Our moon board! Just as it claims, it shows the phases of the moon. Clockwise from top: new moon, waxing crescent, quarter, waxing gibbous, full moon, waning gibbous, quarter, waning crescent.  

The straw construction we made last night. It was supposed to be more structured, but it worked out anyway. It's kinda cool, I liked it.  

My new, December bulletin board. Isn't it cute?  

A shitty, long Monday--the last one for awhile...thank god

Two and a half weeks til break!!!

I had some train mishaps and ended up being three minutes late. Forgot my gradebooks. The APs, principal and PTA president came in for a peek, during Class A's reading workshop. Had to take down the bulletin board and put up the new stuff. It turned out pretty cute, actually; I'll put up a picture tomorrow.

After school was professional development. That ended early, actually, and it was great because they gave us an "assignment," so to speak, what writing projects each grade should be working on. There is even a book with mapped-out lesson plans to help guide us. Woo!

So I got to QC 45 minutes early; I reviewed the science material for the final that was tonight. In math class, we played a math card game and then built models with straws. We made a crazy post-modern Eiffel tower kind of thing. I'll put that picture up too.

Then we had the science final. I was psyched because I figured I'd finish early and could get home a bit earlier than normal. But no, we had three sections of the test. Two pages of short answer questions, then a group experiment, then a quick standards thing. Before starting the second part and the third part, we all had to wait for everyone to finish. Grr. But I think I did fairly well; I had answers for everything. Not all of them were terribly in-depth, but I could answer them. We turned in our unit plan lessons (I worked on those a lot yesterday, formatting them all the same and geeky stuff like that), and our "moon board." We had a group project of making a bulletin board thing about phases of the moon. It turned out pretty neat; I'll post that pic tomorrow too.

So science is over now; we have two more math classes and then a break for who knows how long. But the next two Mondays will at least be shorter; there will be time to get some work done and go to bed at a nice, earlyish hour.

It is very late, I have to go to bed now. Can't wait for tomorrow after school, because I'll have THREE days of homework to grade, not to mention planning and preparing the rest of the week's lessons, AND figuring out the differentiated grouping for test prep Fridays. What a fun week it will be.

Two and a half weeks til break! Thirteen days of school---whee!

Is anyone still ignorant enough to think teaching is easy?

From another teacher blog:

in my blog that got eaten the other day, i was marveling and bemoaning how exhausted i am after a day at work, and noting that i just couldn't figure it- i have been working almost every day for the last 14 years. how could being a teacher really be THAT much more exhausting? and then i realized that being a teacher means also being the following: the HVAC repairperson, the IT professional, the nurse, the counselor, the psychiatrist, the test proctor, the editor, the writer, the reader, the video production crew, the photographer, the poet, the artist, the CEO, the accountant, the bank, the dry cleaner, the tampon machine, the interior decorator, the middle-manager, the janitor, the mediator, the detective, the mother, the father, the sister, the brother, the career consultant, the construction worker, the secretary, the software expert, the office supply store, the spca, the student, the teacher.

***

The links to the right are awesome teacher blogs. There's a great little community there, lots of "yes, I have that problem too!" and "Hey cool, I will try that" and "Good lord, isn't this teaching shit just crazy?" I love it. Go look around, and get a better feel for what teaching (esp the first years of it) is all about.

Oh, what a beautiful weekend!

Hurrah, it's the weekend! And...I'm swamped.

Yesterday was test prep. I found a Princeton Review test Thursday night and made copies early Friday morning. (I woke up an hour early--not on purpose--and decided to just stay up, get to school early, and get all the prep done.) I had them not only give their letter-choice answers, but also explain how they got their answer. That way I can see who is going back to the story and looking, and who is guessing, and who is misinterpreting the passages. I also came up with two short answer questions for them to do.

So really, that took awhile (because they took so long to shut up and listen to directions), and there didn't end up being time (what an awkward construction!) to have a lesson afterwards. So I handed out an activity sheet, where you look at the picture and find all the things that start with "A" and then find those words in a word search. They seemed to get into that.

That's what happened with both Class A and Class C. Class B only has ELA one period on Fridays, so some of them didn't even finish all the test questions. Altogether, not a bad day, not a good day. Just a day. And a FRIDAY at that! Woo!

