Last week during prayer with the Lord he really laid Proverbs 16:24 on my heart. One of the hardest parts of teaching in a public school is the inability to share the love of Jesus with my babies. As a teacher you have to find creative ways to introduce your students to Biblical teaching without them, their parents or administration realizing that was your intent. After reading Proverbs 16:24 I had an inspiration!
In the afternoons dismissal normally takes between 20-30 minutes for everyone to leave. Obviously this makes instruction difficult so we have moved toward a "Family Meeting". This is a time to discuss issues in our classroom, confront disrespect we have seen but also, the best part about Family Meeting is when we begin complimenting each other.
We discussed at first the difference between a genuine compliment and a fluff compliment, examples of each and what kind of compliment we would prefer. My kids have since been complimenting each other on genuine personality traits & strengths. Today for example, I was blown away when one of my more popular girls said, "I would like to compliment Jake. He kept thinking of the answer even when he hadn't gotten it right the first time. He kept going, I need to be more like that."
HOLY SMOKES Y'ALL. These kids are 8 YEARS OLD. And they are complimenting each other on perseverance, tolerance, respectfulness, work ethic & attitude. Granted, they may not realize it but the fact is they are. When one of my girls shared in family time her Dad is scheduled for deployment on Monday I had two other students flash the connection sign we use (See Move Your Body) and talk about how they recently have been through the same thing. They gave advice, hugs & well-wishes. I saw Proverbs 16:24 in action, in a 3rd grade classroom in Killeen, TX. God knew exactly why I was hired after answering six questions, an hour away from my home. He hand selected the 23 kids that sit in my class every-day and knew that the week of September 10th, 2012 I would learn more about kind & edifying words than I have ever learned through twenty two years of Sunday School, godly influences and church camps.
This week has revealed that you truly can serve the Lord wherever you are, whatever profession and in whatever way. If a public school teacher can witness her kids live out Proverbs 16:24 in a day & age that we are seeing students arrested for bullying, suspended for verbal harassment and beat down by words than anyone can be a light for Christ.
Remember as you go about your day:
"Pleasant words are a honeycomb, sweet to the soul & healing to the bones" Proverbs 16:24
Buzz, Buzz
Ms. B
Friday, September 14, 2012
Move Your Body!
I learned over the past three weeks what an active group of students I have so I stepped WAY out of my comfort zone and came up with motions to help them out. Step into the beehive and see what these worker bees have been up too!
We started with "Plot Mountain". My kids freak-out if we use too many technical terms for their learning so we made an anchor chart and decided that the diagram looked like a mountain. To help we also added in some body movements.
Students start squatting with their hands touching the ground. The quietly whisper, "rising action, rising action"... as the slowly stand up.
When students are completely standing the jump in the air and yell "CLIMAX" to represent what we call the firework moment in the story.
Finally students slowly return to their starting position as they whisper "falling action, falling action."
My kids LOVE to practice plot mountain. They grasped the components immediately after I introduced the body movements and stopped in the hall to show off their newly acquired skills for our assistant principal.
We also constantly signal for students to refer to the text for evidence, connections or to look back and to find some answers. I witnessed students signaling each other during discussions to go back to the text for an answer! I love the non-verbal communication. Students don't feel that they have been singled out and I can save my voice for times it's needed a little more.
The last motion I have to share (today) is our hand motion for connection. I LOVE my students making connections between subjects, concepts, their own lives or my life based on the snippets of stories they have heard. When a student thinks of a connection they have with whatever we are doing they form the connection signal. Today we were sharing our weekend plans and some threw up a connection symbol!! I'm a firm believer that if my students can connect their learning to the world around them that knowledge will become schema much faster than without a connection.
Any other teachers out their with good hand motions for 3rd grade concepts?? If so, bring them on!
Buzz, Buzz
Ms. B
We started with "Plot Mountain". My kids freak-out if we use too many technical terms for their learning so we made an anchor chart and decided that the diagram looked like a mountain. To help we also added in some body movements.
