What do you do to build relationships?

         

Is this what you look like as a teacher?

          I am by no means an expert or a veteran teacher, this is my first year, but I think I am pretty good at building relationships with my students.Could I be better? Yes, of course! My goal from day one was to make sure that my students felt comfortable, safe, and trusted in my classroom. However, it's hard to be young, build that rapport, and not cross that line of "the fun and hip teacher". I am doing my best to not be that person. Here are some things I do that I think make a difference.

1. Every morning I shake hands with every kid. I always tell them "shake hands like you are trying to get a job". Not only is this an important skill for them to have in their futures, but it makes them feel "grown up" because that's what "grown ups" do.

       I know that several of you are thinking eww gross to that ^, but let me tell you, it is the most important part of the day. My kids have told me that if I don't shake their hand, their day doesn't go as well. Did you know that you can easily triage your kids during this time. This is how I find out how they are doing, if they are in a bad mood or a good mood, and several times I have been able to help correct those feelings so they can have a successful day.

2. Treat your students like they are people because guess what? They are! Do not treat them like they are children and expect them to act older. I talk to my kids like we are equals and that is why they respect me.

3. Do not start the school year with pre-judgement. This is a hard one for a lot of teachers because they've either heard bad things from their colleagues about particular students or they have seen the student act in the previous grade. I started the year with several students who were on the "warning" list and they are doing great! I tried my hardest to make sure that whatever they did in the past stayed in the past.

4. Relate to them and share your life with them. On Mondays, I give my students time to share what happened over the weekend. I also take this time to share how my weekend went. I share the good and the bad. I show them that I am human and live normal a normal life just like each of them.

5. Be honest with them. Tell your kids the truth. There have been a few days where I have said "hey guys, I woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning". This usually causes them to tread lighter and not have silly behaviors (this won't work everyday!). The kids like honesty and it's good for them to see that you aren't always in that perky, perfect mood! Along with honesty, show them your emotions. I have cried with my kids over books and students moving and I have also laughed until my belly hurts with them. They appreciate seeing you be YOU!

      Teaching is a tough job and sometimes you have those days where you think "what did I get myself into", but let me tell you, it's all about those little moments! It's the light bulb moments and the times they make your heart melt.

      Want to know what my kids did for me for Valentine's Day? One of my kids somehow rounded up the whole class (while I stepped into the hallway for 2 minutes) and signed this GIANT card for me. They all got together and presented it as a class. 30 students! Can you believe it? I almost melted! They got me flowers, chocolates, and presents! It's those days, that we teachers live for.

      Again, I am no expert and have tons of room to grow. These are just a few things that I do that I think make a difference! Try them out, let me know if they work for you! Just be YOU! :)

Thanks for reading!

and the lightbulb clicked!

         Yesterday, I spent the day in St. Louis with four other colleagues at a Greg Tang math workshop from Creative Mathematics. If you haven't heard of Greg Tang, maybe you have heard of Kim Sutton? Anyways, it was an AWESOME conference. I was a little reluctant, because it's Math and Math is a struggle for myself and many of my kids. I'm just not good at it! He gave us some great resources to use  and good insight. At this conference, we had several "light bulb" moments. Things we've known for years and have been teaching for awhile finally "made sense". I know how to do all the Math, but now I know that why question!

       The take home point of his entire workshop was that mental math needs to be the goal in mind and that mastery of the strategies is highly important. One thing that we learned that I think needs to be passed to every single educator is this:

       When kids are learning multiplication, for example 2 x 3, we teach them to skip count 2, 4, 6, and your answer is 6! However, when kids get to higher level grades, it is not realistic to skip count when you have a number like 2 x 45, so we need to teach them strategies that they will work every time for math instruction.

       I got to thinking, wow this is so true! I still have kids who will try to skip count to 85 or even 100 and they are in 5th grade. That is just not going to work out. So, we have to teach strategies that will follow them as they progress in Math.

      Another take home point that Mr. Tang spoke about was that we need to start with concrete Math (i.e. manipulatives) and move towards abstract thinking. I definitely agree with this. As an adult, I sometimes still use my fingers (I can't believe I just admitted that) but admit it, some of you do too! The goal is for kids to be able to visualize it in their heads and not have to use concrete methods. I cannot say how important that is.

       Also, our kids need to be able to apply what they know to real life and explain it. I have no idea why the quadrilateral formal works, but my teachers told me it did, I memorized the song, and I am proficient at solving it. Heres the key, I DON'T KNOW WHY I AM DOING THAT so I'm not really learning.

      I just loved Greg Tang. His humor and tricks really kept us motivated and paying attention. I wish I could teach you every little trick he taught us! Here is the most important thing that Greg Tang taught us:

       If we want students to use mental Math, then as teachers, we must get better at mental math. We ALL write every problem out and that doesn't help our kids move towards mental math. Sure, you start with writing it out and gradually take away elements as you work on solving them in your head. As teachers, we cannot be "scared" of Math because it hurts our students. Math is SOO important. Get better at it! That's my goal!

