Room 25!

I realized I forgot to post an update with the set up classroom. After many, many, hours this summer, I finally got my room set up to my liking. Now, though, after having had students in it for a few months, there are some things I want to change (like the location of our class library). I may tackle that over winter break or I may not change it this year.

Here's what Room 25 looked like at the beginning of the year:

Starting new!

Today I got the key to my new 4th grade classroom! While exciting to move into a brand new room, this will be my 3rd classroom in only my fourth year of teaching! Fortunately, I think I'll be in this new room for a while (fingers crossed!).

Below is a picture of my room as I found it today with all of my boxes and furniture:
For me, it is really exciting to move into a classroom. Unpacking, decorating, organizing . . . all things I love to do. For this reason, I'm likely to be in my classroom working days in advance of when I actually have to be back. I'll be blasting my music, arranging and rearranging furniture, putting up bulletin boards, and cleaning up my files (nerd!). Yes, all of this really is fun for me.

Here are a couple more views of the new room:I'll be sure to post more pictures when it's all put-together and ready for a new batch of 4th graders. Here's to starting new!

Lessons from an American Idol judge

Teaching my fourth graders about magnetism and electricity will always be a highlight of the year. Simply presenting the little ones with the opportunity to play with magnets gets them so excited and enthusiastic! After allowing some exploration time and going over some basic rules (don't get near electronics with a magnet!), we started to talk about the cool things magnets can do.

You can make "floating magnets" by sticking multiple magnets on a pencil and watching the magnets float in thin air.


You can make a "talking magnet" by laying one magnet flat on a table and gently balancing another on an edge just about a centimeter away. You can move a magnet that is on top of your desk by guiding it with a magnet inside your desk. We learned all sorts of cool tricks, but the real excitement came during a fundamental lesson about magnets.

We began to talk about why magnets sometime stick to one another and why magnets sometimes push away from one another. I introduced the concept that magnets have both a north and south pole and that there is a rule for when magnets attract and when they repel: when two like poles are facing one another, the magnets will repel, and when opposite poles are facing one another, the two magnets will attract.

To demonstrate, I drew two magnets on the SMART Board, labeled the poles with opposite poles facing one another, and asked students whether or not the magnets would stick. They all replied that the magnets would attract. I don't know what prompted this, but between the two magnets I immediately draw a heart and declared that the magnets were in love. This caused some giggling as fourth graders really get uncomfortable when teachers mention love, flirting, or anything having to do with romance (which is why I try to mention these things as often as possible). Most teachers might stop here. I, however, truly enjoy making nine year old children uncomfortable. I decided to adorn the magnet picture with even more mushy gushy . . . see below (and please excuse my drawing skills, or lack thereof):
It's so gratifying to be able to embarrass kids with such simple words as "smoochie smoochie."

I proceeded to teach my lesson, yet now I focused on true love, and not on magnets. I completely switched gears and started what I called "love lessons." I gave examples about how two completely different types of people can fall in love. I talked about how two very similar people can be too alike so that instead of falling in love, they argue constantly. To stop the groaning, I went briefly back to magnets as I drew the following picture:

I dragged the love conversation out for as long as I could, teaching them that opposites attract, while watching my kids squirm in their seats and laugh uncomfortably. For the rest of the afternoon, I took every opportunity I could to squeeze the words "smoochie smoochie" into my lessons. One of my adorable little boys muttered to his table group, "I thought we were supposed to learn about magnets this year, not love. Gross!"

As the students left my classroom at the end of the day (in a rush to get away from their crazy teacher!), I hollered out the door, "Don't forget all you learned today about love!" Smoochie smoochie!

I'd like to close with the words of a very wise woman:

Baby seems we never ever agree
You like the movies
And I like T.V.
I take things serious
And you take 'em light
I go to bed early
And I party all night
Our friends are sayin'
We ain't gonna last
Cuz I move slowly
And baby I'm fast
I like it quiet
And I love to shout
But when we get together
It just all work out

I take-2 steps forward
I take-2 steps back
We come together
Cuz opposites attract
And you know-it ain't fiction
Just a natural fact
We come together
Cuz opposites attract

~Paula Abdul

Reading can be fun!!!

I never thought some of my greatest fits of laughter would come from the reading logs I make my students fill out every night. Each nights students must read for 20 minutes and record a summary, a prediction, a connection, or a question about what he/she read.

Often, new fourth graders forget to put their names on homework assignments so as I am checking off reading logs each day, I regularly have to ask something like this, "Who is reading Harry Potter? You forgot to put your name on your paper. Pay me a ticket, please." This happens almost every day, but most often at the beginning of the school year. Today I had NINE no name papers. I sat at my desk reading off the titles of the books on the reading logs and got a great deal of joy each time I collected a highly-valued ticket from those forgetful students.

