License and Graduation!!!

My diploma has arrived.  It looks wonderful!  Better yet, I received my Nebraska teaching certificate today.  Yippee!!!  I am now licensed to teach K-8th grade in Nebraska.  Now to find a job.  Sigh.  !

I've been teaching at the Phoenix Academy for the month of June.  Four weeks of summer school is a pretty good amount of time.  It's just enough to gain more experience and earn a little money, but I'll still have the month of July with my kids before school begins once again.  Wouldn't it be great fun to spend the month preparing for my new job?  :)

Summer school at the Phoenix Academy is an awesome learning experience.  Not only have I been trained in Spaulding Phonics, but I have also needed to create lessons for children who struggle mightly with reading and math.  It's a really neat school.  The faculty really care about the kids.  That's what it's all about, isn't it?  Some of my students will enroll in the fall and that makes my heart smile.  I know their needs will be met and they will be able to return to their "regular school" on top of their game.  The holes in their education will be filled. 



My Website

I created my own website as my "online portfolio".  It's so easy, anyone can do it!

Here's my link:  http://amygillespie.weebly.com/

My website contains my resume, letters of reference, student teaching bits, and favorite resources.  I pulled the best anchor charts and photos I could find to show my potential employers. 

Psst...it's also completely free!  Gotta love free!!!

Summer School

My first official job began:  summer school!  I was trained the end of May and began on June 4th.  I am teaching intensive phonics (the Spaulding method) and math for 4 weeks.  It may turn into a full time job this fall (fingers crossed).....the kids are sweet and we are filling their brains with awesome reading tools.  :)   

I still have not heard from any other schools(for the fall)  and I feel a little anxious...I'm the type of person who likes to have all of her ducks lined up nice and neat in a row...!!!  If I do not get a full time job, I'll reapply with the dozen or so districts as a substitute.  I've heard that's the way to go if you can't get on full time.....

Grateful for the part time job and afternoons off.....Hmmmm, this would be great year round!

Poetry

We've been digging into poetry and have had loads of fun reading them.  After writing our own rhyming poems, we decided to give 2 other poetry forms a try.  The first one is a limerick.  Here is our class limerick poem:

Candy Shop

There once was a girl named Mandy.

And sometimes she ate too much candy.

It was a real treat,

To have something so sweet.

The candy store sure was handy!

The rules are as follows:  5 lines; lines 1, 2, and 5 all rhyme; lines 3 and 4 also rhyme.  They loved this!

Here is our class alphabet poem:

Our Class

All

Busy

Classmates

Do

Everything

Forever

Notice the rule?  You begin with any letter of the alphabet and create one word per line with the next letter.  Oh, and it needs to "tell a story" or make sense.  Fun times!



The President's

We've been learning about the Presidents and writing about them.  The kids learned a song and like to sing it rather loudly!  :)  You'll find the song in the post below.  Anyhow, here's the anchor chart I made for them:

The end of the song goes like this:  "Thank you God for our 43 presidents; it's for them we pray".  I hope you practice it at home!  Yes, the song will stick in your head, but that's a GOOD thing! 

President's Song

Here is our class singing the President's Song. The recording is not great, but it's the best we could do at this point!
Voice Recorder >>

The White House

We've been studying the White House and our Presidents.  The kiddos are researching some of our Presidents and we are reading about them together.  We took a trip through the White House courtesy of the Google Art Project.  Click  White House Tour  and you can go with us!  Once you are "in", you can zoom in on art and see the origin, name, and other facts.  The site also has multiple famous art museums.  Who needs vacations anymore?  Just kidding.  Enjoy!

Measurement and ME

Our class is taking a wonderfullly refreshing break from regular math.  I can still hear the cheers from the students.  We are embarking on a measurement journey and enjoying ourselves immensely!  On day one, students wandered about the room with their partner, a measuring worksheet, a ruler, and a pencil.  They had the freedom to measure anything they wanted except for the area around the teacher's desks (I had visions of computers flying, papers scattering, and general chaos!).  The students were fabulously behaved and their feedback was very positive.  Hands on activities are so neat, aren't they?

