The Giving Tree

Greetings Friends,

It's not a well kept secret that I love nature. Hiking is one of my favorite hobbies and I actually only got super into it a year or two ago. Since then, I have done tons of trails and am hooked. Every long break I have, I usually try to squeeze in a handful of new hikes. Oh, that's my other thing, I won't say never, but I seldom hike the same trail twice. Life is short and there is so much to see. As a self-proclaimed explorer, I want to see as much of it as I can.

Fashionate About Teaching

Hi Friends,

I hope everyone is enjoying the holiday season. Again, time seems to have passed me by and I've been rather lazy with my posts. Classroom updates soon, I promise! Now that I'm on my winter break though, I thought I'd do a for-fun post today and blog about my teacher wardrobe. Fellas, read no further. Just kidding! :)

If I could describe my fashion sense in one word it would be: simple. I'm not one to (over) accessorize, I often avoid loud colors like the plague, and I don't deviate too far from what I know I like. In other words, I'm not much of a risk-taker when it comes to my outfits. That being said, I do love to express myself through my clothes especially for my kids.

Free Dress Day

So last week the intercom went *bing* and my principal announced that we were going to have a school-wide free dress day on Friday (I teach at a school that requires uniforms). After the announcement one of my girls says, "Woo hoo! I'm going to get a free dress tomorrow!" to which one of my boys responds, "That's not fair. It's only for girls?". Got to love working with those charming and innocent-minded inner-city 5 year olds! :)

I New It

Hi friends! It's nearly a third of the way through the school year and I received yet another new student last Friday. I guess there's one more reason to reset my expectations for the whole class! I have parent conferences all week long and am frantically trying to get my report cards in so I won't be posting a lengthy post tonight, but I have tons of art and student samples I can't wait to share from the last month or so. Stay tuned!

The Snowball Effect

Well friends, it happened. I missed one post and over 3 weeks later I haven't posted an update since. Yowza!

One Flu Over the Cuckoo's Nest

Hi friends, so I got completely wiped out by the flu this weekend. I mean I haven't felt this sick since I caught the swine flu my sophomore year in college. Luckily it was a three-day weekend so I had ample time to recover. Even so, being bedridden for nearly three whole days is not the business!

FYT tip #3 - take your vitamins, get good sleep, make time to exercise, whatever your body needs, take good care of it!

Anyways this is my lame excuse for missing my LOTW post. I'll get it up as soon as I can. Have a great week and happy teaching! 

Update:
February 10, 2012

Below is an informative graphic sent to me by a reader. Attribution to OnlineEducation.net

To be perfectly honest, I am personally quite adverse to vaccinations and medicine in general, but I will admit I did get the flu vaccine this year (Kaiser was out of the shots so I had to take the nasal spray - YUCK!) after a horrible week of stomach flu-like symptoms toward the end of 2012. I will say, I'm quite surprised that I didn't get sick from it AND I'm actually feeling better than ever here in February. So regardless of where your stance is on vaccinations, I think the bottom line is to be informed of all the options out there so that you can make the best decision for yourself and your health.

The Little Things

Hello friends, I missed my window of sleep so I guess I'll disrupt the flow of my usual once-a-week updates and post an update tonight as well. The new rug arrived yesterday and it is beyond fabulous! The colors are so vibrant and my room is finally starting to feel and look like a real kindergarten classroom instead of an "Oh crapola, we need to make room for an overflow kinder" after thought.

Me solving the world's hardest puzzle.

True Story

I can't believe or express in words how accurately this graph depicts where I am as a first year teacher at this very moment. Thus, I shall let it speak for itself. Devastatingly a true story. Bring on the Rejuvenation phase already I say! :)

Letter of the Week: Vv

V is for Vase/vegetables.

Lavender Oil and Dim Lights

This story just makes me laugh. I had a sub Monday afternoon so that I could take the time to collaborate with my old master teacher and hash out some things she had observed in the morning that would help with my classroom management. Well long story short, the secretary thought only my master teacher had requested a sub and therefore when I brought it to her attention, she had to find a sub for me last minute, the day of. My goodness! Who knew this would draw out the crazies?!

