Trying year

So it finally happened.

This is my year.

This is THAT class.

This year was suppose to be the "easy" year. This year was suppose to be the "break" from last years class. Last years class was suppose to be the roughest group since kindergarten, now don't get me wrong...they were rough but man did they try. The attempted everything. They had GRIT, they had drive, they had work ethic.

This year my class is divided.

This year my class is different.

I currently have 20 kids. I have 20 sweet, fun, and wonderful little 5th graders that are trying to figure out their world. Unfortunately, I have about 9 that just don't seem to care as much as the others.

Background of my kids:

I work in a Title I school and our Free and Reduced lunch rate is extremely high.

Most of my kids have been labeled "poverty".

I have 9 kids that just won't do their work. It doesn't matter if it is in class or if I send something home to work on....they just won't do it.

I have talked to their parents, I have adjusted assignments, I have sent them to the principals office (which I NEVER use to do), I have taken recess (which is cruel), I have yelled, I have calmly talked to them to try to come up with a plan. I have read book after book and watched a ton of YouTube videos and spoken with other teachers.

NOTHING IS WORKING! 

I have a student that is extremely smart but not medicated so he is a huge distraction to the other students and myself. I have a student that has been placed in our gifted program that will stare off into  space and when redirected will look like he is working but doesn't. I have held him out of the gifted program until he proves he can do the fifth grade work and yesterday I made the mistake of trusting that he finished his 6 problems in math and I sent him to gifted before checking..........and I find out later that he didn't even do a single problem (and we worked for over an hour in class on the worksheet). 

I am at a loss. I do not know how to motivate these kids who consistently do not do their work.

I am frustrated which is making it worse. I want to leave the profession every night and I find myself disgusted at their lack of work ethic and annoyed that their parents don't care either.

So how do you fix it?

If they are being raised in a house that proves to them that their parents do not care because they do not follow up or require them to do their work, how am I suppose to get them to work in class?

I Am...

I am getting ready to turn 42.
I am a wife of 21 years.
I am a mom to an 18 year old man-child and a 13 year old little man-child.
I am a teacher to 5th graders.
I am a dreamer of being a kindergarten teacher.
I am a cusser..like bad.
I am opinionated.
I am a whatever is on my mind, comes out my mouth speaker.
I am impatient.
I am a bad driver.
I am a bad housekeeper.
I am talkative.
I am an unorganized mess.
I am a paper hoarder!
I am a sticker addict.
I am a "let's try that to see if it works for me" journal/planner/binder collector.
I am an ink pen slut, as a hop from pen to pen still not finding the one that satisfies my desires.
I am a paper clip making, yet they just sit on my table getting in the way collector.
I am an inconsistent blogger...notice my last blog post date!
I am a grudge holder.
I am honest.
I am trying to change.
I am a work in progress.

With all of my faults I would like to think there are just as many if not more good qualities. However, lately I have found myself living in my faults. Which had lead me to visit a blog I have followed for a few years now called: http://www.swtblessings.com

The author of the blog is a girl named Shannon. I want to be Shannon! She is cute as button and nothing but positive and happiness comes from her blog. She does put honesty out there so you don't think she is one of those "unattainable", I have my crap (totally not the first word that came to mind) together women.

She has a Scripture Study that she posts out on her blog once a month...totally free.

My goal is to complete this study in the month of September. Which it never fails, I decide to do something and I am already 5 days behind. Does that happen to anyone else? It is like I set myself up for failure but this month I am not going to worry about it. My goal is to finish so I started with Day 1 today and will work to get myself caught up over this three day weekend.

And it starts....

I am referring to the craziness of having both boys in Spring sports. Chris' knee has healed from surgery and he started playing Lacrosse again this past weekend. They had a tournament in Republic and we went 3-1! This was a huge weekend for Chris because the kid that was playing backup Varsity goalie for him has been kind of a punk and refuses to listen to advice and I guess seems to know everything there is to know about Lacrosse....and our team went into last weekend dead last with a record of 0-6. Chris did an amazing job and the last game of the tournament was his best yet! He is hoping to go to college and play Lacrosse.

Chris #38 - Lacrosse Goalie

 Chris #38 - Team Captain

Chris #38 - I love this picture! 

At the same time Lacrosse season so is baseball! This year we moved Kyle to a different baseball team. He started playing for the Midwest Nationals 13U Red. When we first tried out for the team we had no intentions of leaving our other team, we wanted to see what his skill level was compared to area baseball players his age. Well his coaches (dad coaches) got wind of it and thru one of their son's informed Kyle that he wasn't invited back to play baseball for his old team. One of the dad coaches accused me of not teaching my kid what it means to be loyal, which is very ironic because his kid had the worst sportsmanship on the team....so......we happily walked away.

Boy are we glad that we did! The Nats as they refer to themselves actually pay their coaches and the exposure the older boys get to scouts is amazing. 

