Posts Tagged ‘3rd grade

06
Dec

Blog-weary

By derek 5 Comments
Categories: School and Site
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I have been doing a lot of catching up on TV shows lately.  This has eaten into my available time to write in this blog.  That, and my interest is sort of lagging right now.  I now have several DVDs I checked out of the library in addition to several hours of TV shows I still haven’t watched.  I also checked out Mario Kart DD for my Gamecube.  With all of this expect my posting to continue to be like this for a while.

As for work, my week had some interesting moments.  I subbed for 7th grade science on Monday.  Not a lot going on there.  Six classes of handing out books then letting them do an assignment out of them.  Mostly good classes.  Tuesday I subbed for 6th grade math, staying on the analytical/logical side of the brain.  This teacher had math classes at three different levels, two classes of each.  All were similar in going over homework, my answering questions, and the starting the next section.  Some actual teaching!  I will have two days of 6th grade math at another school at the end of next week.  I saw a former student from 4th/5th grade ministry on Monday at science, and I hope to see one next week who just started this year at the school I will be at.

Wednesday I found myself in the elementary school right next to the middle school I will be doing math at next week.  The level was third grade.  The day started out with the smell of electrical fire near the classroom, though there was no fire as far as I could tell.  This turned out to be sort of an interesting day.  This is the only school I know to have a vocabulary special- a teacher comes in to teach vocabulary- and they had that in the morning.  Now, music, gym, and art are standards, and I’ve also subbed for an elementary social studies teacher.  There was a Japanese special at another school, but this is the first school where I’ve encountered a vocabulary special, though not the first classroom I subbed in where they had this special.  A couple of months ago I had five days in second grade at this school, and some of those classes had vocabulary as well.  Moving on, they had MAP testing, so that killed another 45 minutes or so.  It ended early so we played Sparkle using their spelling lists before finishing the morning with a language arts lesson.  After lunch they had a “holiday store.”  This is similar to a book fair, but instead of books the students could buy cheap gifts.  The rest of the day was typical with reading groups, math, and science.  Nothing interesting like labs, just book-work for the most part.

Thursday and Friday were both music days.  Friday I subbed for an elementary music teacher.  These are always potluck days as to which grades I will get.  It turned out I would get two classes each of kindergarten, 1st, 2nd, and 5th grades.  Almost all with different lessons of course.  1st and 2nd played music insrument bingo, 5th did a science tie-in lesson about bones using an old black spiritual song about Ezekiel and the dry bones, which turned out to be a review lesson since they had already done it before.  Oops?  We just made a little competition of it.  Kindergarten had the only real new lesson.  They learned about the difference between a lullaby and a march- fast vs. slow, loud vs. soft.

My other music day, Thursday, was actually a very odd class for middle school.  There are schools that have divided up the year for certain classes into quarters, fifths, and sixths.  This school has the year divided for a set of classes into, get this, eighths.  That’s right- each class is just four weeks long, and for 7th grade at least (8th grade actually has this class for a full quarter) this was one of those classes.  That’s not the most unusual aspect of this class.  That would go to the focus of the class- African drumming.  I have not heard before of this sort of specialization in middle school.  College, maybe high school, but not middle school.  Anyway, the classroom of course was filled with drums, mostly more modern renditions of African drums, but also a few more traditional models.  Also, bells and rattles.  These three instruments make up African music (at least Ghana, the country in Africa the video focused on) I learned from the video.  Yes, with this sort of specialization comes the usually correct assumption that the sub will have no idea how to teach it, so the video is the standard staple of the sub for this sort of class.  Unfortunately the video was only 20 minutes, leaving me to fill in the rest of the time.  So, we went of the sheet they filled out and then I let them play silent ball for the rest of the time.

Well, that’s my week in review.  We will see what the future of this blog holds.  I am toying with the idea of starting another blog at some point where I will attempt to write a story a little bit at a time.  Maybe write a choose-your-own-adventure like I brought up in Taylhis’s blog :) .  For now, just an idea.  We’ll see if it goes anywhere.