Back to the Drawing Board

This week our LOTW was the letter Oo, but in all honesty I don't think my students got very much out of this week so I won't be posting about our curriculum. Instead, I'd like to focus this week's post on classroom management. My classroom management (or lack thereof) just got out of hand and I've chosen to go back to the start. After talking to other teachers on my team and really reflecting on my classroom management system I've realized that I have not provided enough support/scaffolding for my students to succeed and meet my expectations. All week long we practiced our classroom rules and expectations. We practiced, and practiced, and practiced some more. We role played different scenarios during our Good Morning Circle time. Teaching kindergarten is so much more than simply teaching the ABCs. I have to teach the routine. Without a solid foundation, I know the remainder of this school year is going to be a struggle.

Letter of the Week: Ii

Hi everyone! It's the start of a new week and I can't believe how quickly November is approaching. My birthday festivities continued all the way through to the weekend with a lovely BBQ at my house back in LA. My parents went all out and I loved spending the night eating delicious food and hanging out with great friends. I couldn't have asked for a better birthday week!

I could have asked for a better teaching week though... Last week our LOTW was the letter Ii. Our read aloud focus book was The Humbug Witch by Lorna Balian. It's a cute story about a "witch" who doesn't seem to have any magic powers. The kids adored it.

A Very Happy Birthday

Thank you so much to everyone who sent me a birthday wish today. I'm so grateful to have each and every single person that I have in my life. Everyone from family to friends, down to acquaintances. You are all wonderful, just wonderful! I was surprised by a birthday card from a couple of my students today who I had taught during my brief time subbing before I landed my kinder job. I was touched, especially after a rough day in my classroom.

How does one girl get so lucky?!? :)

Like A Boss

Hi friends! Happy National Boss' Day! I didn't even know we had such a day. Regardless, the staff at IH put together a really cute banner and even brought cake to celebrate! Gosh, cake seriously makes everything better. Mmm, cake... Anyways, I feel really fortunate to have Mr. D as my boss. Don't worry, my principal doesn't read my blog so I'm not trying to score points or anything when I say this, but I mean it. It's not often that teachers get the kind of freedom that I have with my classroom, especially as a first year teacher. I love that Mr. D has trusted me to teach what I want to teach and more importantly how I want to teach. It's given me so many opportunities to succeed and fail this year, both of which have resulted in wonderfully meaningful teaching moments. I'm not guaranteed a job next year, so I hope I can make the most of this privilege and make every moment count toward refining my practice as a teacher and pushing myself one step closer to becoming a Pokemon master, I mean master teacher!

As a side rant, I often ponder if I am good at anything. Like, what is my talent? Do I even have one? Needless to say, I've come to the conclusion that I don't in fact have a talent and I'm not particularly skilled in any one thing either. I will say this though, I know what I like and I really enjoy the things I like. For instance, I really like writing. People ask me all the time how I manage to keep a blog going during my first year of teaching. Well, the truth is I love to write and this gives me a chance to do what I love and share it with other people. It's a lot like my approach to teaching.

Letter of the Week: Uu

Howdy everyone! I was so excited to come back to school and see my students again! I couldn't believe how much they had grown in just two weeks. It was funny how well behaved my students were for the first 20 minutes of class on Tuesday, but once they established themselves as being back in the classroom, they went right back to being the rowdy group of kinders I was used to :). We received our final student this last week and after nearly 2 months of school, I finally have my class roster. Last week we focused on the letter Uu. I plan on hitting the remaining vowels here in the next couple weeks so students can do some word building and cvc work.

Playdough

I realized I wanted a new activity for center rotations that could help build letter recognition skills and be offered during activity time as well. Playdough fit the bill perfectly as it's also awesome for developing fine motor skills. The only problem was I'd already spent over half of my new teacher budget within the first half of the school year and buying playdough in bulk would surely leave another hefty dent. My mission, if I so chose to accept it, was to create a playdough center for under $10. Well, I did it, and quite easily!

I followed the following recipe and just doubled it, making two separate batches.

2 cups plain flour

1 cup salt

4 tsps cream of tartar

2 cups boiling water

2 tsps oil

food coloring

You just mix all the ingredients together until the playdough is the right consistency. Wait a little for the mixture to cool before kneading it with your hands. I used to work at my college's dining hall all through my undergrad so my hands are pretty much immune to heat.