Anyhow, here are the anchor charts I created for our unit.  We refer to them every day!

Gallon Man is very effective.  We can easily tell how many cups are in a pint or quart, how many quarts are in a gallon, and we are even talking about how many pints are in a half gallon!  Thank you, Gallon Man!  I got this idea from Pinterest and simply tweaked it to fit our needs.

We are also memorizing this information!  Up next: metric measurement!  This topic has always confused me, so you can be sure an anchor chart will be made to help cement our knowledge!

St. Paul's Cathedral

We talked about church symbols in religion today, and I took the children on a field trip.  We went to St. Paul's Cathedral in London, England.  Oh, you're right, it wasn't a REAL field trip, just a virtual tour.  The children really enjoyed the spectacular moving images and different views from each part of the massive cathedral.  They noticed different details and all wanted to jump on a plane to actually tour this impressive structure.  All of them begged for the link, so here it is:  http://www.sphericalimages.com/stpauls/

If that doesn't work, here's the link to St. Paul's:  http://www.stpauls.co.uk/  Just click on "visits and events" and then "virtual tour". 

One hint:  you might get dizzy.  :)  You've been warned!  Enjoy!!!

Phonics Anchor Chart

I cannot tell a lie  - I love anchor charts.  No, I REALLY love anchor charts.  I am a visual person, and I think most kids like to see their learning on display as well.   Anchor charts also help me look good, because they remind me of what's what! 

It was actually fun (really?) to study vowel pairs, vowel digraphs, and diphthongs.  I'm not kidding!  I combed through their book to make this chart in order to put all of the information onto one chart.  We had this chart up for 2 weeks and referred to it during each lesson.  One day, we had to identify the long a sound in words and the kiddos were thrown for a loop when there were no vowel pair words.  I pointed to the chart and asked them which sound also makes the long a sound?  The lightbulbs went off in their little brains when they looked at the "ei" vowel digraph.  Gotta love those charts!!!!!  And bonus: they all performed excellently on their phonics test!  :)

Book Review

The 3rd grade class has had lots of fun learning about writing, specifically how to write a Book Review.    We took about two weeks and marched right through all of the steps.  The final products are ready for tomorrow's peer presentations.  I'm looking forward to that!  I think it will be the perfect activity after we come back from our ballpark field trip.  Imagine trying to accomplish a serious math lesson instead!

The steps are easy:  We chose a book, created a story map, answered specific questions for each of our 3 paragraphs, participated in a peer review, edited, and finally wrote our final draft complete with an illustration (or two).  Whew!  They gave their opinions, talked about what the character learned, and tried not to give away the ending. 

Here is the link for my free download: My Book Review

I melt for student artwork and here are a couple of examples from our final book review:

Leo the Lightning Bug - 3rd grade girl

Diary of a Wimpy Kid - 3rd grade boy

I Love You Blue Kangaroo - 3rd grade girl

Aren't they great?  I'm so proud of them!!!  We're planning on displaying them on our classroom bulletin board which is in the hallway outside of our room.  What's up next?  A Book Report of a non-fiction book!  Let the good times roll!

Fuzzies

Yep, I'm bribing the 3rd grade.  I have taken over the class for the month of April.  I think it's ok, bribary that is, - I'm just calling it "rewarding for positive behavior".  :)  

A returning theme during our pursuasive writing unit was an intense desire for a root beer float (yum!).  I decided to use this knowledge to my advantage.  I bought a clear plastic jar and 2 packages of fuzzies at the dollar store (if you're counting, that's 3 bucks!).  I counted the number of student teaching days I have left and counted out enough fuzzies to fill my jar.  The kiddos need about 7 fuzzies per day to have our root beer float party. 

How do you get a fuzzy?  It's basically doing what you should be doing in the first place.  But to spell it out, the CLASS as a whole needs to do one of the following (most of these are available to them multiple times per day): 

1. work quietly during morning work

2. be ready for our lesson quickly (they know what that means on their desk)

3. listen and participate during our lesson

4. line up and walk quietly

5. come back to class quietly and ready to work

6. bathroom break is orderly

7. another teacher compliments the class!