Teacher: Who is reading Diary of a Wimpy Kid?
Student: Me!
Teacher: Sorry, you owe me a ticket. Please remember to put your name on your paper next time.

Teacher: Who is reading the San Francisco Chronicle Sports Page?
Student: Me . . . argh!
Teacher: Ticket please!

This went on for a while and I finally reached the last no name reading log.

Teacher: Who is reading . . . . huh?? Is this a real book? {chuckles} Seriously, boys and girls, who on earth is reading a book called . . . The Day My Butt Went Psycho?
Class: BAHAHAHAHAH!!
Teacher: BAHAHAHAHA!!!
Student: Oh, that's me.
Teacher: Is that even a real book?!
Student: Yep! I'll bring it in when I'm done with it!

I can guarantee the most popular book this year will now be The Day My Butt Went Psycho.

(Note: After looking this book up on Amazon, I discovered the author also has two other books title Zombie Butts from Uranus and Butt Wars: The Final Conflict.)

(Even better note: Amazon.com's Statistically Improbable Phrases, or "SIPs", are the most distinctive phrases in the text of books in the Search Inside!™ program. To identify SIPs, our computers scan the text of all books in the Search Inside! program. If they find a phrase that occurs a large number of times in a particular book relative to all Search Inside! books, that phrase is a SIP in that book. The SIPs for The Day My Butt Went Psycho are: butt shelter, false butt, methane madness, butt launcher, pink toilet seat cover, jungle twine, flying butts, white butt, first butt, main vent, other butts, side vent, utility belt, brown lake, leaf blower)

I am so reading this book.

Getting to know one another . . . a little too well?

The first few days of school always consist of some activities/ice-breakers for students to get to know their new classmates and for me to get to know my new students. I love learning about their interests and their families, and kids just LOVE to share and talk about themselves. Some parents may not realize how much teachers really know about a student's home life . . . and many teachers learn WAY too much from chatty students. Divorces, arguments, lost jobs, illnesses, bathroom habits . . . we've heard it all, even if we really didn't want to know. Here's an example from last week's "getting to know you" activity called "What's in Your Bag?"



Students were instructed to bring five items in a brown bag. Each student then had to "show and tell" about his or her five items and their significance. Most students brought trophies, their favorite book, or pictures of their family.

A little boy in my class decided to bring the ultrasound pictures of his soon-to-be-born baby brother. He started sharing about it saying, "This is my favorite item because it's a picture of my baby brother that is coming." The kids all said, "Awwwww" and wanted to know when the little baby would be born. I encouraged them to save their questions for the end. The boy continues to share, "And now my mom is 1 centimeter dilated!"

I thought to myself, "Did he really just say that?!" My worst fears were confirmed when I heard many voices echoing the same question: "What does 1 centimeter dilated mean?" "Dilated? I don't know what that is." "Huh? 1 centimeter dilated?"

Flustered and anxious, I tried to stop all questions by shouting out, "Boys and girls, remember to save all your questions until the end!!" Well, sure enough, when the end came my curious 4th graders hadn't forgotten their question . . . "What does it mean to be 1 centimeter dilated." I just sat there thinking, "Omigod, how on earth is he going to answer this question? . . . Will it be inappropriate? . . . What do I do? . . . Am I going to get angry phone calls from parents? . . . Ahhhhh . . . how do I explain this?"

The boy calmly answered, "That means that the hole where the baby comes out has grown 1 centimeter."

UNCOMFORTABLE PAUSE

The rest of the class: "The HOLE where the baby comes out?!"

Me: "Okay, okay, that was three questions . . . thank you _______ for sharing. NEXT!"

A memorable day . . .

Sitting in bed tonight, a memory from last year (my first year of teaching) popped into my head. All of a sudden I remembered the spring day when a bird flew right into our classroom during math. There went my lesson! Nine year old students are ABSOLUTELY incapable of focusing when there is a bird flying (& scatting) all over the room. You would have thought there was some sort of natural disaster occurring . . . students were under their desks, covering their heads, squealing in fear. We opened up all of the windows and the door, turned off all of the lights, and attempted to actually learn some math, all the while watching the bird, ducking when it darted from wall to wall, hoping that it would escape safely, and expressing our disgust when it decided to do #2 (that's the 4th grade term) all over the cupboards, backpacks, desks, floors, you get the idea, I'm sure.


When the bird still had not flown out by lunch time, I called for help in the form of a parent who apparently is well-known for being able to get birds out of classrooms. Who knew this was such a common problem? Needless to say, only about fifteen minutes later, this woman had managed to get the bird safely out of Room 9. Too bad there isn't a parent designated for cleaning up the aftermath of such a situation! That job was left to me.