One Teacher, Two Teachers, Old Teacher... New Teacher

This post is for those who are training to become a new teacher.  There are certainly many things to consider when studying to be a teacher, or any other profession for that matter, but there are some key points that I would like to touch on that I thought would have been helpful when going through my own studies to become a teacher.  I was probably given this advice within my credential program, but I don't recall that specifically.  I feel that most of the advice that I am going to give came through my own beginning experiences as a teacher.  *Please Note: I have only been teaching for a few short years and I definitely don't consider myself an expert, but I am happy to share my thoughts on some helpful tips.*
New Teacher Tip #1
Always be a willing learner.  Sometimes it is hard for teachers (or soon-to-be teachers) to be the student or learner; that doesn't mean we can't learn, but it is more natural for us to be the one giving information instead of receiving it.  When I first started my credential program, I thought that I was going to teach in the way that I was taught.  It seemed like a logical thought at the time because that is what I had known up until that point.  One of the most valuable things I acquired from my teaching program is to be willing to try new things out constantly.  During my student teaching, I tried to do things the way I had seen them done in my own educational career, but I quickly found that it didn't work for me.  I had to find my own style of teaching, classroom management, and working with individual students.  There are times where I turn to another teacher's style of teaching (usually one that I can remember from when I was in school) and I deeply appreciate those moments if it only means changing it up a bit for me and my students.  However, it is extremely important to know how your style of teaching reflects the type of classroom environment you want to create.
New Teacher Tip #2
Don't expect perfection out of everything.  As an individual and a teacher, I often consider myself a bit of a perfectionist.  I found out that in teaching there is no absolute perfection --- either for the teacher or the students.  A career as a teacher is within the people services category; in other words, you are working with people, and specifically young people.  Of course, we can always shoot for the stars and plan the "perfect lesson," but the people factor (especially 20-30 different people at a time in a single space) can dampen the plans a little bit.  One example of this for me was that I had spent a good deal of time planning "the perfect lesson" and got into my classroom that morning and the students were behaving differently than normal, asking more "off-topic" questions, and focused on the smaller details of the larger assignment.  I quickly realized that my perfect plan was not going to happen that day, or maybe any other day for that matter, and started following the lead of my students.  We took the lesson in a much different direction than I had anticipated, but by the end of the lesson I felt that not only had my students learned more than I originally hoped for, but they were learning with an interest that involved the entire class.  My original perfect plan didn't happen, and what did happen was definitely NOT perfect, but seeing active and engaged learners was worth the imperfection.  This lack of perfection can also be applied to the assignments your students turn in.  The idea of education is that the students are learning, so it most likely won't be perfect ---- and that is perfectly acceptable.
New Teacher Tip #3
Embrace ALL of the differences.  This last tip ties in well with my other two tips and is what I consider the icing on the cake.  Every... and I mean EVERY.... situation is different.  To mention a few, Every district, school site, principal, school climate. teacher, and student is DIFFERENT.  Remember Tip #2 ---- your main factor in teaching is people.  Numerous lives, cultures, social and economic status situations, and family settings will enter your classroom each year.  In thinking about the winter season that we are approaching, I often think of my students as snowflakes.  Every single student, just like a snowflake, is different.  No two are alike.  Each student has their own unique talents and strengths along with flaws and weaknesses.  When I first started teaching, the differences scared me in a way because there are so many things going on in a single classroom at one time that each student brings into the school environment.  How was I ever going to be able to meet all their needs and still teach with my own style?!?!?  I have since learned through experience to embrace the differences, every single one of them.  The different students in my classroom is what creates the climate and learning environment that encourages learning, motivation, and critical thinking skills.  From my students' various methods of learning and their various backgrounds, I am able to create a learning environment where my students can feel accepted for the unique individuals they each represent in my classroom.  Together our differences help us create a community of learners.

So.... One Teacher, Two Teacher, Old Teacher, New Teacher:
One Teacher can help many students become smart
Two Teachers can create a wonderful team of cheer
the Old Teacher has a great amount of experience to share and depart
to the New Teacher who becomes a lifetime learner with a new set of students each year

Field Trip and Family

This last week in class has been very busy, but also very exciting.  We spent a lot of our week talking about firefighters, fire stations, and fire engines to get ourselves prepared for our field trip to the Kelseyville Firehouse on Thursday.  We walked to the fire station and got to see many different things.  The class had the opportunity to look closely at a firefighter's gear.  We had a chance to see the different tools that are on the fire trucks and they also were able to get in to the back of the ambulance.  We walked through the fire station and saw where the firefighters sleep, eat, work, and play when they are not helping people and fighting fires.  At the end of the field trip, each student received a fire helmet and a coloring packet on fire safety.  It was such a wonderful trip and it was a great way to finish up our study on our story "Fighting the Fire."