21
Nov

Yoga. Yo-yo-yo-yo-yoga. Yo-yo-yo-yo-yoga…

By derek 2 Comments
Categories: School
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

To butcher a line from a Weird Al song about Yoda (which parodied a song called Lola), but if it fits…  This was my fate Thursday when I accepted a PE job at a middle school.  This was every bit as unexciting as it sounds.  There was a yoga instructor two double-classes of eighth grade with myself and at least one other teacher standing bored while the kids went through a yoga routine.  When I first found out about the yoga my spiritual sensors perked up as yoga can be taught from a spiritual point of view.  Hey, if Christianity isn’t allowed in the public schools neither is Eastern Pantheism; i.e. new age religion.  Fortunately they left this part out, and I did pay close attention to make sure of it.  I have read too many stories of kids being taught the experience of other religions, and not just about them to just sit back.  In any event, as I said, all was well.  They mostly did relaxation exercises and positions, with no explanation of those positions, at least on that day.

You might have noticed I mentioned eighth grade with the yoga.  What about 6th and 7th grades?  After all this is PE we’re talking about.  Well, those grades did yoga too, or fitness, depending on the class.  However, the teacher I was subbing for had four periods of health and just two of PE.  6th grade had a video to watch.  It was a video that was shown on prime time TV around 1990.  It was a “test” about how much we know about handling emergencies, and was hosted by the late John Ritter.  It also had several other stars of the day including Richard Dean Anderson, Michael Landon, Julia Child, and the one that played the geeky character in The Wonder Years.  I tried to look up this video on IMDB but it never got entered in as none of the actors I looked up had any reference to it listed.  Essentially it was a 45-minute multiple choice/true-false test (with at least one other type of question thrown in).  Of course we didn’t finish it, but a couple students asked if they would finish it tomorrow which means it interested them.

The 7th grade classes also involved videos.  They were making videos with iMovie, using the built-in webcams on their iBooks.  This got interesting watching them finish them, playing the parts of police officers, drunks, homeless people, announcers, and whatnot.  Many were editing though so I didn’t get to see everyone act.

Wednesday was really nothing special, just an easy day with 3rd grade.  Easy particularly because they had a half-hour of gym in the morning, an hour of art in the afternoon, and twenty minutes of filling out a “wish list” for the book fairs.  These Scholastic book fairs are really for the benefit of Scholastic and the schools, which receive commissions in books for the books sold.  As for the consumer, the parent, it’s just an opportunity to pay full cover price for some books and software.  I guess since it does benefit the schools I really can’t complain.

This brings us to today.  I was in the rival school to the one I was at Thursday.  The subject: one of the five foreign languages taught at this school.  In fact, for 6th graders they have to take every one of them during the year.  They all have one period divided into quarters for the year and one period in sixths.  These “hex-mesters” are a short six weeks, so needless to say they don’t learn the languages as much as explore them.  7th and 8th graders are treated to a full year in one language for the learning purpose.  I would suppose they get to choose which language they want to take.  Which one did I sub for (don’t even think I taught this class…)?  Just call me Herr Teacher instead of Mr. Teacher.  Actually, don’t because I don’t like the sound of it. :)  These kids just made word searches all day with a particular set of deutsch (German) words each grade had been learning.  Well, they can’t all be fun days. :|

From Tuesday to Thursday, I guess it could be said that I went from 8th to 8 and back again… :D  Eighth grade to 8 years old, like C & L’s eldest, back to 8th.  Well 6th and 7th grades were involved too, but still…  8)

11
Nov

Break out the bubbly!