I was really surprised at how easy (and fun!) the playdough was to make and from what I've read, it can last for months! You can't really tell from the picture but this recipe yields a lot of playdough. The most expensive item was the cream of tartar which was a little over $5. Everything else I was either able to buy for $2 or less or had lying around in the pantry already. Happy Monday everyone!

North Carolina

The Terraces at Sarah P. Duke Gardens.

Hello friends! I just flew back from my trip in NC yesterday and although I absolutely loved it out there, I'm glad to be back home. What can I say, I'm definitely a city girl. Highlights of the trip included meeting my boyfriend's family and watching him catch big fish in the lake right by his house, trekking through William B. Umstead State Park in the rain, enjoying a visit to the NC Museum of Natural Sciences, trying Carolina BBQ, having time to finish my book club book, and visiting the beautiful gardens and campus of Duke University.

While we were driving around Fuquay-Varina, I saw a bunch of signs for various candidates running. Two Republican candidates really stuck out: Fitts and Barefoot. This just really tickled my fancy. My mind works in funny ways because the first thing that came to it when I saw the Fitts sign was "if the shoe fits...". Of course being the level 78 pun master that I am it was more like "If the shoe Fitts...". Now, after my boyfriend brought to my attention the Barefoot sign, I couldn't resist but to add another layer resulting in the made-up slogan "If the shoe Fitts why go Barefoot?". I mean come on, you don't get politician names set up any better than that! It's like a pass from Kobe to Shaq for the dunk during the Lakers dynasty. It was gold. Pure gold. Alas, maybe in another lifetime I would have made a great campaign manager. 

With about 4 days left of my break, it's time to start getting back into gear. Happy Thursday!

Letter of the Week: Ss

It is officially the start of a glorious and long awaited two-week break. Since I pretty much got hired a week or so after graduating, I haven't had a chance to really lounge around and do nothing. I'm going to take the first couple days of my break to do just that. Then I'll be out for a week visiting my boyfriend's family in North Carolina. It will be my first time meeting them and my second time visiting North Carolina. (I have aunts that live there). I offered to make home visits to help my students over the break, but I haven't received any call backs in regards to scheduling them from families showing interest. I'll have to get more proactive when I get back from NC.

Journals

I'd been brainstorming ways to have some nice looking journals for my kinders for a fraction of the price when I came cross this video here. Simple and functional - perfect!

Saying Thank You

Thank you for teaching us.
We love to dance!

When was the last time you wrote a thank you card? Back when I was student teaching I got a beautiful thank you message from my kinder students. I can't describe how incredible it made me feel. Truly, there are few things simpler than taking a couple of minutes to write a genuine little thank you to show your appreciation.

All of the kindergarten classes at my school have been participating in dance for the past five weeks. Tomorrow will be our last dance session before the break. We took some time today to write a thank you note and sign it for our wonderful instructor. I told my students that whenever someone takes time to share something, anything, with us, we have to remember to thank him/her. My students are really excited to give Ms. Christina their note tomorrow. We hope she likes it! :)

Letter of the Week: Ee

Ahoy there friends! Last week my class roster grew to 21 students and I have one more on his/her way. That means we've reached maximum capacity in Room 13. I can't believe how quickly my overflow class filled up. Well actually, I can, and with it came a whirlwind of new challenges. Having that many new students enroll in the last couple weeks completely threw off my classroom dynamic! Honestly, it caught me a little off guard. I had a very difficult time managing my class last week and struggled to have them follow even the most basic of directions. After careful deliberation, I decided that I'm going to scratch stressing the curriculum this coming week and focus more of my attention on gaining my students' trust and having them trust each other. With all the new kids added to the mix, I feel my students really need to learn to work with me and one another. Therefore, this week we will be doing a lot of community building activities in hopes that this will help set a better tone for our classroom as well as classroom expectations in the future. If you have any good resources or ideas for community building activities I would love to hear about them! I think this is apt timing as we will be on our fall break starting next week. It stinks to lose my kids for two weeks, especially the new ones who are just starting to get accustomed to school, but that's beyond my control isn't it?

Kids Say The Darnedest Things

Last Friday, I took advantage of an awesome opportunity to volunteer and be a judge for the K-3 Spelling Bee after school. I was surprised that kindergarteners were allowed to participate, especially this early in the year. Most of my students don't even know their letters yet. As surprising as that was, I was even more surprised at how hilarious some of the answers were.

