Reflecting....

I feel like I have been nothing but a public teacher this quarter. Each lesson I have written or taught has been watched and/or evaluated by my cooperating teacher, my field instructor, or a professor. I have been even more public by blogging about my successes, my failings, my joys and my frustrations. I have shared articles or other blogs that have caused me to pause and think about the profession and have discussed with other cohort members issues that have them thinking as well.

I think that the best post that demonstrates my growth as a public teacher is the "Wall of Policy" post I made a few weeks back. I quoted a part of John Spencer's blog that really had me thinking about what we can do, as teachers, to combat a constant wall of bad policy, created by people who don't know teaching and don't know students. We talked a lot about this in class, but as student teaching comes closer and closer, it is suddenly becoming a more real issue to me. What can I do, as a student teacher and then as a first year teacher, to combat this wall of policy? I know it won't be much at first, but I also know that I cannot stand aside and wait to get my tenure before I make some changes.

Having more Fun

As I am sure most of us are, I have found myself thinking about my observation last week. While the lesson went better than my first, something that has been on my mind since then was a comment my field instructor made to my CT. She told her that she wished I could have more fun with my students and the lesson. First of all, I do not find being observed "fun", therefore it is hard to let loose and just be myself with my kids. Secondly, I do not find our curriculum to be fun at all. Any time I try to change something though, I get redirected to the curriculum by my CT. Thus I have spent many a night rewriting a lesson plan so that it will go along with the curriculum.

I am tired and frustrated. I keep hearing that this is my opportunity to explore and try new things, but it feels the opposite. I wish my CT would let me try some of my own ideas and if they fail then they fail. I will learn from those mistakes and adjust. As it is now though, I am not teaching my own lessons, I am teaching the curriculum. I am wondering if others are dealing with this as well, and if you are, how do you put some more of your own personality into the lessons?

The wall of policy

I recently read one of Spencer's blog posts Why aren't teachers more innovative? that one of my classmates had put up on diigo and it really got me thinking about what I will have to face when I have my own classroom. I keep thinking that once I have the opportunity to teach by myself, without my CT's strict, "follow the curriculum" mindset, that I will have the freedom to teach how I want. Spencer reminded me, however, that I will still have to face the "wall of policy" when I am out on my own. What Spencer wrote was a real reality check for me:

"I do what I can. I find loopholes. I blend the learning into a project-based framework. I use technology and advocate for a more authentic pedagogy. However, ultimately, even a bolder teacher like myself must face a wall of bad policy. True, we can stand up like the teachers in Washington. However, we are also in a hyper-red state, in a low-income area. Standing up will cost us our jobs. And I have a hunch that they would rather have a compliant warm body than a non-compliant professional. "

 

That last sentence is truly frightening. How, as a brand new teacher, am I to stand up for what I believe in without losing my job? I don't want to spend the first 5 years of my teaching career being a "compliant warm body", but is this the compromise I will have to make?

"Dealing" with Parents

photo by Mom's Clean Air Force

Spencer's section on Parents this week reminded me of a situation I was in recently.

We have one girl in our class who has repeatedly not turned in math homework. When I went to talk with her about it, she told me that she does her homework but fogets to to put it in her backpack. I was skeptical if this was really the case but she is a very bright girl and always does well on her math work in class. So I told her to put it in her backpack right when she finishes it, that way she will not forget it. We also informed her mom of her missing assignments and she told us she would work on helping her daughter stay organized.

Fast forward a few weeks and we have seen some improvement, but still many missing assignments. I am constantly reminding her to bring her math homework, but there is only so much I can do. I started to get really frustrated with the mom. Obviously this girl needs a little help with organization. Yes, it is partially her responsibility to turn in her homework, but in 3rd grade I believe it is also a parent's responsibility to help their children develop good habits. Doesn't she care about her child's education?

Then I met up with one of my friends last week for coffee. I was telling her about my difficulties with my student not turning in her homework and she confessed to me that they recently had a similar problem with their son. They currently have 5 children with another one on the way. She has been sick the whole first trimester with the baby and her husband is a firefighter with obviously very long and stressful shifts. I know them both to be wonderful parents who are totally committed to their family and to their children's education. It was eye-opening to hear about a similar situation from a parent's point of view. All of a sudden I felt ashamed of the way I had judged my student's mom. I have no idea what is going on in her life right now or what she might be dealing with. Without any background knowledge I had come to the conclusion that she didn't care about her daughter's education and that was completely unfair.