After school, I went with some colleagues to a literacy workshop in Rego Park. The workshop was a bit boring, but it was fun hanging out with my fellow teachers. They are nice. We got some ideas for lessons and brainstormed more.

Later, I went into the city to see Dar Williams with a friend. It was great. It was just her and her guitar on stage. She talked and joked with the audience just enough between songs. She played older, classic stuff and new stuff. Instead of lighters, she instructed the audience to hold up the blue screens of our PDAs and cellphones. Ha! Anyway, go buy an album of hers from her site, on the right.

My friend and I got some pizza and had an enjoyable discussion about life and friends. I miss stuff like that from college and AmeriCorps. So it was after 1.30 when I got to the station, set for a possibly long, boring wait. But, the F train pulled up right as I was coming down onto the platform. Sweet! I got in at 2.15 and went to bed at around 3. The night air is so cold and the walk seems so long that even though I can sleep on the train, by the time I get home I am more awake.

So then I slept until 11.15 this morning. It sounds awesome, but that's only seven hours. Plus, I didn't have time to get to school. I wanted to go in today and get some stuff done. Not sure what exactly I wanted to do, but I always find plenty. Oh well.

I have to start preparing for Monday night's science final test, for which I need to review the phases of the moon, the article Nation at Risk, the science standards, and the process of accurate experimentation.

Also, must put something together for the math "lesson" that we're supposed to turn in. I will turn in my poetry pattern lesson plan. I will need to make copies of students' notebooks, and write up an evaluation of the lesson.

We got news that the ELA classes will be doing a specific group project starting early next week, and get mapped-out lesson plans for the writing workshops. The reading workshops will be skills of the week, and I don't remember if there are any prepared lessons for those. But jesus, at least we will have some guidance and expectations! I am so excited and relieved.

This weekend I must think about the project groups. The lit coach said not to let them choose groups, but since I haven't done any group projects at all yet, I think I will let them choose their own this first time. Then when they aren't productive, I'll have ammunition when they protest my group choices for the next group project.

Bwaha! Look how I use the children to do chores for me! Just kidding, they love to clean the board. More power to 'em, I say! It's kind of too bad that there's only enough for two. I'm sure at least six of my Class C kids would love to do it all the time.  

Here is Class C during the locker mayhem. They are always loud and rambuctious during this time. I wonder if it will ever get better?

My Awesome Alliteration bulletin board for November. Next week it will be a board about things for winter break.  

The QC library clock tower. 

The main quad at QC at dusk.  

A blurry view of Manhattan from Queens College 

Oh, my aching head.

Today was a pretty decent day, actually. The students used thesauri to continue finding synonyms for good, nice, and bad in descriptions.

I so love Class B in the mornings. First period reading workshop has gone extremely smoothly this week with them. In writing workshop, though, things aren't so smooth. Most kids are on task, but some of them 'wake up' and get talky and off task.

Except for one child slapping another across the face with his rolled up plastic bag (to hold the writing notebooks) (I sent his delinquent ass right to the dean. He went yesterday too), they were not too bad.

Right away I had Class A third period writing workshop. Ms F was in and out for that one, but even without her they were okay. "Trouble" was talking but not too loudly, so I ignored him. Three other boys who can be very disruptive did very well today, and I made sure to tell them so.

Then I had three periods off. Tralala! Thursdays rock. I hung out in the teacher center, chatting with other teachers. There's another first year teacher Ms C who's fun and a kindred spirit. We share ideas and stories, it's neat. While we talked, I finally got the tests graded, from two Fridays ago, to see how they kids did in each skill. Nearly all of them missed the making predictions, drawing inferences, and interpreting figurative language questions.

Instead of actually doing the new groupings for test prep tomorrow, I will give them some response to literature/open-ended questions to work with. For writing workshop, I think we'll just do creative writing. I suppose I'll have to see what they think.

Some time during 6th period, when I was in the teacher's lounge finishing up the marking, I developed a nasty headache. My whole head felt like it was under pressure, and my eyeballs ached. Ugh.