      Confession, when I first learned I was teaching 5th grade, I cried. Want to know why? It wasn't tears of joy! I didn't know how to teach 5th grade Math. It wasn't Science, Reading or Writing that scared me, it was the Math. I hadn't added fractions in ages. I hadn't done long division in a long time. I needed a calculator! My goal is to get better at Math and Science because those two subjects are challenging for me and I want my students to feel comfortable with Math.

       If you ever have a chance to attend a Greg Tang workshop, I highly recommend it. Prepare to be mind-blown and prepare to perform A LOT of mental Math!

Check out his website on my resources.

Have a great snow day!

My beloved Ipad

        I know I just posted yesterday, but when things are new and the hubby is sleeping, I get bored! Today, I decided I would share my number one secret weapon in my classroom, my Ipad! I love it and it can do so much more than I ever imagined. I had been wanting an Ipad for sometime, but there really was no rationale to spend that kind of money when I had a smartphone, laptop, and a desktop. However, when I got offered my teaching job, I felt that was a good enough reason to splurge and I don't regret it one bit! The main thing that I use the Ipad for in the classroom is as a grade book. I know there are tons more uses for it and you can check out the google document under "resources" for more information, but I am still kind of learning how to use it effectively. 

Here is a little tutorial of my grade book, how to use it, and why I LOVE it!

First, download the app "TeacherKit" and when you open it up, it should look like this:

Just keep clicking on your screen and you will come to a page that looks likes this:

Now, your screen like this will look a little bit different because you haven't added any classes. Check out that plus sign in the left hand corner and click on it. This is where you can put in whatever subject you might be taking a grade for. For me, I have a different "class" for each subject that I take a grade on for grade cards. Once you have created a class and you click on it, your screen will look like this:

Except, yours will not have students already in it. To add a student you click on that plus sign in the right hand corner. This is your main screen and if you click on a specific student you can see their grades for that class (once you have entered grades). 

To add grades, you will want to click on the middle top word that says "Gradebook" and your screen will look like this (except empty of course): 

To add an assignment, you click on that upper right hand plus sign again and your screen will look like this: 

This is where you will put in the title of the assignment you are grading and the maximum grade that the students can earn. For me, my kids can earn up to a 3 (4's are considered "extra credit") on each assignment. After you get a new assignment in, you can scroll through the kids names and assign a grade to them. The cool thing about this program is that it calculates it for you and you can customize your percents to whatever grading system you use. I use a 1-4 system. 

My grading skill is roughly: 

higher than 100% = 4

80%-100% = 3

60%-80% = 2

lower than 60% = 1

I have set my grade book up to auto distribute all the grades I enter which means that all the grades that I enter are worth the same portion of their grade. My kids love when I show them their name and they can visually see what their grade is looking like and how many assignments they are missing. Another thing that I love about this is that when it comes time to do grades at the end of the quarter, I can just go through the list. The only thing better would be if I could export them to powerschool! Right now, I can export them to my email and I do that often as a grade book back-up because technology can fail sometimes! This app has been a life saver and definitely a time saver!

I highly recommend TeacherKit. 

Have other questions? Let me know!

First post ranting!

        I felt inspired after two days of being snowed in and decided that since I spend so much time on my iPad, I might as well take a shot at blogging my teaching experiences instead of scrolling endlessly through Facebook. I spent my two snow days in my pajamas being lazy and playing Super Nintendo with the hubby. I didn't do hardly any school work and definitely didn't tap into the mounds of grading that I brought home expecting to be productive on my two days off. The only thing I did do for school during our February, Missouri "snowmageddon" was apply for and write a $500 grant for school supplies, calculators and stopwatches. After I finished submitting my grant application, I realized that others, who work "normal" jobs, wouldn't normally do any work from home and here I am spending a few hours working on my "day off". Often, I envy people who have desk jobs from 9-5 and when they get home, their day is over. I love teaching, I truly do and think I was born for this career, but I can't help but wonder what it would be like if I spent evenings watching mindless television instead of writing lesson plans or spent my weekends shopping on the town with my girlfriends instead of grading papers. Anywho, people sometimes think that when teachers talk about the massive amount of work and the emotional strain we endure, that we are complaining but that isn't the case. We just want a little recognition for what we do. We don't complain in hopes that we will get paid more, or to annoy others, and we certainly don't want a new job. We are teachers because we love it at least in my case. :) 

My loving husband, who supports every penny
on my teaching and all the time I spend
writing lesson plans!

Happy reading and share my blog with your friends! If I know people read, I will be better about keeping it up!