Parents are one of our biggest assests as teachers. Who else knows our students in the way that they do? We need to stop seeing them as a hinderance and start to see them for the assests that they are. It is not always easy, I will be the first to admit, but they ultimately want the best for their children, the same as us.

Garage Band in the Classroom

Picture by Ed Yourdon

 

I had such a fun time creating our podcast this last week on garage band that I wanted to know what else I could do with it. I found this article on 14 ways to use garage band in the classroom, which had some great ideas and it also made me think of a few other ways to use garage band. Here are a few that I thought might be neat:

• Informational writing. My students have to write an informational piece this year and as a fun way to present their final draft, I thought they could record a reading of it with background music to fit their writing topic. (For instance, if they chose to research a person, they could look up the style of music that was popular at the time and choose a song from that genre.)
• For studying different genres in reading, you could have students work in groups to create a podcast that teaches the rest of the class about their assigned genre with appropriate music or sound effects.
• For help with tricky math or science vocabulary, have students create songs that use the words in the correct way.
• With imovie and garage band, instead of creating a final poster at the end of a social studies unit, students could create a commercial for next year's students describing and showing all the things they will learn about during the unit.

These are just a few ideas that are starting to form in my mind, but they already seem much more engaging than traditional types of lessons. The best part is that I don't need to have an ipad or computer for every single child in the class. These are all ideas that could be worked on at different times with different groups of students. I hope this gives others some ideas as well!

Writing Conferences

It was interesting to me that this last week I had a 3 1/2 hour meeting at my placement school on writing conferences with students and one of our readings this week in Literacy class was Routman's Chapter 9 "Conference with Students". While I got some good ideas from the meeting, I really pulled a lot out of the reading. Routman has some fantastic ideas about different types of writing conferences, different goals for writing conferences, effective modeling, content vs. editing conferences, and helpful language to use.

Before, when I was conferring with students, I didn't even know where to begin. They are only in 3rd grade, so of course there are going to be lots of mistakes with spelling, conventions, and grammar. I tried not to focus so much on those things, especially for rough drafts, but often times their sentences didn't even make sense. Their writing is also very mechanical right now with basically the play-by-play type of narrative. First this happened. Then this happened. Then this happened......and so on. It was all so overwhelming! So I would try to make suggestions like, "Can we choose a better word here?" Blank stare. Reluctantly I would offer a few suggestions and of course the student would pick one of those because I had suggested it. I would also say things like, "Read this sentence aloud to me and tell me if it sounds right." The student would do so and realize that it didn't make sense, but again, when asked how they might reword it, I would get the blank stare until I would finally offer up some suggestions.

I realized after reading this chapter that we are not scaffolding our instruction enough for our students to feel confident in their writing. In our lessons we model our teaching point for the day and then just release the kids off on their own. This is not consistent with the gradual release system that is supposed to be implemented though. Our students need to have the chance to work through a piece of writing together as well. I loved Routman's idea of a whole class share. One or two students share their writing to the entire class and the teacher (as well as the students when they are ready) give compliments first and then give one or two teaching points that might help the writer. By doing this with the whole class, the other students also benefit from the teaching points. Eventually, when the students become more involved, they learn how to give helpful peer feedback as well.

This is one of many helpful teaching strategies I got from the chapter. I hope to implement a few when I return to my placement and am actually looking forward to writing conferences now that I actually have a few ideas of how to help my writers!

Being a "Warm Demander"

I am in the process of reading Lisa Delpit's "Multiplication is for White People: Raising Expectations for Other People's Children" and was struck by the notion of what she calls a "warm demander".  Warm demanders are teachers who push their students, who demand that they perform and who insist that each individual is capable of doing whatever anyone else can do. This is especially important with students who have been told repeatedly that they are not good enough or smart enough.