Class C did fine. Ooh, I have a fun story. The read aloud today was chapter 3 in Fantastic Mr Fox (which is proving to be a wonderfully perfect to teach from; plus the chapters are very short meaning we can read a whole one each day), entitled "The Shooting." Normally, when I do read-alouds, I stroll around the room. And I love seeing all the children's eyes on me. But with my headache this afternoon with Class C, I just perched on my desk. All eyes were on me. (Love that!) I read in a normal reading voice, with inflection and everything. But when it got to the part where the farmers started shooting at Mr Fox, I suddenly got up and started moving, talking faster and louder. I totally scared them, when I bolted up I could see the whole class jump. They kind of tittered and whispered in their surprise. It was awesome! I kept reading, but I heard one kid go, "You should be in plays, that's what you should do." Weird, but neat.

Also, I finally used the overhead! I figured out where to put it yesterday, and the inclusion teacher lent me some transparencies and pens, so I could write their shared synonyms on that instead of the board. Fun toy! Can't wait to use it more.

Busy bee Wednesday

A crazy day today.

First period during my prep I had to make copies; while I was waiting I graded the remaining Thanksgiving packets. More no-name papers. Sucks to be those students. Also, many students ignored the short response questions. Even though they had them written on the back of the packet. Duh!

I taught Class A second and third, they were rowdy. Fourth I had a coverage, I had them work with SNOT the way I did with my classes yesterday. Fifth was another prep, but I had to meet with my AP. That same bully mother is still all "concerned" because of her kid's progress report. So then I have to go explain everything to the AP and pull out my proof so that he can show her. It's such bullshit. But thank god I kept track of things. I had about ten minutes to "eat lunch" in my classroom at the end of fifth. With Class C in the room having Social Studies. Sixth and seventh were Class B. They were also rowdy. Eighth period was a sixth-grade assembly; lucky Class C won't have to do any homework tonight.

I stayed in my room until 4pm. I finally checked out the overhead projector that one of the APs sent to my room. Hurrah! I figured out that there's enough space on one upper wall to project onto. Now I just need transparencies to write on, and I'll be good to go. That new "toy" should make things so much easier; I can actually do shared reading, I won't have to write large passages on the blackboard, I can have transparencies already prepared instead of rewriting the board each period.

Last week I started re-reading A Prayer for Owen Meany. I'm about halfway done. The book itself, which I forgot until I saw the stamp inside it, came from a small secondhand bookstore off the 90 in Mississippi. I must have gotten it on my one day off of Red Cross duty; it was off the highway a bit to the west of our hotel. I think I bought an Amy Tan book there too.

Anyway, look at this post: all the semicolons! John Irving uses tons of semicolons in his novels and apparently it's contagious.

In grammar nazi news, I explained the difference between "nauseous" and "nauseated" to two students today. Just as the smart people at Fametracker enlightened me, I compared those terms with "poisonous" and "poisoned." Thus, feeling "nauseated" is not the same as "nauseous," as the latter means causing nausea. The students may not have gotten it, but it was a teachable moment.

God, I'm all over the place here. I'm still hungry, my lips have been really chapped the past few days, and I still have so much work to do. Friday's test prep is not at all planned; I have one day left for that! Shit!

It's 6.30. That's not too bad. I should be able to get some more work done. I must read the essays the kids turned in. My science lesson is just about done, yay. I have to submit a math lesson on Monday; I am going to try and use the lesson from determining patterns in the Friendship poem.

In the mail today I received a wrapped Christmas present from my grandma in Illinois and a nice long letter from my friend in the Peace Corps in Africa. Neat!

A breakthrough indeed!

I realized a few minutes ago this:

At the example (see post) "tears fell down her cheeks like rain," at least one student in each class recognized that as a simile. No prompting or anything. Good god, they (well, some of them) learned something! From me! Dang!

Also, in Class C when I read the chapter in FmF and got to the little rhyme song, I asked if anyone knew what it was. Several said, "a poem," "a rhyme scheme," and then a kid said, "a limerick." Yes!!

So last night I crashed before 10.30 and slept pretty heavily all through the night. Praise heaven! All day I was just worn out (see post about not eating anything but some junk food...) and I am hoping to go to bed before 9.30.

Oh, and I wanted to thank the MTA gods, who were with me today. For all those buses and trains that I took on my afternoon sojourn, my total wait time was about fifteen minutes. Most of that was only for one bus; the others arrived right when I did.