By derek 2 Comments
Categories: School
Tags: , , , ,

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Three months ago I realized I would need to head off to sub once again.  At that time I made a decision to not re-sign on with a district that only rarely called me last year and was still on the slowly fading sub caller system (that is, not online) this year so more of the same was expected.  Ironically, in that district last year I learned that another district I had worked in for about a year and a half moved their sub system online when I found out their former sub caller now had a job in that district, so I decided to go ahead and sign up.  So, a little over 2½ months ago I received my sub packet from them by email.  It took them over a week to get it to me; little did I realize this would be a foreshadowing of things to come.  I finally made it in for fingerprinting in early September, at which time they accepted my paperwork.  I was told then that there was one person inputting the subs, in order, one at a time and that it would take a couple of weeks before my paperwork was confirmed and I was entered into their system.  Two months and a couple of phone calls later I logged into the system for one of the districts I’m already in to look for future jobs (particularly for this Friday- I signed up for one school a couple weeks ago and the grade was not listed so I figured, why not?  It’s a K-8 school so my chances of a grade that I wanted was pretty good, so of course when I went there Monday for another job I found out she was Kindergarten- a grade I oh, so don’t want to teach if I can avoid it, though I will if I have to).  Now understand that the new district uses the same system as this one that I’m already in.  So, I logged in and something showed up on the screen that I had never seen.  It turned out to be asking me for a pin number for a multi-district login now that I am in two districts on that system.  Yes!  Finally!

An hour later, I now have a confirmed job in said district for next week.   :mrgreen:   A 7:40 start time for 3rd grade.  Hmm.  A little early for elementary.  I think I had better look up a newspaper article too.  I remember reading that third grade at one of their schools has overloaded classes (30+ students).  If it’s this school I may just have another first for this district- first canceled job. Maybe.  I am now keeping an eye out for a certain school in a certain grade where I know a couple of church kids of mine attend…

09
Nov

One??

By derek 2 Comments
Categories: School
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I only made one post about work last week?  Well, I was depressed about the state of the elections I guess.  I truly believe we are in for a very rough four years, and that’s all I’m going to say about that.  I know who my messiah is and He isn’t a politician.  So my last post was about Wednesday, so that day is covered.  Thursday and Friday were the same job, a special ed teacher.  The interesting thing about this job was that it was a teacher-grade job, but the duties were more or less the exact same as the prior week’s teaching assistant job!  The difference must be behind the scenes.  The job was itinerant (traveling) but I didn’t know that until I showed up at the wrong school Thursday morning.  A phone call later to verify where I was supposed to start, I was on my way to the other school.  Got there, got started.  Detailed plans- good.  Start off in 4th grade where there is a student who appears to be autistic.  They’re still working on his diagnosis.  I helped where I could and then I was off to another 4th grade class to help other students with writing.  I edited the papers of a couple of students who were on the teacher edit stage and then it was time to go back to the first class.  I pulled a couple of students and worked with them outside of the room for a while, and then it was intervention time- something that was skipped last week at my assistant job because I had no plans for it.  Half a dozen third-graders came in and we did a reading lesson about visualization and bugs.  That ended and it was time to go to the other school.  Only a half hour before I was scheduled to be in another class so no time to stop for lunch.

So now I was at the school I had initially gone to in the morning.  Went to her desk and- no plans.  After the detailed plans of the morning (which only included the morning!) there were no plans here?  Say what?  Okay, she had a schedule, so I just went to the rooms in question and followed whatever the teacher had for me.  Lunch was 45 minutes after my start at this school (and I did bring a lunch by the way- I just like to stop for lunch instead when I travel, in which case I would save the lunch I brought for another day), and that’s when I learned that the teacher I subbed for was not expecting an afternoon sub.  Nice.  In fact, she initially expected no sub at all- she was apparently told that her position doesn’t get a sub (this is her first year there by the way).  Interesting considering I have subbed for many teachers in this district with her job title.  Somehow that changed and she expected one for the morning only.  Well, I continued to follow her schedule for the afternoon, which included two 5th grade classes and a 2nd grade class.  The second grade class had a student who was in a way the equivalent of the 4th grader I mentioned in the morning.  No intervention group this afternoon, but I did notice she had one tomorrow.  I was getting a little worried about that.