I have seen this type of deficit thinking in schools before. A student who falls behind or that simply needs more time is considered "slow".  Students who come from low income families are already labelled as "at-risk". Students who have different skin color than their peers are looked at as if they are behind already, and if one or two show the same intelligence as the rest, then they are considered the exception. It had always frustrated me that we seemed to be encouraging these students to do as little as possible. Instead of offering up the same challenges that we demand of others, we convince ourselves, and them, that they are simply not smart enough to do it on their own. When we expect so little, we are likely to get little in return. Then, we continue this type of "hand-holding" throughout grade school, and sometimes through middle school, and wonder why they are still not capable of doing anything on their own come high school.

But it is not enough to simply demand more of these students. Yes, we need to raise our expectations and yes, we need to push them to achieve more than they thought they could, but we also need to show care and concern for each and every one of them. Delpit writes that, "When students believe that teachers believe in their ability, when they see teachers willing to go the extra mile to meet their academic deficiencies, they are much more likely to try." Our students need to see that we push so hard because we know that they can do it. Whether they come from a background of poverty, whether they have never been expected to do well before, whether things at home are a mess, we still believe that they can excel as a student. We need to not only demand excellence, but we need to give them the tools and the necessary support so that they can meet those demands.

I would love nothing more than for my students to see me as a warm demander. It is definately not the passive approach to teaching, and I know that it will sometimes be overwhelming, but isn't this why a person should go into teaching? Why else would anyone be crazy enough to take charge of a classroom of 25+ children? It is certainly not for the money or the prestige of the job. To me, though, nothing is more gratifying than seeing my students engaged and challenged by the work that is in front of them.

Evernote

As I headed down to the copy room to make copies of all of our students math tests so that my teacher could have a copy on file, I thought once again of how much paper we go through in our classrooms. I find it interesting that with all of the technology we now have at our fingertips, most teachers continue to make copy after copy of homework, tests, newsletters, and so on. Now, I know that we need paper for many things and I also know that not all schools have computers for their students to use very often. Even so, I think we could cut down on our paper waste. With this in mind, I started to "play around", as Jane says, with Evernote. I downloaded the app on my ipad and then made a notebook for each subject: math, reading, writing, word work, social studies, and science. Then I put each of my 5 focus students in the subjects. I chose one student for our project in Nancy's class and so, with my ipod touch, I took some pictures of his writing and filed it under his name. In this way I didn't have to make any copies of his work and I always have it right there on my itouch.

What really surprised me was how fast and easy it was to make these different notebooks. I think it took maybe ten minutes to create the different subjects and add each of my students in. Even with twenty more students in the class, it still wouldn't take much time to add them all in and snap pictures of their work. Definately a lot less time than making copies of every single page of their tests and filing it away. A lot less storage space as well. I am excited to see what else I can use my new Evernote app for!

Reflecting on the good side

All too often it is easy to focus on all the negative things that are going on in our lives. It can seem like the entire world is working against us. "If only....." we tend to think. "If only I had more time....if only this one stressful piece of my life were gone.....if only I didn't have this or that to do......" And when we become completely overwhelmed "If only..." becomes "Why me?" If we are not careful, this mentality can eventually come to define our character. John Spencer wrote about this in the first part of his book "A Sustainable Start..." and recommended creating a journal of all the things that you are thankful for in teaching. This really struck a chord with me because I have often done similar things when going through particularily difficult periods in my life. It really can help to refocus your attention to all the wonderful things that are going on around you. In a country full of wealth and prosperity, we can sometimes take it for granted how truly blessed we are.

As I sat down to write this blog I happened upon another blog written specifically for teachers to record one good thing that happened to them that day. Some of the entries are huge and momentous and some are little things that just made the author smile. Here is the link. Read through some of the entries and try to think of some good things that happened to you this week. When you are bemoaning those few troublesome students, remember the other 20-something wonderful kids you have! When half the class forgets to turn in their homework call out and celebrate the ones that remembered. When you are not feeling well and don't know where you will get the energy to teach an entire day remember to be thankful that you have such an exciting job and don't have to sit at a desk in a cubicle all day. Reflect on the good and you will see the good.