The mysterious, long-coming package was the bra I ordered awhile back. It's exactly the kind I was hoping for, but...alas, it's a little small. Figures, right? I'm hoping it will stretch out, like all the others do.

Hope lingers on

This afternoon, I had complete silence and (seemingly) attention of Class C, just for the reading workshop. Wow!

Class B started off the day; they did very nicely first period. Second got a bit rowdy.

Class A was just one period; they were rowdy.

All of them, once I got through my lesson on SNOT (Show and Not Tell), and had them start working on practicing, I circulated and saw some good work.

My examples of boring vs SNOT:
She cried.
Tears fell down her cheeks like rain.

I walked to school.
I floated all the way to school.

He hates his sister.
He ripped all his sister's toys to shreds and stomped on them.
(a student actually came up with that one)

I left school at 3.00. I got home at 6.15. In between, I took three buses (an hour and a half) to get to UPS, a bus and train to get back to Forest Hills, then stopped at the grocery store before walking home. I have actually been losing weight; those tan cords are a size eight and fit just right. I don't think I've bought anything in an 8 in years. But it's just because I hardly eat during the day and then, even though I think I eat a lot when I get home, I get full easily.

It's already 7.20. I need to shower, watch some tv, try to get some work done on my own homework, and fine-tune my plans for tomorrow.

In discussion with another first-year teacher/kindred spirit, I decided to do the next project as a biography. BUT, it will be a biography of a fictional person that the students will create, in the time of Ancient Egypt. That's what they've been studying in Social Studies, and it includes lots of intelligences.

Tomorrow is my synonym lesson. It may go on through Thursday, we'll see how it goes.

Fantastic Mr Fox is going over well. I'm using that for activating prior knowledge (about foxes and about farmers) and then for making predictions. Each short chapter is perfect for predicting the next event.

Okay, I will try to get some work done. Also, I have some new pics to share with you! Hurrah!

Back to the daily grind...

Ugh. I've had a headache all day, and I'm very tired.

ONCE AGAIN, my brain was in overdrive, thinking and planning about my students and class. Could not fall asleep. Then, I had a terribly stressful dream that I got reassigned. To a new school. Even though this one was supposed to be permanent. So naturally, I was all confused and disoriented. This new school was bricky and had weird hallway mazes and I think wrought-iron spiral staircases? There was some kind of admin lady who was kind.

Class A was a bit rowdy. The good, miraculous news is that two more disruptive students will be transferring out of there sometime this week! "Trouble" is one of them. HURRAH!!!
I wore my new purple sweater and tan cords today, with my normal black shoes. At the beginning of 2nd period, "Trouble" goes, all scornful-like, why are you wearing purple and tan and black? I said, because I am. He turns to the other kids at the table and points out my fashion faux pas. "Wearing purple, then tan, and black. Psh." I have no idea.

At the end of 3rd, I was standing in my doorway, facing in the room. Some arms wrapped around me from behind. I figure it's one of the "good student" girls, but I turn, and it's the disruptive boy from Class A that's now in Class B. He gives this big smile and said something. I'm pretty sure I looked at him like he was crazy. Raised an eyebrow and said, "Can I help you?" and "I'll see you next period." Very weird.

I got all the classes started on the bulletin board thing, what they will for winter break. I read them Fantastic Mr Fox for read aloud, activating prior knowledge. Tomorrow we will basically do the same stuff. I think I'm introducing SNOT to them: Show and Not Tell. Wish me luck.

Classes tonight were blah. My head hurts. Some tablemates made comments about my behavior, so, appropriately humbled, I tried my best to stay quiet and not in anyone's way. Then it looks (and sort of feels) like I'm sulking or something, which probably is not any better than being rude or bitchy. God, I can't win. It's difficult going from stern bitch to pleasant, enthusiastic student. I've never been a very good student. Decent, gets by, but never a model pupil. I'd hoped to do things differently, but oh well. Not nearly enough time to all of everything, so my own schoolwork tends to suffer.

I've really got to step it up this week though; next week (Monday) I have a test in science, plus turn in another lesson plan, plus turn in a MATH lesson (don't ask me how the fuck I'm supposed to do that as an English teacher), plus help prepare a moon project thing.

My head hurts. G'night.