After the last class I returned to her office, and surprise- the teacher I was subbing for was there, due into a meeting after school.  That would solve the plans problem for tomorrow, including the intervention class. Whew.  She explained to me more about the miscommunication and that she would be sure to have plans for me the next day.

Friday went much the same as Thursday, with only a slight variation.  Same classrooms, same kids.  Today I gave spelling tests to a few of the kids who had special lists.  I did this for a few kids each in the 4th grade classes.  For 3rd grade intervention I finished the lesson from the day before and let them read silently for the rest of the time.  Since I knew I had an extra 15 minutes today for travel I had time to pick up a Wendy’s lunch and scarf it down before 5th grade intervention.  This class just had a writing assignment so no big problems there.  Like the morning, the rest of the time was spent in the same classrooms as yesterday.  A few written notes later I was on my way out for a nice weekend.  Next up: drama.

05
Oct

First full week, finally

By derek 4 Comments
Categories: School
Tags: , , , , , , , ,

Did I really not post about my teaching for the last week?  Well, let’s see what I can remember.  Monday I worked as a special ed teacher at a junior high.  The teacher I subbed for I remember used to work in the district’s therapeutic day school program which is a program for students with particularly strong behavioral problems.  They even had large people specifically trained to restrain problem students and bring them to a cooling-off room when required.  I actually subbed for him in that position a couple of years ago.  These days he has moved to those with lesser, but still behavioral, problems.  Much of the day was quite simple with either team teaching (read “sub acts as teaching assistant”) or resource periods where students would work on homework.  He did have a language arts block at the end of the day though.  I did have an assistant to help as I worked with a group at a time so it wasn’t too bad.  We read a story about grey wolves.  The fun began last period, which was a study hall.  That’s when a lot of the behavior problems came out.  No, that’s not true- the last group of language arts was a struggle as well.  They were pretty much the same students in both cases in any event.

Tuesday I worked in grade 1. And 2.  And 3.  And 4.  And 5.  And- no, I’m finished…  I was in fact a floater.  I took over classes for an hour at a time.  I do wish they had organized the meetings a little more in my favor though.  I actually had to go from one end of the school to the other end at one point, a few minute walk due to the design of the building when I had to be in the next room right away.  Fortunately in that case the kids in the second class had been sent out to recess so the teacher was able to go to her meeting though I had not yet arrived.  It was overall an easy day and I was mostly able to talk directly with the teachers before and after meaning no written notes.

Wednesday I was in music.  This was actually the most challenging assignment.  The kids in many of the classes were very talkative.  Grades were mixed here too of course, from second to sixth (not inclusive- I had no third graders).  The older ones were the most challenging.  We did some music games the teacher had left, including instrument bingo (a standard) and a game where they formed musical symbols on the ground with their bodies.  That one was fun.

Thursday- let me look it up.  Ah yes, 5th grade.  Pretty normal though I had one very challenging boy in that class.  I’m not the only one who had problems with him either- I overheard a conversation in the lounge about him.  Apparently when we switched for math (I had the advanced class and did pan balance problems with them- similar to hands on equations I think I mentioned once before) he refused to do any work at all.  Well, with me he worked slowly but he did work.  He got distracted very easily though.  In the end he wasn’t as bad as some students I have had, but still a challenge nonetheless.

Friday I was in another special ed classroom.  The three sixth graders- wow.  Next to ELL a couple of years ago they were the most troublesome.  It was at this same school by the way…   One of the sixth grades is apparently on ADHD medication.  His parents I’m told are quite good at making sure he comes to school ready and medicated.  Guess which day they forgot?  Yep.  Once he had his meds after lunch he was a pleasure to work with.  Of the other two one was got very easily distracted and the other tended to work on only what he wanted to work on and was quite belligerent toward another student.  Two of the three finished their science assignment by the end of the day (worked on during no less than three periods…) and one even finished his math assignment.  There was one seventh grader who mostly worked independently and an eighth grader who wasn’t a problem when working, but he got some bad family news in the middle of the day and he was pretty much done working at that point.