Judge: Spell 'hat'.

Kinder Contestant: Um, I don't know how to spell hat... but I can spell ball!!

Judge: Spell 'see'.

Kinder Contestant: V... w... x.. y.. Z!?!?!

Gosh, they were so stinking cute! 

First year teacher tip #6 - Show your administration and staff that you care about the entire school and/or community (and not just the students in your classroom) by volunteering your time for various events, school-related or otherwise.

I hope everyone has a fantastic week!

Letter of the Week: Tt

And just like that another week has gone by. I've taught for a little over three weeks now and everyday I love my students more and more. In grad school, one of my professors showed us an activity called unfortunately/fortunately. It might have been called fortunately/unfortunately, but I personally subscribe to the bad-news-first-then-good-news-after school of thought so let's just go with it. You tell your partner one thing that is going not so well and one thing that is going well about your day, week, whatever. I thought I would engage in this activity today. So unfortunately, I'm still a little frustrated with the lack of continuity across subject matter in my curriculum. Fortunately, I'm really starting to get into the hang of getting my lesson plans done much more efficiently! The great thing about kinder is that once you have your routines in place then all you have to do is fill in the activities with new letters or themes, etc. Building the structure that works best for you however, is the hard part. My schedule very closely resembles the schedule that I used when I was student teaching. Roughly speaking, this is what our day looks like.

This week our LOTW was Tt and for the LOTW Art center activity we made Trees and tigers. If you saw my kiddos working this week you would not believe me if I told you just two weeks ago they had trouble cutting and following basic directions. I can't believe how far my students have come! In that sense, they are really letting me know that they are getting ready to start center rotations pretty soon. I'm a little torn because in two week my students will have a two-week vacation for their fall break. Ugh! Hopefully they will still be able to get into the groove of our classroom routines quickly upon return.

T is for tree/tiger.

That Moment When

Hi friends! Today was a marvelous day of teaching. You ever just get into "the zone"? Well, today I was totally in the zone. I was so nervous about today because my district's superintendent was paying a visit. All of the other kinder teachers were at a systematic ELD training off campus (conveniently enough HAHA) so I was the lone teacher left to represent my grade level. I don't know why, but for as long as I can remember, I've been a creature of validation. I need it. I crave it. I often times can't move forward without it. It's probably why I enjoyed student teaching so much. Both of my cooperating teachers were excellent about providing me with meaningful feedback about my teaching. To a certain degree, I think we all like to hear when we're doing a good job, especially when we are new to something. Wouldn't you agree? I like to hear about things that I'm not doing well too so that I can reflect and brainstorm ways to make myself better. After chatting with my principal after school, I'm pleased to say that the superintendent was very satisfied with his visit including what he observed in my classroom (all FIVE minutes of it, heh). Can I get a WOOT WOOT?!?

Letter of the Week: Rr

I hate minimum days! We were on minimum day schedule all week for parent conferences and I felt like I was hardly able to get anything done... At least my conferences went well! With a four day week coming up next week, I'm feeling a little crunched for time. Luckily Rr is a pretty high frequency letter so even though I couldn't spend as much time on it as I would have liked this week, my students will have many opportunities to see it again. Following a similar line of thought, the Letter of the Week next week will be Tt, another high frequency letter. This way, I figure losing a day for Labor Day won't be so bad.

Letter of the Week: Aa

Parent conferences started last Friday and I tried to get as much testing done as possible so that I could have goals ready to discuss with parents during conferences. The kindergarten team at my school uses RESULTS. We test for the following:

Room 13

Hello friends! I survived my first week and then some of school and boy was it tough, but incredibly satisfying. I have never been so happy while being so tired at the same time.

First year teacher tip #283: Be prepared to stay late, really late, especially if you are teaching kinder. I forgot just how much prep goes into all the various crafts and activities.

Setting up my classroom required lots of thinking and resources. Being the teacher of the overflow class, my room was sparse with resources and smaller than the other kindergarten classrooms. Not to mention I had a whopping two days to get my classroom going - certainly not the ideal situation for my first year of teaching. Regardless of the circumstances, I had to make it work. I'm a teacher. Shame on me if I haven't learned to be flexible and pretend like it was on the lesson plan by now. With that said, welcome to Room 13! Here are some snapshots of the bare essentials that I put up to get my room started for the year.