Blogging Reflection

For me, this quarter has led to frustration after frustration with technology, with one exception-blogging. Where else can I go (besides my husband who is probably tired of my complaining) to release everything swirling around inside my head? What better place to share my successes and challenges? What better place to initiate conversations about a particular article I read that I really enjoyed (or didn't) or a fun lesson plan that I found? Likewise, I know that others in this field of work are doing the same and I can see what has been on their minds lately.

I know that when I find a blog that I like, it is usually because the blogger has some really great ideas for the classroom or because they are asking questions and thinking about the same issues that are intriguing me. Since those are the types of blogs I like, I try to keep this in mind when I am writing. I don't want to write just to have an entry in by midnight on Sunday. I don't want to just rant about the things that have bothered me all week. I want to write about what I care about and because I try to do this every time I write a blog entry, I think my entries have become more thought-provoking for my audience (small though it might be).

The two best posts that demonstrate this were my two on creative schools. The first one was an image of a very colorful school in France that just shouted "FUN!" to me.  Apparently, others thought so too, because I recieved 3 comments in agreement. The second one was my previous post on all the negative comments Eric Sheninger recieved for an article he wrote on modeling our schools more after a google office space than a prison (seemed like a good idea to me!) I recieved 2 comments on that one, and one of them was from Jane! So that counts for double, right? The other comment was from someone outside the cohort whom I actually follow on my blogroll. How completely awesome is that?

The comment I wrote on Kelsey's blog about charter schools was to me the most interesting. Since this was something we had all just voted on, I think it was a topic on many people's minds. I know that I went back and forth on how I felt about the issue. All the discussion it created was really great, no matter what you ended up deciding to vote for. I love it when discussions like this happen. They often have a way of bringing about viewpoints I had never considered. And isn't that the point of being able to connect with fellow educators in the first place? I look forward to continuing on in my blogging (after a little break of course!)

creative schools- or not.

I was reading an article by Eric Sheninger, a principal that I follow on twitter, on creative schools. Here is the link to it. The article itself wasn't really eye-opening for me because I happened to agree with what he was saying. In short he toured a Google campus and was inspired by the creativity of the building and wanted to know why we can't translate some of these ideas to our schools. What really suprised me, was the number of negative comments the post received. Almost every single person posted about how horrible an idea it would be to model our schools after Google's workspace. How it would distract children from their work, how our schools need a firm structure or our children won't learn, and how we need to focus on improving the quality of education our children receive and not just the exterior of the building (which is a valid point, but shouldn't we be doing both?) I am not sure why these comments bothered me so much but they did. It was almost as if these people didn't want school to be engaging and fun for children. As if this was the worst idea they could possibly imagine. But why? I am interested to know what others think. Am I reading too much into these comments? Should our already limited budget go to more important resources, and if so, what resources should we invest in to motivate and engage our students more effectively?

Hobo mathamatics

Some of you have heard this story already so forgive me for being repetitive, but I found it to be so eye-opening I could resist a blog entry.

I have been working a lot with my dyad teacher on student led discussions and the importance of letting the students come up with their own ideas and methods for solving problems. We have been looking at this in Alison's class as well. As the teacher, we facilitate the discussion, but the ideas come from the students. When they are thinking and reasoning through a problem themselves, it becomes more concrete than when a teacher just tells them how to solve a problem or gives them the answer. Even if students come up with wrong answers or assumptions, eventually they will come to a problem where that method doesn't work and they will have to re-evaluate these methods.

In theory, this is a great way to get students engaged and thinking about problem solving, but in reality it is hard to do. I really struggled with this during my first science lesson. As I led the discussion I tried to steer students in the direction I wanted them to go and talked about as much as my students had. I knew it hadn't gone well but I was afraid of what might happen if I gave control of the discussion over to my students.

Then we had a math class last wednesday that totally blew my mind. We were studying linear equations and my dyad teacher was leading a discussion on independent and dependent variables. Students were trying to figure out what independent and dependent meant in terms of a linear equation. One student came up with a very random idea where he was describing a situation involving a hobo (not sure if that is totally PC but that was the word the student used). It didn't make any sense at all. My dyad teacher took in stride though and simply called on another student, asking if he agreed with the hobo statement or if he had something else to say. The student replied that he agreed with the other student's hobo statement. Oh No! was all I could think. This is what happens when students lead their own discussions. Now we are going to get way off topic and end up talking about hobos and the rest of the class is going to be so confused!