Dammit!

I slept for a good nine hours, dreaming about scorpions and then skiing. When I got up, I got right to work on that chapter outline.

When I was about halfway through with it, the program shut down. For some reason, I had not yet saved my work. Dammit! I had to start over! I NEVER do that! I ALWAYS save my work a lot!

Once I started over, you can bet I hit control S every four seconds.

The Obligatory "What I'm Thankful For" post. I keep adding things!

Other bloggers are doing it, and I'm starting to feel un-American and unimaginative. So I'm going to rack my brain to come up with something.

Things I am Grateful For, in no particular order:
-Living in a heated house.
-My parents, for talking to me, through tough days with kids, lack of social life, or just because.
-Ms F, the teacher center person, and my unofficial mentor.
-Not having entire classes made up of kids like Big D and "Trouble."
-Being able to laugh with some of my students and so far they still respect me.
-The fact that again it looks like I'm on the road to financial independence.
-These awesome, soft, though slightly ugly, cozy-ass, salmon-colored sweatpants.
-The fact that my old teammates still talk to me. :)
-Being able to see some of my old teammates. I hope to see the rest sometime in the not-too-distant future!
-The friendly folks in my Fellows class.
-The fact that I have survived in New York for five months already!

And a very special "I'm grateful for" goes out to those nice people who leave comments! Thank you! I so appreciate even the littlest acknowledgement or compliment. :)

What about teaching? I am not even sure how I feel about it. Is it something that I love to do? Do I hate it? I really don't know.

I'm pretty sure that I don't hate it. Though most days I can't wait for the end of the day. And sometimes I get really tired, frustrated, or irritated.

This year I don't think I will love it. But a colleague once said something about having passion for education. And you know, I think that I do still have that. I get caught up in the lessons and I am so excited when the students listen and appear to learn. I love the way that I can try to teach them new words, concepts and writing techniques. I LOVE it when they surprise me with good writing or a mature answer. So maybe I'm on my way.

A silly "blogthing"

You Know You're From Seattle When...

You have a very strong opinion about where your coffee beans are grown, and you can taste the difference between Sumatran and Ethiopian You feel guilty throwing an aluminum can in the trash. You use the words "sun break" and know what it means. You know more than 10 words to describe a cup of coffee. You know what a dry cappachino is. You obey all traffic laws EXCEPT "keep right except to pass." You know at least eight people who work for either Microsoft or Boeing. You invite twice as many people as you really want to a party since only half will actually show up. You know what Lutefiske is. You personally know someone from Alaska. You consider floating bridges a pain in the butt, not an engineering marvel. You know how to pronounce "Sequim", "Puyallup" and "Issaquah." You have roots in Oregon, Idaho or Montana, but wanted a high paying job. You've tried to get a job in Alaska, especially a summer job only. You think skiing always means being covered from head to toe, on snow or water. You know at least three Microsoft burnouts, of which two are millionaires. You use more than 5 words to order a cup of coffee. "I want to order an unleaded, double, short, skinny, wet cappuccino with a shot of Amaretto please." A "designer" wardrobe comes from REI, Eddie Bauer, Lands End, and Birkenstock. You consider it a sunny day if the sun is visible at some point of the day. You've been "snow" skiing in the RAIN more than in the snow. When you're discussing rainforests and volcanoes, you're NOT talking about Hawaii. You Remember the Kingdome You have tried to forget about WTO You know how BLUE the skies are here compared to Eastern Washington The guy at 8:30 am at Starbucks wearing the baseball cap and sunglasses who looks like Phyllis Diller is really a trans named Eva Destruction that used to play with Hole. Your car insurance costs more because your neighbors don't have any! Your mayor is straight, 1/2 your friends are gay, the man who delivers your mail has a bumper sticker that reads "when they pry it from my cold dead fingers....", and your Burger World drive thru order taker was a computer millionaire last week. You actually get these jokes and pass them on to other friends from Seattle.

Get Your Own "You Know You're From" Meme Here



More cool things for your blog at
Blogthings

You know you're a true exbarista when you recognize misspellings of words like "cappuccino."

This was an email that circulated my first years of college (who knows, maybe even before that). They were new and witty then, and they're still a little witty now, especially for me now that I live three thousand miles from Seattle.