The Big Day

Tomorrow is my first day as a kindergarten teacher! I have been working my tail off these past couple days buying supplies, rearranging furniture, and planning my curriculum (slowly but surely!). I'm hoping to get my room looking a lot nicer than it looks now. Wednesday kind of crept up on me so I was forced to put some things up that really weren't quite ready to go up yet. Right now I am overwhelmed with excitement and extremely eager to meet my new students and start this year. I'm already a week and a half behind the other classrooms but I have very high expectations and goals for my kinders. It's going to be a great first year!

High Five

Good afternoon friends! Just like that, another week has flown by. It was another frenetic week as I scrambled around San Diego to officially get cleared to teach. Here are my five favorite things from this past week.

Someone Pinch Me

Anyone who even remotely knows me will tell you how much I LOVE kindergarten and have dreamed of having my own kindergarten classroom one day. Well, my dream came true faster than even I expected! I had only been subbing for a week when my principal approached me and offered me an interview for a classroom teacher position (and to think, I thought I was in trouble!). Today I went in for the interview and I cried when I listened to the voicemail left on my phone just a few hours after I had interviewed. I was actually at dinner with a few of my colleagues and they forced me to listen to the voicemail at the dinner table. I'm so glad they did!

"Hi Karen, I was calling to let you know that your team at IH was very impressed with your interview today and we are offering you a contract for one year to teach kindergarten at IH."

I think I've listened to the message a thousand times since I left the restaurant. I can't believe everything that has happened in the last two weeks. Everything has fallen into place and I am so grateful and feel so fortunate for this opportunity. Not too many twenty-one year olds can say they've snagged their dream job. I am so proud and honored to be able to say that I have. The only downside is that I will be leaving my 5th/6th graders who I have really bonded with in the last week. Luckily, I am at the same school and I plan on letting them know that in no way am I abandoning them, but that this is a life-long goal I have worked for ever since I was six years old. I know they will understand and I plan on keeping my new classroom open for tutoring after school so that I can still support them.

P.S. I just got off the phone with my parents and they told me they're doing the whole shake-and-pop-open-the-champagne-bottle in the backyard of our home right now in Los Angeles, HAHA. What a beautiful day. I couldn't be happier. Work hard and never give up! Dreams really do come true. Good night friends!

High Five

Happy Sunday everyone! Today I enjoyed an incredibly relaxing day at home. The first of its kind in a long while if I do say so myself. I thought I would post five things, in no particular order, that I really enjoyed from this past week in keeping with the carefree theme of the day.

Park It Like Its Lot

Hi friends! My first week of subbing has come to an end and what a week it's been! My GATE combo class is such a joy to teach, but it certainly comes with its own unique set of challenges. I would say the greatest challenge I faced this week was teaching math to both grade levels by myself. Since it was the first week of school, I didn't have an Impact teacher to take one of the grade levels to work with in a separate room. I can't imagine how teachers teach combo classes without any push-in support. Luckily, my students were learning about place value this week and so the content was fairly similar between the grades, with sixth graders studying their place values a bit more extensively than the fifth graders. Nevertheless it was quite the juggling act and I had a lot of things to consider to ensure that the lesson flowed the way I wanted it to.

First Steps

AH! Where does all the time go? Sorry for the lack of posts lately. Things have been a bit crazy since I graduated last Friday. Well today, I am elated to announce that I have accepted a long-term sub position at the school where I completed my first student teaching assignment. I will be working in a 5th/6th GATE classroom and start Monday! I predict it is going to be an insanely hectic weekend, but in the extremely profound words of Barney from How I Met Your Mother, "Challenge accepted!".

I Did It.

The task: You will create a digital video that will highlight your teaching growth and practice.

Over 1000 photos and 12 hours of numb-butt from sitting at the computer later, I present to you my final EDS 204 Video Project! I've never done anything like this before so go easy on me Ebert and Roeper. I do hope you enjoy! :) I will be presenting this video along with my research paper looking at the effect of social conferencing on student motivation during the M. Ed. colloquium this Friday at UCSD. It's been one h-e-double hockey stick of a year and I can't wait to see where my teaching career takes me next!!!