Kyle is L-O-V-I-N-G it! His teammates all get along with each other, no one thinks they are better than anyone else and they are encouraging and supportive.

His nickname as given by his teammates is BEAST. With his other team he played mainly 3rd base and catcher (until the coaches kid needed a place to go and then we lost out on catching). The Nats have said that Kyle is an Utility player and they have had him on every base with a main focus on Short stop. He doesn't seem to care as long as he gets to play!

This is our last weekend home together as a family because for the next several weekends one of the boys has games in one state while the other has his games in another state. I couldn't imagine having three kids!

Code.org where have you been my whole life?

If you have not checked out www.code.org and are wondering where to get started in teaching your students or your children how to code....this is the site for you.

You get a free account!

You set up your classroom and add your students for free!

You get to send them a link to sign on with their own username and secret password for free!

You as the educator get free lesson plans to help walk your students thru the basics and they are aligned with Common Core standards for free!

Your students have access immediately for free!

THIS WEBSITE IS.....FREE!!!!!!

I may have just peed a little in all the excitement! 

So I am one of those people that learns something new or gets something new and instead of waiting patiently and figuring out all the nooks and crannies before I roll something out....

I just right in and take the approach that we will all be learning this together so let's see what happens. Now there are pros and cons to this approach which I learned a little yesterday while throwing my ENTIRE class into the world of Coding!

PROS: 

This engagement level, buy in level was thru the roof!!!! (and of course no one came in to evaluate during this process but instead they wait until the worst possible moment and decide to join my class....has that happened to anyone else?)

The excitement and eagerness was amazing. When discussing the different aspects of the program I had total engagement and about 106 questions.

Leverage...those students that usually do not get their work completed or who lolli-gag around and waste time. Totally got their work done since I told them that they would not be allowed to participate.

CONS:

They lost their minds with excitement. Classroom management went out the window a few times because they were so excited and had 106 questions. With the questions they had they also dropped their brains and decided that everyone needed to shout out their questions at the exact same time.

Skill levels- I have some that can barely sign onto the computer and others that flew thru the first course. So this is only in the CONS section because of the lack of control it offered since we are all learning this together.

How I Rolled this Puppy Out...

For you control freaks....you might want to look away at this point!!!

I rolled it out first by discussing my expectations.

I explain to them that my number one responsibility is to teach them 5th grade standards. I even went as far to say that I legally have to do this since the state requires me to teach certain standards. I went on to say that if they cannot keep up with their 5th grade work then I will not be able to teach them the fun stuff even through I can tie it into the standards it is not required by the state. Further more I explained to them that my principal (who is amazing and so very open to new ideas and concepts, #myprincipalisbetterthanyours) will only agree to this if I can prove to him that they are getting everything they need.

Then I started them with paper lessons in the classroom. When I set my class up I got to pick which course I wanted to start them with. 

I chose Course 2 for two reasons: #1 the age group fit and #2 it says to start with course 2 for students that can read. Finally a decision that didn't take a lot of thought process!!!!!! Bonus!

On the Teacher Dashboard there is an option of Lesson Plans and Resources:

This is where I printed out our classroom lessons for the day before they moved into the computer program.

If I had to do it over again in a perfect world I would have started the paper lesson plans on Monday and worked thru several of those before putting them on the computer. But I rolled this out on a Thursday and we have computer lab on Thursday.

Stay tuned for more information about this program...this post is getting long! 

RCET Conference in Springfield, Missouri

Yesterday was day 1 of the two day RCET Conference.

I love going to this conference because I get so inspired. I come out of the breakout sessions with a fire to hurry up and apply what I know in my classroom. 

On the first day I attended three breakout sessions. Session one was a little disappointing because it was more like a sales pitch about surveys and assessments then it was about helping bring technology into my classroom.

My second breakout session was awesome. The speaker was a teacher from Fordland (which is a small town school like mine so I felt like she could relate). I was really shocked to hear her say that the superintendent at her school has made technology their number one priority and they are moving to a 1:1 school. But wait....our school now has a $3 million dollar football stadium for our 28 player football team....insert sarcastic tone.

Her breakout session was on her favorite apps, websites, and Google tools. Let me just say that my head was about to explode with ideas when I left her session.

My first idea that I think will be easy to impliment is having students create a website on Weebly for their American Revolution project instead of creating power point presentations and hard cover books. And as I am typing this an idea popped in my head to have them display this during the Spring Literature Fair....can you feel the excitement coming thru the computer? OMG....I cannot get started fast enough.

My third and last breakout session was a math session and let me go on record as saying that I HATE teaching math. Math was always my worst subject in school so I feel like I struggle to make it interesting....insert TECHNOLOGY!!!! 

One take away that I had yesterday was CODING!

Talk about getting someone excited about life....coding for kids!

