Special Times in Special Ed.

       Well I have just finished my second week of my special education placement at a new school.  I am working in a resource room that services students young 5's -8th grade.  Needless to say this is quite an adventure.  I am at a new school, with new teachers, new rules, and a new feel.  This was not a change that I wanted to make, but I knew the importance of this transition.  I loved everything about my first student teaching placement, and I was comfortable with my skills as a general education instructor.  Now that I am off to the new school, I am feeling the awkwardness of transition.  I am not as comfortable in the special education area, and I am new to the school so I have been very reserved and observant over the past two weeks. However, now that I am settling in at the new school, I am beginning to take more risks and gain knowledge on how to effectively teach students with disabilities.  I know that God has me here for a reason, and I am not going to allow myself to waste time.  I need to be proactive and make the best of the situation that I am in.  I know that in the end this will make me the best educator that I can be.  Bridging the gap between the special education and regular education is my goal as a teacher. I will keep you updated on the new chapter of this journey!

Trail of Tears

      I am officially done with my regular education student teaching placement.  Yesterday was the last day in my second grade classroom...and man was it a hard day to get through.  On one hand I was excited that I am getting closer and closer to getting my own classroom.  On the other hand,  I never wanted this day to come because I love my students, my school, and the people in it.   Needless to say, it was going to be a very hard day.  All week my students had been asking why I had to leave, where I was going, and whether or not I would ever come back to see them.  I spent the majority of my week reassuring them that I was not getting kicked out of the school and I was only going to a new school ten minutes down the road...THEY WOULD SEE ME AGAIN!!!  Now it is finally my last day.  As soon as I walk in the classroom  I see that everything is decorated with streamers and signs for me.  This is when it really hit me that I would not be coming back to the classroom with these students.  It was a tough day to get through and it did not make it any better when the all of the kids decided to cry during their music class.  The music teacher could not even get through class because they were crying so loud.  I heard about this from another teacher who could hear my students crying in the office.  I went down to the office to get them, thinking I could calm them down and get them back into music class.  This was not the plan my students had because I spent the last 30 minutes of my prep sitting outside the music class with two students while they cried.  I was glad that they loved me, but it did not make it any easier to leave them at the end of the day.  Despite the sadness, it was a fun day in my classroom.  My teacher had a surprise party for me, which means lots of new goodies for my classroom!  After that we all went outside and ate popsicles and enjoyed the sunshine.  I am sad to be leaving,  I truly did enjoy my time with my second graders!

Look before you sit!

         Look before you sit...that is a lesson I learned a little too well yesterday during my math lesson.  We have been working with 3D shapes all week.  Yesterday, I thought that it would be fun to create some 3D shapes of our own using marshmallows and toothpicks.  I modeled how to make the different shapes for the class and I sat the finished products on the stool in the front of the classroom.  I was walking around the room helping students and monitoring their work and completely forgot that I had made some shapes and sat them on the stool.  After about 20 minutes I ended up back at the stool and without looking at the stool, I backed up to it and sat down.  I was sitting down for a couple of minutes and then I started thinking about the shapes I had made because I wanted to let a student use one at his desk for an example.  I could not find them and I did not remember where I had set the shapes.  I was convinced that a student had taken them when I was not looking and was now claiming the shapes as their own.  Finally, I stood up and turned around to write on the board.  What do I see when I stand up?  MARSHMALLOWS AND TOOTHPICKS SMASHED TO THE STOOL!  A couple of my students saw this on the stool and at about the same time we realized that if they were on the stool , then they must be on the back of my pants too!  We had some good laughs, and during my prep which was coming up in about 5 minutes I went into the teachers bathroom and cleaned them up.  This would happen to me on a day where I had a staff meeting after school.  I had to get the pants clean, I couldn't go to my last staff meeting with marshmallows dangling off the back of my pants!

Need a laugh!

So I realized that in my last post I forgot to write down some of the quotes from my students.  They really must be the funniest group of kids that I have ever met!

Here they are:

One day while standing out at dismissal with my students, one of the girls in my class was asking me a question and I did not hear her talking to me, so it seemed to her like I was ignoring her. After a couple minutes of her repeating the same question to me over and over again, she yelled out at me, "speak cracker, speak!"  Now in order to understand why this was so funny you need to know the background of my students.  I am a white teacher in a class that is mainly black students.  So when she yelled this at me I couldn't help but laugh.  She is one of the most innocent girls we have in our whole school, so I knew that she had no clue what she was saying.  I just had to take a step back and laugh at this situation, especially after the long day that I had!

Just the other day, my class was in the library for our weekly visit and while we were there the librarian was reading a biography about Abraham Lincoln.  My students were pretty attentive throughout the story because we have been studying biographies in class.  At the end of the story on of the girls in my class raised her had because she had something she wanted to share with the class.  Once she was called on this is what she was dying to share.
Student: "Do you know who Abraham Lincoln's 27th grandson was?"
Librarian: "No who was it?"
Student: "It was Jesus!"
Librarian: "Jesus Christ?"
Student: "Yes, my mom told me that Jesus was the grandson of Abraham Lincoln!"
At this point I did not know any other reaction expect for to laugh!

Since I've been gone...