Thanks so much to everyone who made this last year possible! Special thanks to my amazing supervisors Kathy and Rusty who I forgot to include in my credits (SO SORRY)!

What are your thoughts on the finished product? Rotten or fresh?

Making an ImPACT III

Here is the final lesson in my measurement unit for PACT. It focuses on building the measuring skills acquired from the center activity and comparing lengths. You can access the worksheet with the grids for the strips here. (I forgot to mention I'm a Word Neanderthal and still use 2003 because I'm so used to it haha). Also, I recommend printing the worksheet double-sided to save trees! :)

Materials for this lesson on comparing lengths.

Making an ImPACT II

Yesterday I posted the first lesson to my measurement unit for PACT. Today I will share the second lesson: Measuring with Nonstandard Units. Access the worksheet for the center activity here.

Check out my spiffy poster worksheet I used with
built-in sentence frames to help model the worksheet
for the center activity. All of my students were able
to see wherever they were sitting on the rug!

Making an ImPACT I

Hello friends! Today I thought I would start the first of a series of posts focused on PACT. For those of you who don't cringe at the mere utterance of the acronym, PACT stands for Performance Assessment for California Teachers. The teaching event for my PACT was centered on math.

Finding Mnemonic

Last Friday my boyfriend and I went to see Wicked at the Civic Center in San Diego. It was my second time in the last 6 months (my first time being at Pantages Theater in Los Angeles around Christmas time with my family). If you asked for my honest opinion I would say I enjoyed the overall performance at Pantages just a little bit more. I thought the singing was phenomenal the first time I saw it, but watching the musical a second time definitely had its perks too. For instance, it was interesting to see how the different cast members put their own unique spin on the characters because there were some glaring differences between the LA cast and SD cast. Another bonus to watching it again was that my boyfriend pointed out a plot connection, don't worry I won't spoil the fun for those that haven't seen it yet, that I hadn't made the first time around. It was such an "Aha!" moment and I can't believe I missed it the first time.

Happy Birthday America

236 years ago today, our country declared its independence. I'm not used to the 4th of July falling in the middle of the work week but I will be partaking in all the typical festivities - a huge family bbq and hopefully lots of fancy fireworks! It's also my beloved little brother's birthday so happy birthday to him as well. (If you're wondering, he's 216 years younger than the U.S.A.)

Be Awesome

I absolutely LOVE this TED talk and found myself relating it back to teaching, as I somehow always manage to do. :)

Haiku! Gesundheit

During my last student teaching placement, I had to implement a lesson that integrated the arts with another content area. I chose to teach a lesson in the realm of visual arts, specifically photography, and integrated it with haiku writing. I was teaching in a self-contained New Arrival Center classroom so I wanted to put together a project that provided multiple entry points. That way, all of my students, regardless of their English proficiency level, could engage and participate in my lessons.

Preliminarily Credentialed

Are your immigrant parents' efforts to text as cute as mine? Here's a text message I got from my old man after I told him I officially received my teaching credential tonight:

Congratulating being a very first credentialed teacher in the Lee I go to get a bear to celebrate and you girl go do the right thing So proud of you and love you such Have a good night

So sweet. So hilarious. Here's what the teacher in me was doing while I was reading his text:

All jokes aside, I'm so grateful for my parents' ongoing love and support. Where would I be without them!

Rejection

A couple weeks ago, I had my first phone interview (ever) for a charter school in Los Angeles. I knew it went poorly, but I'd be a liar if I said I wasn't still hopeful. They told me to call back if I didn't hear from them in two weeks. Yesterday was the two week mark so I decided to give them a ring today. The phone operator asked for my email address and said I would receive an email with their decision shortly. Not to my surprise, I wasn't offered a position. Everything is a learning experience. So what did I learn from this experience?

On the Yellow Brick Road

This is actually an assignment for one of my classes, but I thought I would share it here as it is a story very near and dear to my heart. This is the transcript of my digital story that will read as a narration in my final video project. Stay tuned for the video and thanks so much for reading! :)

Gone Fishing

Let the countdown begin! Only 25 days until I graduate with my Master of Education. I can't believe it's already been a year since I embarked on this journey, but I still have a lot of unfinished work ahead of me so pardon any lack of flair until July 20th!