I (or my CT) am impressed with you!

We started this today and the class was really excited.  My jar is on my desk (with only a few lonely fuzzies so far!) and the sign is by our whiteboard in the front of the room.  Fingers crossed!

I'm not looking for perfection, just a little incentive to keep everyone focused during the end of the year.  The class has 17 boys (and 6 girls) and a game of sorts will really help (I hope!).  I'll be so sad to leave them at the end of April!  We really are having such a grand time.....

Gotta love a prefix and suffix!!

I've been completely enjoying my time in 3rd grade.  The kids are a scream!  I've been making anchor charts for them because I'm a visual learner.  I like to see in print what I am learning.  So, I just assume these kids can also benefit - hence the love of anchor charts.  I'm literally obsessed with pinning them on my Pinterest account.  Anyhow, here's my recent anchor chart for our prefix and suffix lessons coming up:

As you can see, I sorta ran out of room with all those suffixes, but it's better in person.  It's just a teaching tool....basically so I don't have to keep writing these things on the board each and every day!  I know my Phonics chart made a real difference with the kiddos, and that's all the proof I need!  It was so handy to scaffold the information from lesson to lesson, and class to class.  Frankly, anchor charts make me feel smarter and also make me look good...Why?   Because all I have to do to remind myself of the answer is LOOK AT THE CHART!  It's all about making things easier for the teacher.  At least, that's what I'm discovering each and every day.

Children and Chores

My student teaching is becoming a reality!  I'll be working among friends at my children's elementary school.  I am thrilled and eager to begin -my last step before becoming an official teacher!!  I will begin in the next couple of weeks.  Yippee!!!!!

I have four children (2 girls and 2 boys), and they have grown up completing various household chores.  I figure they need to learn and I need the help!  Recently, we've all become a bit slack in chore standards and "guess who" has been fixing all the messes!!

So, a chore chart re-do was in order and I just finished it.  I also just finished my little chat with my slaves children about my chore expectations.  We chatted about things like "how to clean up after yourself (ie: bowls go into the dishwasher and don't live on top of the dishwasher waiting for mother to rescue them), pot washer people need to leave the sink clean (ie: don't leave disgusting food debris in the sink!), lunch preparers need to clean up the counter when finished (ie: don't leave the peanut butter knife, jelly globs, and massive amount of crumbs!), etc.  We had fun with it and did not have one eyeball roll.  Progress!

Here is a picture of their new daily chore chart:

The children are assigned a letter for one week.  On Mondays, they switch to a new letter.  When the children switch every week, they are less bored, the chores are now "fair", and everyone learns how do everything. 

The first chores listed under "A, B, C, and D" are the afternoon chores.  The children begin them about half hour after returning home from school (they need some down time to snack, etc).  Dinner chores are self-explanatory.  Before bed chores are just a gentle reminder for preparing themselves for school.

Here is a picture of their individual name labels which move from one letter to the next each week:

The items under each name are "morning chores".  They never made their bed (yikes! sorry, world!) and so that is why I included it for their morning routine.  It takes 30 seconds, people!  Why make your bed if you don't make it until the afternoon and are messing it up merely a couple of hours later?  The point is...what?

Here are their names above the daily chore chart:

Make sense?  I've always done it this way, and it seems to work really great for everyone.  When my youngest was too little to participate in everyone's chores, I kept him alone in the "D" slot.  It consisted of easier chores he could complete. 

Most of their daily chores take hardly any time.  I would guess the entire thing will take them about 30 minutes each.  Sometimes it will be way less, and there may be days when they have no homework and I need a little more help from them.  I revamped this chore chart to include more things since I will be student teaching and then teaching full-time this fall.  I love working on the house, but I won't have as much time!  The chore chart is easier than waving a white flag or wearing grumpy pants because nobody  helps me.