I rushed out and bought two Ozobots and a Sphero so that I could take them back to my classroom and get my kids excited about math and science.

http://ozobot.com

I am still new to this so I am still trying to figure everything out but I do know that when I brought it home last night that my boys (ages 17 and 13) played with them and laughed and kept saying how cool these were.

The website has lesson plans already made up so you can get yourself and your students started right away!

ch 1-2, 2016 ~ Missouri State University

Pay It Forward by Catherine Ryan Hyde -- November book choice

Pay It Forward

By: Catherine Ryan Hyde

As I was sitting here trying to figure out what book I needed to tackle for the month of November I came across the book 'Pay It Forward' that some how did not make it from my bedroom book pile into my classroom. 

I began doing some research about the book and found some really good discussion questions on www.litlovers.com. 

Discussion Questions
1. When Trevor first presents his Pay-It-Forward plan—as a way to change the world for the better—many dismiss it. Why? What does their dismissal say about Trevor's plan and what does it say about those wrote it off? Would you have dismissed Pay-It-Forward? (Be objective—pretend you've just learned of Trevor's project for the first time. What would have been your initial reaction?)

2. Eventually, Pay-It-Forward begins to work, creating a chain reaction and becoming a Movement. Why does the concept take hold? What is it about the plan that inspires people? Describe its basic idea and give it another name (rather than pay-it-forward).

3. Talk about Reuben St. Claire. What kind of teacher is he...and what kind of human being? Why might the author have created a character with a severe facial disfigurement? And what's the irony behind the name, St. Claire? Does he live up to his name?

4. What about Arlene, Trevor's mother? What kind of character is she? What does Trevor see in her that makes him believe, at heart, that she's a worthy individual who deserves better than she's got.

5. The story is told through various point-of-view devices: first- and third-person narrators, book excerpts, interview transcripts, journal entries, and central character shifts. Do Hyde's narrative techniques work? Do they enhance the story or make it confusing? Why might she have chosen to structure the novel in the way she did?

6. What about the book's ending? Sad, yes, but satisfying? Does Trevor become a martyr? Would you have preferred a different ending?

7. The figure of Chris, the journalist, and his role in the Movement is curious. Given our media culture, would Trevor's Pay-it-Forward plan have become a Movement without media attention? Will people recognize the inherent goodness of something, give it significance, unless it's surrounded by hype or media saturation? (A cynical, but perhaps an important, question.) Can you find examples either way?

8. If you were asked to come up with a project to make the world a better place...what ideas would you come up with?

9. Do you personally follow the Pay-it-Forward philosophy? Does this book inspire you—make you more aware of what you, individually, or all of us, collectively, could do—to improve the world?

10. Is this a religious book?
(Questions issued by publisher.)

Best I can tell there are a couple of versions of the book, one that is recommended for upper elementary students and one that has been adjusted for high school students. Since I teach 5th grade I am going with the version pictured above.

Of course I purchased my book from www.scholastic.com. It is clearly a site that I have an unnatural addiction to and will probably one day cause me to go bankrupt (kidding)! 

I am thinking this will be an excellent read aloud for my 5th graders for the month of November. Sticking with the theme of Caring (our Character Word for November) I think that this book will provide us with some great life lessons, character education opportunities, writing lessons in that the teacher gives her students the assignment of coming up with a plan to change the world. 

Stay tuned to find out what we do with this book!!!! 

Gearing up for some Honesty...with a capital H!

I HATE Daily 5 in my 5th grade classroom.

There I said it. HATE...HATE...HATE! With a capital H!

To me this is not a reading program but a classroom management system that just doesn't seem to work for me or my students. It feels like a waste of time. It feels like a lot of lost opportunities and busy work. It feels like a complete failure everyday. It feels like a gimmick. 

Now please do not get me wrong, I think the Daily 5 concepts work great in lower elementary grades. I think it provides a great structure to get them use to stamina and provides a break in the reading hour and a half that we have to do this but in 5th grade it just seems a little "childish". Move to stations, read for 20 minutes, if you look around too long we have to stop and practice (because we have time for that), you need to be writing for 20 minutes...write the whole time.

Well what do you do when you have students that just can't.

It isn't in their genetic make-up to be able to focus for 20 minutes.

They practice great. Practice for 20 days and in that 20 days it looks great but what do you do and how do you monitor what they are doing when you are working in small groups and they are in a corner? 

Am I just doing it wrong?

It seems to never fail when my principal comes in to evaluate there is always someone "off task". Am I not providing enough engaging activities? 

Truth be told that my experience with this program and my training consists of...here, read this book and implement the program. 

I need help.

I need ideas.

I need to figure this out before I lose my mind.

Any and all suggestions would be greatly appreciated because I am drowning!

P.S. We do DRA levels. I have 28-80s in my classroom.

DRA 28 - 1 student

DRA 30 - 1 student

DRA 38 - 5 students

DRA 40 - 2 students

DRA 50 - 2 students

DRA 60 - 2 students

DRA 70 - 1 student

DRA 80 - 4 students