them about all of the wonderful projects, ideas, and skills their students have been using and applying in the classroom. I am eager to hear what the parents have to say and hear their input and suggestions on how I can improve. I think conferences are a way that the students, parents, and teachers are able to communicate with each other and let each other know how the feel the semester has been going. I also feel that this is a time to learn how we can grown in our position in learning. As a teacher I always find out what my students are looking for from me and reflect about how I can improve. When I do my conferences I have the students write a letter to their parents and to myself explaining what they think their strengths are, what they need to work on, a goal they have, and how their parents can help, how I can help, and what they will do to work towards achieving that goal. I think this is a way to help everyone reflect and think about what they can do to help the student to succeed in the classroom and in their learning. Conferences can be a hectic time for everyone, but I do think they are important and well worth the work that is put into them.

Juggling it all

Sometimes it can get pretty overwhelming making sure you get everything done that needs to be done as a teacher. You need to write lesson plans, differentiate your lessons, grade papers, prepare for upcoming events, and sometimes work on your own personal class work for courses you are taking. However, it is all worth it in the end. Sometimes it can be stressful and you wonder if it will all get finished on time and well, but I feel it is important to stay calm through it all. Sometimes people say being a teacher would be the easiest job, but I don't always think they know the work that goes into teaching outside of the classroom. As a teacher we need to do our best to help each one of our students succeed to the best of their ability. This can sometimes be challenging, but we do it because we enjoy seeing the faces of our students when they understand something they have been working on for awhile, or because we see the excitements in their faces when they are enjoying a lesson, or when we hear them discussing our lessons at the lunch table. We know our students appreciate our hard work, even if they don't always show it. I think it is great to be a teacher, and even if it does get hectic at times, it is always worth the smile a student gives us when they have accomplished something important to them. As we prepare for conferences, I hope everyone takes some time to reflect on their journey as a teacher and how much they really have made a difference in their students' lives.

Science Expo

Each year my 5th grade students complete science projects and share them in the form of a science expo. We have started to prepare our science expo projects which consist of the students doing research on a topic of their choice and then creating either a model, doing an experiment, or completing some sort of project to go along with their topic. They are also to find an expert in this field and contact them in some way. This has allowed me to teach them about how we can use e-mail to contact different people and how they can professionally contact them online. After they have their research done they start to write a research paper. This gives me the opportunity to teach the students how to write a research paper and cite their sources using a bibliography. I have decided to use GoogleDocs this year and to have the students share their papers with me so I can correct them online and share them back with them with the corrections. This will give the students a taste of communicating online with each other. I have also had the students start using Kidblog to blog about their progress weekly. So far this is going very well and the students are very engaged in this project. I am looking forward to seeing how this all plays out. By the end of this project the students will have created a project board, a model or experiment, written a research paper, and blogged about their process. This should be a very good learning experiment on many different concepts.