To my complete and utter amazement the student instead replied that he thought the hobo was like the dependent variable because he was dependent on some person to give him money. This person with the money was like the independent variable because he didn't rely at all on the hobo. And just like that, not only were we back on track, but the students were totally engaged in this hobo idea.

Realizing that my students were perfectly capable of leading their own discussions, I tried hard the next time not to interject my ideas into the discussion. It went a lot better, but even so, I struggled with keeping my mouth shut. We want our students to have the right answers so badly, that we forget that the process of getting there is just as important. We take away from the learning experience when we just hand those answers over and the student never understands the 'why' or the 'how' of it. I realize this and yet it is still a struggle. Maybe as I keep practicing though, my students will continue to surprise me. They usually do.

Changing Education

I found an interesting article today on twitter (yes, twitter! I am becoming so tech savvy!) You can read the article, A call for President Obama to change course on education, here. Now, let me just say that I am not posting this as a political statement against Obama or against charter schools. This author made some arguments that I don't necessarily agree with but the part I found interesting was this paragraph:

"What separates education in the United States from so-called competitor counties is that on average, socioeconomic status explains far more of the variation in test scores in the United States than in other industrialized countries. But, as many researchers have pointed out, it is not the presence of unions, tenure, or collective bargaining that explains that difference. A more plausible explanation is that the more successfully scoring countries have far more substantial social support systems to mediate the negative effects of poverty. A far stronger argument can be made that we need to change our focus — especially in struggling schools — from the drudgery of high consequence driven test-prep to engaging students to be critical thinkers and active investigators in meaningful subject matter. Or, even better, from spending millions on testing to spending millions on support services. In addition, the evidence is mounting that schools can also teach essential non-cognitive competencies, such as persistence, ethics, empathy and collaboration. Since the latter are not easily subject to measurement, the continued focus on testing narrow, more easily measured subject matter diverts important attention from their development."

This has been a topic of conversation brought up many times throughout our education courses. How do we reach the students that are living in such extreme poverty that they can't focus on their education, but must instead focus on everyday survival? How do we reach those children whose only reality is a constant stream of drugs and violence? How can we convince good teachers to stay in struggling schools when the consequences for bad test scores lead to even less resources and funding for that school? Is there a better way to evaluate our schools and our teachers?

There are never any easy solutions. I think that most educators have come to the conclusion, however, that high consequence standardized testing is not the answer. Like the author points out, we are spending millions of dollars on these tests, which only show how good our students are at taking a multiple choice test, when we could be using this money in more efficient ways.

I also liked how he pointed out that we should be teaching things like persistence, ethics, empathy, and collaboration. Things like this cannot be tested through multiple choice questions yet they are equally as important as traditional subject matter. If our students are not engaged in topics such as social justice, diversity, equity, the environment, and community/global citizenship then what have we really accomplished? What have we really prepared our students for?

I hope that we continue to ask these important questions regarding standardized tests and the inequalities that exists between our schools. Maybe if enough people begin to question this thinking we can become loud enough to change our governments way of thinking about education as well.

writing lesson plans

I am in the middle of writing my Direct Learning Lesson Plan and it is driving me nuts! I seriously underestimated how much work this whole unit plan was. I chose to do a social studies unit because social studies is the only subject at my school where the curriculum is not written out for you. I was so excited because I could really design my own unit and- even more exciting- they are studying Australia in social studies this spring. It was like this unit was made for me! (If you don't already know this, I am in love with Australia!)

When it came to the Essential Understandings, the only problem I had was narrowing it down to only a few. There are so many ways I could go, but I had to remember that we only have a few short months, if that, to do the entire unit. Essential questions weren't too bad either and I thought of several good assessments I could use. I was on my way!

Now I am looking at my activites and my individual lesson plans and am drawing a complete blank. I know all of the things I want them to get out of the unit, but when it comes to the specifics of how I am going to do that- nothing. How am I going to introduce the aboriginal culture to my third graders? How are they going to learn about the rich plant and animal diversity? How do I teach about human impact on the environment and vice versa?