The class at the fire station

Serenity with her Uncle Joey, Kelseyville Fire Chief 

Looking at tools

After our field trip, we began our preparations for our Grandparent/Special Person Event.  As a class we made bread and butter to serve our guests.  Making the butter went very well with our recent studies in science about states of matter, specifically liquids and solids.  The students realized that their heavy cream started as a liquid and changed to a solid state after shaking it in a jar in a group effort.  While we were making the bread, we talked about how baking the bread in the hot oven is also changing the bread using heat, and again going from a liquid to a solid.

 
Making butter from heavy cream. Shake, shake, shake!
 
                                                                    The finished product
         
 
 
Kneading bread,

Here is a link to the recipe for the bread:
http://www.somethingedible.com/index.php/food_drink/entry/four_ingredients_a_zip-top_bag_and_the_patience_of_a_saint_baking_bread_wit/

Our big Celebration Across Generations day with grandparents, aunts, uncles, and other family members was today and was a huge success!  The students had made a book for their special person with important things that each does with their special person.  The students introduced their special person to the class and then they got to read their completed book to their guest of honor.  We ended our celebration by eating our delicious bread and butter.  It was so great to have our class making memories with their own family members in our classroom.

As if our week wasn't busy enough, we also had an experience today where the students got to play with Spheros.   We have been working on some basic programming and coding for some of our STEAM Fridays over the last few weeks.  So, today they had a chance to play with a robotic ball that they controlled ("programmed") with the use of an iPad.  Thank you LCOE for helping us out with that one.  We had a great time with the Spheros and the class looks forward to using them again.

Spheros in action!

The last thing the class did today was become the teacher themselves.  The students in my class taught the students in Mrs. Sonneville's class how to do some basic coding using the website kodable.com  This was great because it gave my class another chance to use kodable.com and it also helped them see how they can also teach things to other people.  

After such a busy week, I am pretty sure we are all ready for a week off!  Have a wonderful and Happy Thanksgiving!

Jello and Legos

You might be wondering how Jello and Legos manage to work their way into second grade curriculum.  While the two are not related (at least for this post), they made quite an impression on the class this last week.
For the month of November our science focus has been how things change from hot and cold temperatures.  So far we have discovered that some of these changes can be reversed and some can not be reversed.  We discussed matter and how to determine whether something is a liquid, a solid, or a gas.  We began the discussion with a focus on water.  When water is put in a cold environment, or a freezing temperature, it changes from its liquid state into a solid state, also known as ice.  We talked about how once the ice (the solid) melts, it can be turned back into a liquid (water) if it is heated.  When talking about heating water, we also talked about boiling water on a stove and how it creates steam, or in this situation vapor and gas.  After the students had made some inferences about water and its changing states, we looked at Jello.  We started with just a powdered package of Jello (solid).  When we added the water to prepare the Jello for eating, it became a liquid.  The liquid was cooled in the refrigerator and became.... a solid? still a liquid?  There was some debate in the class about whether it really became a solid or not.  Here are the final class results as far as what state Jello is in after it has been prepared.

Most considered it to be a solid because it was something you could hold in your hand and it wasn't something you would "drink."  A few others thought it was a liquid because if you did try to pick it up (please note, these were not Jello Jigglers, just regular Jello) the Jello fell through your fingers and seemed to change shape based on the container it was in.  One other piece with the Jello was that the class had the opportunity to eat it.  I did not have any forks in the classroom, but I did have plastic straws.  So, the students "ate" their Jello through a straw.  After we started using the straws to slurp up our Jello, there were more students who thought Jello once it is prepared could be considered a liquid.  Here is the class enjoying their Jello.  (It was not anybody's birthday, but those were the plates I happened to have in my cupboards.)

 

Slurp!

Our experiment with ice

This week we also had our first "official" rainy day recess.  The students seemed to enjoy the activities we had going on in the classroom.

Coloring

 magnets

                                                                                            puzzles

                    

Snapo Blocks                                                      Computers

On Monday, I also had the privilege of eating with Ashlee and Jessica in the classroom since they spent some Class Dojo Points to have lunch with the teacher.

Today's STEM project had a focus on engineering and we used the large amount of Legos that are in the classroom.  The students worked with a partner and each person was given a set of pictures of similar items that had some major differences.  For example, one of the pictures was of a phone where one partner had a picture of an iPhone and the other had a picture of a rotary phone.  The partners had to collaborate and compromise on the design for their item that they were going to create.  The idea here was that students were considering the "other perspective" while trying to maintain the basic idea of the object.  The designs today were a house (pictures were a very small house and a very large house), a clock (pictures were a cuckoo clock and a digital alarm clock), and a dog (pictures were a German Shepard and a Dachshund).  The students compromised very well with these three items and creating them out of Legos this afternoon.

 houses

 more houses

  all the houses

  clocks

   dogs

  dogs

   more dogs 

  this clock featured a mouse that ran up the clock

Here are some pictures of the students collaborating and working their engineering magic!

Searching for the "perfect" Lego piece

We had a great week in class!  Next week the class and I are looking forward to going on our field trip to the Kelseyville Firehouse and our Grandparent/Special Person Event!