How old are my children?  Andrew is 16, Linnea is 14, Emily is 12 and Matthew is 10.  Yes, they are old enough to be a major help to our family.  It wasn't always this way.  I remember when Andrew was 6 and it went on down from there.  There were more messes then helpers!!  When the children were little they obviously couldn't help as much, but they did what they could.  I think the key to children doing chores is starting early and keeping it going.  If you ask my children, they'll tell you they've always done chores and they don't really think much about it.  Of course they'd rather NOT (me too!!), but they know I expect it and that's that. 

Saturday chores are a little different.  We clean the house once a week, and I've trained the kids to basically clean the entire house by themselves.  I sit back and eat bon-bons while they slave away.  Just kidding.  I'm usually immersed in some productive activity which goes along with one of their chores.  Here's a look at the Saturday chore list:

We've talked about what each chore means and what the expectations are.  I NEVER expect perfection, just their best.  I can tell if a child is rushing through because they don't care, or if they simply missed something.  I praise often and thank them for helping out.  My 10 year old knows how to clean a bathroom, and that's a beautiful thing!

I have everything in our hallway on our family bulletin board.  It includes both chore lists, a list "To Buy" (I use recycled envelopes mostly), and a list of dinners to make (from ingredients I have on hand).  Each Monday, the names are rotated one space to the right.  The ribbon hanging down in the middle has a pencil tied to it.

If you have any questions, just ask!  How did I figure out what to put on my chore list?  Well, I've tweaked the same chart for years, but it all began with answering this question: What bugs me?  Things on the stairs bug me.  Trash overflowing bugs me.  This chart system is personal to you, so make it your own! 

Directions:

• Create a list of what bugs you.  Ask yourself if your children's ages can handle cleaning up these things. 
• Assign those chores to different "letters" if you have more than one child. 
• Create a list of morning chores (this was very detailed when the children were small), afternoon chores (this works well with school aged children), and evening "get ready for school" duties.  Or, make a different chore time for your family. 
• Create a name list/card for each child.  With small children, you can include their picture.
• Want help on Saturdays?  Or only on Saturdays?  Make a list, divide it up, and begin teaching them how to clean the items on your list. 
• Change the names every Monday (or pick a different day!). 
• Make it pretty or leave it plain.  It's totally up to you! 
• Small children? I used to have pictures to go with each chore, so my pre-readers could remember which chore it was. 

Have fun!!!







Giant Book List

Well, I still have NOT heard where I will be student teaching and that is so frusturating!  I know I need to trust that God has a plan, but it's hard!  I promise to be a super help to the teacher.  :)

I just love Christmas.  Since this is the last holiday season not in the classroom, I am trying my hardest to simply enjoy every moment.  Among all the decorating, buying, and wrapping, I am making tons of little cookies, throwing my youngest a birthday party and planning for my grandmother's Christmas visit.  Oh yes, I'm also responsible for our family's fancy Christmas Eve dinner and Christmas Day luncheon.  No pressure. 

Now and then, I turn my head back to school things and I have finished my GIANT book list.  The categories I have included are as follows: 

                                                                               
                                                                               Comprehension (C in CAFE)

                                                                                Accuracy (A in CAFE)

                                                                                Fluency (F in CAFE)

                                                                                 Expanding vocabulary (E in CAFE)

3 ways to read a book

Places to read in the classroom

Taking care of books

Introducing book bins

Beginning of the year

Read to self

Introducing the CAFE board

Read to someone

Predicting

Schema/background knowledge

Making connections strategy

Questioning strategy

Visualizing strategy

Inferring strategy

Synthesizing strategy

Determining importance strategy

 

Whew.  I combined lists from online folks, different books, and my personal library.  Things are much handier when they are in one resource instead of little papers spilling all over our desk or online file boxes.  Thank you to everyone who ever posted a book list.  I probably found you and used something from your list.  The only credit I can take is the time it took to find, organize and type everything up.  Just email me if you want the list:  brooksandamy@hotmail.com

Bye for now!