Well, that was how my week went.  Now who would like to join me in subbing?  Come on, there must be one of you… :P

25
May

Well, that’s all she wrote…

By derek 2 Comments
Categories: Church
Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

…for the 5th graders in children’s ministry that is.  What?  Did you think I meant I was done with this blog?  Today the 5th graders made their exit from children’s ministry.  In a couple of weeks they will officially enter student ministries as junior high students.  Being Memorial Day weekend didn’t help though as there were a few who didn’t make it due to traveling, though fortunately not too many.  The Junior high pastor (I think? I don’t remember the other one leaving) came in with a couple other leaders and spoke with them about the welcome night, things to expect in junior high, etc.  The kids were prayed over and given certificates- a sort of graduation I guess.  Of course, some won’t really be in junior high/middle school if they go to a public school in the area where 6th grade is still elementary, but at the church 6th grade is junior high even for them.

So, kids I have been working with for the last two years are now gone and in two weeks the third grade moves up to take their place.  They should recognize me though, at least Saturday night kids, as I have been in the kid’s drama.  This is supposed to be the time then to heavily advertise camp, but the early bird discount will be over by then as camp is one short month away, and unless things change significantly, yours truly will be joining them for the week.  I have said before that that one week last year was very powerful for me spiritually, and I hope it will be the same for me this year- and for whoever will be in my cabin this time around.

Going back to drama, the headline applies here as well.  It is done for the season, not to start again until next fall with a new theme.  My usual exit line, to tell the audience to be sure to tune in next week, reflected this as well, instead telling them to be sure to trust Jesus since He’s the only one who can make us super human.  I also added a line for the third graders- that they would see me (”someone who looks like me”) in two weeks.  Heh, heh…  So at the end, we added cast bows, and on reflection, I should have walked over to the puppet as well, since the puppeteer couldn’t very well step out and take a bow too.  Oh, well.

13
May

I hate going to the wrong place…

By derek 5 Comments
Categories: School
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,

Sigh. If there is one thing that is deficient it is the software that one of the districts I’m in uses. No teacher comments on jobs, and no way to change the school in the case of a traveling teacher. So, it is up to the teacher to contact the sub and let that sub know when a position doesn’t start where the system says it does. Needless to say, today I was that sub. Last time I took a social studies position the teacher called me to let me know where I would need to be. Not this time. While I was aware it was likely to be an itinerant position again, I just figured since no one contacted me I would be going right where the system said I would. Silly me. I went there and, you got it “Oh, she doesn’t come in until the afternoon. You have to go to this other school…” I was pretty POed when I was told this. Someone has the responsibility of letting me know, whether it be the teacher or the office. At the other school I actually ran into the teacher in question. She was doing an observation so that was why she needed the sub. I didn’t want to be rude played it calm and apologized for not being on time because the system said I was to go to the other school. Whether or not she got the hint I don’t know as all she said was it was no problem since I didn’t start teaching for another hour.

I’ll have to say she did prepare thoroughly for me with all the materials separated by class, detailed plans, and whatnot. Meaning of course that I couldn’t blame her if things went wrong. :D Okay, I wouldn’t anyway, and nothing did go wrong. It was a rather pleasant day. Between the two schools I had four first-grade classes, one second, and three third. The lesson plans unfortunately were not quite the same for each class of the same grade so I was kept on my toes. The one thing I really didn’t like having to do was pick one student from each class to get an award for behavior. While I would like to say I was completely objective on the selection I really couldn’t keep a constant eye on each student to determine who best earned it. It was inevitably more like picking three or four students to watch who seemed to be behaving themselves and look for reasons to disqualify them, then still winding up picking between two or three at the end, completely subjectively. Oh, well.

Yesterday I was at a local middle school as the industrial tech sub. Tomorrow I will have a half day (oh why do I take these? At least I will get to sleep in!) for IT at another school. I already know what to expect there, so I could write up a comparison of the two, but I will save it for tomorrow anyway, just because I can. :P

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