Students start squatting with their hands touching the ground. The quietly whisper, "rising action, rising action"... as the slowly stand up.
When students are completely standing the jump in the air and yell "CLIMAX" to represent what we call the firework moment in the story.
Finally students slowly return to their starting position as they whisper "falling action, falling action."
My kids LOVE to practice plot mountain. They grasped the components immediately after I introduced the body movements and stopped in the hall to show off their newly acquired skills for our assistant principal.
We are also working on supporting our claims/answers with evidence as well. While students make a claim in a class discussion they form their classmates form the letter "C" with their hands to show they understand that a claim has been made.
Students then signal for some support. (Ignore the blurry picture please, catching movements is hard stuff). Students place their hands palm up at their shoulders and press upwards to show they need to hear support for the claim. Support can be from the text or schema but without the support the claim has no place in our room!
We also constantly signal for students to refer to the text for evidence, connections or to look back and to find some answers. I witnessed students signaling each other during discussions to go back to the text for an answer! I love the non-verbal communication. Students don't feel that they have been singled out and I can save my voice for times it's needed a little more.
The last motion I have to share (today) is our hand motion for connection. I LOVE my students making connections between subjects, concepts, their own lives or my life based on the snippets of stories they have heard. When a student thinks of a connection they have with whatever we are doing they form the connection signal. Today we were sharing our weekend plans and some threw up a connection symbol!! I'm a firm believer that if my students can connect their learning to the world around them that knowledge will become schema much faster than without a connection.
Any other teachers out their with good hand motions for 3rd grade concepts?? If so, bring them on!
Buzz, Buzz
Ms. B
Wednesday, September 5, 2012
Forgive Me!
Yes, yes, yes I am WAY behind on blogging!
Being a first year teacher is a lot like swimming. You tread water just trying to keep from drowning....
That has been my life for the past six weeks.
Thankfully, things are starting to settle down and blogging has once again worked it's way on my to-do list. I am so blessed with a larger than average classroom and had a blast organizing and decorating my room. The theme for our classroom this year is BEES. Since bees must work together for their beehive to survive and they are always busy I felt it was the perfect basis for our room. That being said, the room is decorated in bright, cheery yellows and accented with black.
I arranged my room in 5 table groups of 5 desks. One of my mentors during student teaching used a wonderful system, "Days of the Week". Each desk is marked with a specific day of the week. When papers need to be collected, passed out or students are called to line up I can simply call off the days of the week! Instead of having students argue over who retrieves supplies or turns in papers it is taken care of.
Our room is also blessed with a plethora of bulletin boards. Soon these boards will be filled with anchor charts and student work. I have not used anchor charts in the past and am looking forward to seeing how they benefit my students this year.
The first week was an absolute blur off procedures, meet & greets and exciting discoveries.
Buzz, Buzz
Ms. B
Being a first year teacher is a lot like swimming. You tread water just trying to keep from drowning....
That has been my life for the past six weeks.
Thankfully, things are starting to settle down and blogging has once again worked it's way on my to-do list. I am so blessed with a larger than average classroom and had a blast organizing and decorating my room. The theme for our classroom this year is BEES. Since bees must work together for their beehive to survive and they are always busy I felt it was the perfect basis for our room. That being said, the room is decorated in bright, cheery yellows and accented with black.
 |
| The back wall houses our cubbies, Boggle board, reading log tracker and FASTT math incentives. |
 |
| One of my many bulletin boards! This one is dedicated to Writer's Workshop |
Our room is also blessed with a plethora of bulletin boards. Soon these boards will be filled with anchor charts and student work. I have not used anchor charts in the past and am looking forward to seeing how they benefit my students this year.
The first week was an absolute blur off procedures, meet & greets and exciting discoveries.
Buzz, Buzz
Ms. B
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