Am I just thinking too much? Am I trying to be too creative? Not every lesson can involve some fun game or activity. Some things just have to be taught. There needs to be some type of background knowledge before even a discussion can take place.

Is anybody else feeling frustration with this assignment?

Community Building

Last Thursday in my dyad I got to experience some real community building with my class. As I have mentioned before, I am working at the Environmental Adventure School, and they tend to do things a little different than your average public school. They focus a lot on community building both within the school and outside of the school. Before the year even starts the whole school goes on a camping trip to get to know one another. In the spring they also get to go on a week long educational trip of their choice. This year the choices are: Boston, New York, Hawaii, or the Mississippi River (there might be one more choice but I can't think of it right now). How awesome would it be to learn about tropical animals in an actual tropical rainforest or to learn about river systems while traveling down the Mississippi? I wish I could go with them this spring......

Anyway, back to what we did last Thursday. Another way that the school builds community is through some sort of community service project. Some groups go help out at a local food bank, some are working together to build greenhouses, while the group I was with this week went to help clean up some of our local bike trails. We helped to build ditches for water to flow into so that water wouldn't puddle up on the trails (picture below), we raked away leaves so that bikes wouldn't slip, and we searched for tools that needed to be picked up and brought back to their storage spaces (one girl even found a machete on one of the trails. Creepy.)

 Afterwards, the kids got to see some of the park volunteers do some tricks on their bikes. It was really awesome to see how excited the kids were to watch these guys do their tricks. What great role models for these kids! These guys were no more than 18 or 19 years old and they were volunteering their time to clean up their local trails. They were also taking the time to lead a bunch of middle school kids and teach them how to do the same.

 

We talk so much in our classes about educating our students on issues of social justice, equity, community building, and our responsibilities as citizens but I love how this school is taking it to the next level by getting out and experiencing these things. This is what students will remember when all the worksheets and tests fade from memory.

Halloween Fun

I have had such a great time working with my Kindergarten buddy these past few weeks. He has lots of energy and keeps me on my toes. This week we had a fun Halloween activity and book that I read. Now, I know that some children don't celebrate holidays, but I had asked him the previous week about what he was going to be for Halloween and if he was going trick-or-treating so that I would know if this was the case ahead of time.

We started off with Halloween bingo. I drew a card from a pile which had a word on it. I asked him to identify the first letter of the word and the sound it makes. After he did this, I told him the word and turned it over to show the picture and he put a marker on his bingo card where the picture was. He got all of them without any problems, which led me to believe the activity was too easy for him, but he stayed interested because of the game aspect of it. It was a fun game and could be adapted in a number of different ways depending on where students are in letter recognition or reading.

Then I read the book The Hallo-wiener by Dav Pilkey. It is a cute book about a wiener dog named Oscar who dresses up as a hotdog for Halloween and gets made fun of by everyone else. When the other dogs get scared off by a monster, however, Oscar comes to the rescue. The other dogs stop picking on Oscar and share their Halloween treats with him. It is a funny book that kids enjoy but it also has a great message in it as well.

Just wanted to share an idea of a fun holiday themed activity to do with kids. If anybody else had an activity that their student enjoyed, please share!

The not-so-little things

"When a child gives you a gift, even if it is a rock they just picked up, exude gratitude. It might be the only thing they have to give, and they have chosen to give it to you."  -Dean Jackson

I found this quote on pinterest and I just love it! It reminds me of the pictures and things my students have given to me. I keep all of the art they have given to me in my notebook as a reminder to myself that they could have been doing something else or made a picture for someone else, but they chose to make one for me. As teacher's, 'little' things like this need to be a big deal to us because they are a big deal to our students.

I want to go to there.....

What if our schools looked like this:

 

 

This is school in Paris, France designed by Palatre and Leclere. Here is the website with some more fun pictures and information.