Vowel Flower Activity

Well, I've been figuring out how to upload documents to a blog.  Good grief, but it's ridiculous!  Hopefully now I am all ready to go (fingers crossed)!  It's funny how a person can take so much time tweaking a bit of clip art because the print preview shows everything all weird.....

Anyhow, here is an activity from a beginning reader unit I created for Kindergarteners.  For complete directions, click on the Vowel Flower Activity.  The Vowel Flower Activity is for students who have just learned their short vowel sounds are are getting ready to read CVC words. 

The "A,E,I,O,and U" vowels are each placed onto a separate flower center:

After you have taped them to the white board or stapled them permanently onto a bulletin board, give each child some "CVC flower petals" and have fun!  Don't create the flower petals to match the colors of the vowel centers.  Just make them all white or random colors.  If there is a color pattern, the kids will notice that and forget paying attention to the vowel sounds!!! (they are so smart!)

Here is an example of the "E" flower:

Here are the empty letter examples:

A variation on the theme is to write the CVC words without the vowel.  The kids have to think harder, but don't forget that CVC words can become different words when the vowel is replaced by another vowel!  Here is an example of this:

This activity could become a center when you are finished.  The kids could also help you come up with more and more words. You could use this as a semi-permanent display to review the word worm periodically (see post below). 

Bye!

WORD WORM

I used to home school my kiddos, and this was a big hit with them. I plan on using this in my classroom; it's basically a variation on Word Walls. 

This friendly WORD WORM has a cute face and its body consists of circles with words the students can read. This project begins when students first learn how to read, so most of the words are CVC words. 

Just create a ton of colorful 3-4" circles. Make the first circle a face (the cuter the better), and the rest of the circles will have one bold word written on it. Tape them up and after awhile, the WORD WORM will circle around the room, up onto the ceiling, and the kids will be super excited about all the words they know! They can predict where it will finally end! This activity is a great motivator.

Materials:
-Dozens of 3-4" circles from different colors of construction paper. You can decide to use a limited amount of colors, or you may use as many colors as you wish.
-Sharpie for clearly writing each word
-Masking tape or other item to attach worm circle to wall/ceiling
-Head of worm: use one circle, make some eyes, a smile, and curly antennas to stick up (the cuter the better)
-CVC words to start, add sight or other as well

-Don't need feet!  Yea, less work!!  :)

Directions:
Using your CVC Picture Cards or existing word list, write each word on a circle. Introduce the worm to the students. Name him (or her)!  Show them the face and tape it to the wall. Show them each word circle and read them together. Tape them to the wall and explain the system to them.
Update the worm each time you have new words.
Students can take turns writing the words if you wish.

The photo below includes words from different categories to give you the idea:

Classes are DONE!!!!

Well, I'm officially finished with my education classes!!!  I've been so bored!  To relieve my boredom, I am having fun actively searching teaching blogs and pinterest for ideas!  I am obsessed with the Daily 5, so I am hunting for delicious tidbits for this area especially.

I have NOT heard yet where I will be student teaching.  Nuts!  I can hardly wait.  With two months off to enjoy Thanksgiving and Christmas, I am trying to savor each day.  When student teaching arrives, I will be super busy and (cross my fingers) a true job will follow.  Might as well enjoy the time now, right? 

Well, I'm talking to myself at the moment, but that's ok with me.  I'm here for me, to encourage me with my student teaching journey.  It will all be great and I will learn tons.  My background and substitute teaching have prepared me for this moment.  I hope the moment comes soon or I'll just burst.

Nature Notebook

Today we are going to talk about critiquing art. We are also going to learn about a famous great artist named John Audubon. We are going to apply our newly found critiquing skills to one of his famous bird pictures. Then, we will embark on a fun activity!


What does it mean to critique art? Well, it means to determine the value of the art. How do you determine the value? Well, there are different steps an art critic takes to determine the value of art. For this lesson, you are the art critic!