     As you may have noticed, I have not blogged in almost an entire month.  This is not because nothing exciting has happened, it is simply because I am so busy that I do not have time to keep up with this blog.  Sad story, trust me I know!  Do not worry, I am back now..and after much harassment from followers of my blog, I am going to do a better job with keeping up on this blog!
     So since I have last blogged we have had a number of events happen in the classroom.  For starters, I went on my first field trip as a teacher.  We went to the Michigan Theater and to the Museum of Natural History.  This was an event for sure, trying to keep up with 90 second graders and their parents was a task all in itself! By the end of this "day off" from class, I was more tired than I usually am after a full day of school.  The very next day after the field trip was Valentine's Day, which in second grade means HUGE PARTY WITH LOTS OF PREPARATION! Despite all of the craziness of getting this party together for my students, I did have a lot of fun giving and receiving cards and candy from my students and taking time to just get to know them!

Personalized Cookie I was given as a Valentine's treat from a student!

The Valentine's card I made for my students.

Here's for my fans!

          It seems that my blog is creating quite the commotion in Southeastern Michigan, and by Southeastern Michigan, I mean to the 4 people that actually know about this blog.  However, they have brought it to my attention that I have not blogged in quite a while.  In an effort to please everyone I come in contact with I am going to give a quick little week update.
       Today was my observation from my university supervisor on my progress during my student teaching.  I spent about 4 hours preparing ONE lesson to teach to my class while she was in the room.  Although it was a great lesson, it took me entirely too long and there is no way that I am going to allow myself to spend that much time on a lesson when their are so many other things to be done in order to prepare for a school day. All that time was worth it though because she said that I am doing extremely well in my placement.  She also talked about how easily she thinks I will find a teaching job based on my performance as a student teacher.  These were great things to hear yet, I know I have a ton of room to grow and I want to do everything I can to improve as a teacher.  I want to get to the point where all of my lessons are that good.  I do not want to have this exceptionally well lesson that is only around for an hour of the day.  I know I have a lot of room to grow and one of those areas to grow in is my math instruction.  I do not like math, I do not like teaching math, and honestly, I do not even like the word math....and I am not sure why I am writing the word math so much right now!  Anyways, for my midterm evaluation for student teaching I am having my supervisor watch me teach a math lesson.  I might be shooting myself in the foot on that one but it is worth it in order to grow!


Now for what you really want to hear about...its time for the quote of the week: Beware this one is a little interesting!

While I was teaching our morning ELA lesson in our DOL books, one of the questions was to create words in the -ick family.
Me: (calling on a student) Can you think of a word that is in the-ick family?
Student: Yes, Dick.
All the other students: AGHHH YOU ARE SWEARING!
Student: NO IM NOT ITS A WORD!
Me: Well I don't think I am going to write that word down.
Student: Why not, my mom calls my dad that all the time.
Me: Ummmmm?!?!?!

Kids literally says the craziest things EVER!

Why am I so busy?!?!?!

     This is my first blog post since last Monday, when I started this blog I was intending on having time to blog about 2 or 3 times each week...boy was I wrong.  As I am picking up more subjects in the classroom and gaining responsibilities, I am finding that blogging is no longer fitting into my schedule.  This past week and weekend, I have really learned what the life of a teacher is truly like.  Clearly, the word "weekend" means "extra planning time" in teacher lingo.  I spent a majority of the weekend preparing my lesson plans for the upcoming week and making sure that I knew all of the information that I am going to bring to my students.  I knew that planning out lessons and weekly units would take a lot of time, but I never really expected it to take this much time.  Lesson planning was a huge part of my education classes in college.  I spent quite a bit of time learning this craft and figuring out how exactly a good lesson is created.  I am finding that now I am actually teaching these lessons to a group of students that I am spending more time and giving more serious thought to how my lessons are planned and prepared.  Also, I take into consideration what my students ability levels are and how I think they could handle certain activities.  Lets be honest, 2nd graders get excited over just about anything and it can be very hard to get them back on the learning track.  That is something that I have to take into consideration with every lesson that I plan and teach.  For example. today we were working on a math worksheet independently and I set a timer on the smart board to help remind the students how much time they had left to work.  I thought it would be fun to have a timer that is a ticking tmie bomb and when time is up it blows up.  Little did I know that my students would focus on the timer and the fuse of the bomb THE ENTIRE TIME! I honestly do not know if they looked at their worksheets for more than two minutes while that timer was on the screen.  Eventually I had to get rid of the timer because my students could not handle it.  This is now something that I have to remember and plan for when I am preparing for lessons.  Clearly, with my students, little things can take their attention for hours!!!  I am learning a lot right now about how my life is going to be.  I am beginning to understand the amount of time it takes to plan a great lesson...and although I cannot say I am a fan of how long everything is taking, I do understand why it needs to happen and I am willing to do whatever it takes to become the best teacher I can possibly be!

Okay...now for the funny stuff!

Here is the best student story from last week:
Student: "Mr. Spicer, when is your wife going to come into class?"
Me: "I have already told you that I am not married, I am too young!"
Student: "Oh, so you go home alone?"
Me: "Yes, I go home alone."
Student: "Does it make you sad to be all alone all the time?"
Me: "...Well it didn't until you just brought it up!!!"
They seriously do not understand how I am a teacher and not married...to them it does not make sense.

      Another story that I find pretty funny is one that happened to my cooperating teacher while she was teaching a lesson to our class while being observed by our principal and a guest principal.  She was teaching about fractions and she had spent hours before organing these tiny fraction manipulatives that the students were going to use in the lesson.  She them all ready to go and sitting on a stool in the front of the room in their container.  Minutes before the students were to use these tools she bumped into the stool and knocked the container over...which then fell open.  Upon hitting the floor, about 1500 pieces flew all over the ground. I had to hurry over and spend the next couple of minutes trying to get what I could together so that the students could use them.  She did a great job of keeping the lesson moving despite the incident, but it is very funny to look back on.  Both principals thought that this was pretty amusing as well!