 

What if our schools looked like this? Wouldn't you be excited to go to class every day? All this talk about needing to change the way we educate our students needs to include changing our school spaces as well. I have noticed a change from the traditional desks set in rows to more group seating, but this is hardly enough. Schools need to be more warm and inviting. They need to be more colorful and fun. They need to inspire and engage our students. We need more spaces that children want to explore and investigate. I know many of us will be working with limited budgets, but look at what just adding some color does to a school. This school wouldn't be nearly so exciting if it weren't so colorful. What can you do to change up your traditional classroom space?

read aloud material

Working in a 3rd grade classroom as well as taking a class on literature methods has really got me thinking about read alouds lately. To be honest, read alouds were never a top priority for me due to the fact that I was so focused on getting my science endorsement. I have realized, however, that I am going to have to do my fair share of them this spring when I begin to student teach. I am also not sure if I will even get a job teaching middle school science. I may be offered a job teaching a primary grade, so I need to be prepared. With this in mind, I headed to the library to begin to try and find some good read aloud material. I found three books that I would add to my list.

The Bat Boy and His Violin by Gavin Curtis. Those of you who know me know I play the violin, so I had to pick this one up when I saw it. It was a wonderful story about an african american boy who loves to play the violin but his father wants him to be more interested in sports, especially baseball. It is set during the time period when the major leagues were just beginning to let men of color play so it is an excellent lead in for discussions about racism or slavery. It is also great for discussions about loving people for who they are. In the end, the boy's dad comes to appreciate his son's musical talent.

For You are a Kenyan Child by Kelly Cunnane. This book is about a kenyan child's day in his village. He is told by his mom go take care of his grandfather's cows but he gets distracted by the different things to do in the village. This book is neat in that it shows how different the boy's life is from a child living in America, but also the similarities. Just like here, children in Kenya forget to do their chores, play ball with their friends, and hear stories at night time before bed. The illustrations are also very beautiful.

Where Do I Sleep? A Pacific Northwest Lullaby by Jennifer Blomgren. This is a cute book that also has some excellent illustrations. Each page shows an animal that lives in the pacific northwest with a little rhyme to go along with it.

I tried to pick books that would be interesting for children, but that would also have either an important message or something to be learned. Hopefully you find these books interesting too and if you have any suggestions of great books to add to my list, please let me know!

Food Journal Reflection

I actually enjoyed keeping a food and activity journal the first few weeks of class. It made me more aware of what I was eating, especially when I felt the need to snack. Having to write down everything that I ate made me really think on if I was actually hungry or just wanting to snack on something because I was bored. If I was hungry, I still let myself have a snack, but it was more often a healthy one like a piece of fruit or a granola bar instead of chips or fun size candy bars (which add up to a full candy bar when you eat two or three of them!) I also learned that while I was pretty healthy during the week, the weekend was usually a time of unhealthy eating. While there is a time to enjoy food and drink and to let yourself indulge a little bit, I think I let myself indulge a little too much when it came to the weekend (especially with dessert!)

Recording my activity was helpful too. I used to work out 3 or 4 times a week, but since school started last quarter I was lucky to get it in once. I had already set a goal for myself this quarter to work out more and having to record it in a journal just reinforced this goal. I managed to work out twice the first week but I didn’t feel that was enough. I decided that for the second week I would set one activity goal and one eating goal.

Beginning the second week my two goals were: to eat better on the weekend and to work out at least 3 times that week. I think making these short term goals made them more attainable and I can see how this would be beneficial for my students as well. Long term goals are important, but often to reach these types of goals we need to make a bunch of short term goals to help us get there. I also made goals that I knew I could reach. I didn’t cut myself off from all unhealthy things over the weekend because I knew that probably would never happen. Likewise, I didn’t make a goal to exercise every day because I knew that would be too difficult and I wouldn’t be able to reach that goal. It is important to set reasonable goals and to help our students pick out reasonable goals as well.

This project was great because it could be applied to all different grade levels. It could also be incorporated into other subjects that our students are learning about such as the science of our bodies, math concepts like proportions and measuring, Geography and environmental issues involving where our food comes from, etc. It is also a great project because it directly relates to our students and their lives. Students are more interested in learning about things that pertain to them and with this food and activity journal they can learn about what they eat and how that relates to other subject areas. This is definitely an activity I will implement in the classroom.