Art Vocabulary

Here are some new art terms I will use within this lesson:

Balance- the arrangement of elements in an artwork

Contrast- the use of different colors, values, textures, and other elements to create differences between those elements

Focal point- the main point to which one's eye is attracted

Negative space- the area, space, or background around an object

Perspective- representation of a sense of distance and depth in an artwork through use of line and other elements

Element- a visual or sensory part of an artwork used to create the composition


Before we begin, let's discuss what "critiquing art" means.

Art Critique

1.) Beauty- Is the art beautiful to you? Do you like it? Does it have balance, contrast, texture, movement, appropriate size of subject, and is the presentation (framing) pleasing to your eye?
How about a focal point? Is the negative space used properly? Is the perspective appropriate?
Are the different elements placed properly?

2.) Skill/Technique- Is the piece done well? This may be hard for you to determine now, but look closely at the picture. Are the strokes done consistently? Is there depth and detail?

3.) Meaning- Is there meaning behind the art? Art can represent another object, tell a story, make a statement, or become an allegory or metaphor.

4.) Unique- Is this art unique? Does it invite you to look longer? Is it special?

5.) Complete- Does the art piece tell the story the artist wanted to tell? Did it work?


John Audubon

Now that you know what an art critic thinks about, let's discuss our great artist named John Audubon. He lived from 1785-1851, and he is one of the most famous painters of birds in the whole world. Although he grew up in France, he moved to America when he was 17 years old. Because he loved beautiful birds, he traveled all over North America, painting 435 watercolors of birds. His life's work was painting every bird species in America! Isn't that amazing? His pictures are famous and bird watchers still use his work to identify birds on the trail.


Art Critique Photo

Here the picture we will use for this lesson:



American Robin by John Audubon (1840-1844)


This is the American Robin. Look at this picture. Study it. Remember, you are the art critic! When you are ready, ask your mom or dad to sit with you and listen to you as you orally answer the following questions related to the above picture.



Art Discussion Questions

Beauty- How is this picure beautiful? Is it beautiful to you? Do you notice the picture balance? See how the large nest is balanced by the tall branch? Can you sense the movement of the baby birds and their parents? How about the contrast of the brightly colored leaves, robins, and nest next to the white paper? Is the negative space used properly? What is the focal point? Are all of the different elements placed properly?

Skill/Technique- Do you think Mr. Audubon did an excellent job? You know how you can tell? Does his picture look like an actual real live robin? You're right, it does! And does his leaves and nest closely resemble real tree leaves and real bird's nests? Yes!

Meaning- What is Mr. Audubon trying to say with his picture? You are correct if you mentioned either depicting a real robin family or robin parents feeding their babies.

Unique- Is this art picture unique? Yes it is! When John Audubon lived, there was a need for someone to document birds, because there was not a complete picture library of birds for North America.

Complete- Did John Audubon acccurately draw his intended bird (American Robin)?



Nature Notebook Activity

The last section of this lesson is our nature notebook activity.

supplies:

-spiral bound sketchpad (or make your own with white drawing paper in a 3-ring binder)
-pencils, colored pencils, erasers, crayone, watercolors
-real wildlife, magazines with wildlife pictures, books with wildlife pictures

procedure:

To begin, find an animal picture or observe a real animal and draw it in your notebook. Look at the photo/animal while you draw. Try to include as many details as possible.
Next, include the background of the photo/animal. Try to recreate a realistic background.
Then, add some details about the animal's footprints or eating habits.
Write the animal's scientific and common name.
Collect many different sketches of animals in your Nature Notebook. Don't forget to add color!

You can help create a wonderful composition by looking through the questions we asked about the American Robin. These will help you create masterful art. Who knows: you may be the next Great Artist!



References:

Audubon, J. (1840-1844). American robin [Painting]. Retrieved from http://www.watsonswildlife.com/John_James_Audubon/American_Robin_1.jpg

How to judge art: Five qualities you can critique whether you're an artist or not. (2006). Retrieved June 12, 2011, from http://emptyeasel.com/2006/11/18/how-to-judge-art-five-qualities-you-can-critique/