Big News!

It has been quite the summer of changes, as I mentioned before, but all the stress, hard work and persistence paid off, because I have an amazing new teaching job! I will be at an incredible independent school in Manhattan, and I cannot WAIT to get started. I will be in a few different grades covering a few maternity leaves. I start in third grade, then to first, then we will see where next! The school focuses heavily on social emotional development, hands on learning, integrated units, and differentiation. So basically, everything I am passionate about. I am not sure how often I will be able to update this blog, as I will be blogging on the school websites, but if I ever can, I will update here too. I am so thankful for this opportunity, and I know it will be a great fit.

End of Student Teaching and the Mystery Project

Andrew and me on our honeymoon to Kaua`i

It's been a month since the end of my student teaching, and what a month it has been!! Aside from the obvious chaos that surrounds the week before spring break and finishing up all of my student teaching projects, there was applying for and receiving my credential in Pennsylvania, applying to transfer that credential to both New York and Connecticut (and WHAT a headache that has been), finally taking our honeymoon, as well as our cross country move to New York, and now applying to jobs all over the New York City- Westchester -Connecticut area- Whew! I have barely had time to come up for air, let alone blog. So the next few posts will be playing catch up with all the great projects that I missed telling you about.

Tech for Kinders

Emi's research and use of Common Curriculum looks very organized (love that!) and comprehensive. It looks like  Common Curriculum can be used to do long-range planning and to adjust those plans as needed while incorporating Common Core Standards. It looks like there is a lot that it can do to help teachers stay on top of their planning and teaching. I will need to take a closer and longer look to fully understand all of it.

 

Lesson Planning with Common Curriculum

As I mentioned before, my school recently got an amazing donation of new technology, and the teachers finally got their MacBook Airs to start using. I have been helping some of the teachers with tech ideas, and last week one teacher asked me if I knew of any great online lesson planning tools or apps. This is something I have been searching for, because I do everything on computer, and having to use a traditional lesson planning book has really been a hassle for me. I told her I was looking too, and I would check into it that night.

Guess My Number Line!

We are busy bees in Math right now, and have been doing a ton of fun activities. Math was the second subject I took over in student teaching, and I am feeling very comfortable with it now, so I am able to move beyond just the typical basic lessons and have been incorporating more of the fun activities I know kids love and get them engaged in learning. This lesson was one I used for a video taped lesson for my teaching program, and I ran into so many technical difficulties- from SD cards filling up and not noticing it for ten minutes to recording over the introduction- yikes! The kidlets were troopers and were so patient with me as I had to re-record certain parts and reset the technology. We pretended we were on a movie set and had to do a second take (lucky we live in LA, huh?).

Magic Circle

"I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel"
             -Maya Angelou

I've seen various versions of this saying through the years and I am not sure who said it first but I truly believe it- with adults as well as with children.

The Social-Emotional Side

This post has been knocking around in my head for a while now, so when our Valentines's Day Activity went so well on Friday, I knew that this was the perfect time to write about it all. I apologize in advance for the longest ever post.

I am a big believer in Social-Emotional Learning (SEL). By big I mean huge. Gigantic. Really, I cannot overstate how much I love it. There is so much negativity and hatred in the world. Every day on the news there is another story of violence and intolerance. In our schools, I see hurt feelings, bullying, and just general meanness, not to mention the devastating school shootings that occur all too often (and even once is too often). There are ways to combat all of these terrible things; by teaching students to be kind, tolerant, accepting of others who are different than they are. Teaching them to show kindness and love to others. Some students may not be getting these lessons on empathy and love at home, so we have to try even harder to teach it at school.

Tech Tech Tech

I grew up in the digital age. My dad had one of the first consumer Apples before I was born, and I would say I embraced technology throughout my life. I took two technology based classes during my Grad program on how to incorporate tech into the classroom. Even though I would say I am very tech savvy, I know that I am nothing compared to the generation growing up today. Our school got a recent donation of a class set of MacBook Airs and a computer cart, and a new iPad, Macbook Air, and Wall Projector for each teacher- amazing, right?!?!?!? We have been attending numerous tech Professional Development sessions where we discuss best ways to integrate tech, best programs to look at, and just general philosophy around technology in the classroom.

Regrouping with Addition

We have been working hard in second grade on regrouping with addition, and I am so proud of my kidlets for expanding their thinking and trying new things! We were always planning to teach regrouping, but partway through the unit, we attended a professional development session on Singapore Math and I was SO inspired, I rewrote my lessons for the next few days to include some of the ideas we saw in the session. There is so much to the program, and I know without extensive training I will never be able to do the principles justice, but there were a few things that I know I can incorporate into any math program I am teaching.

Start of Student Teaching

Well, I have certainly not kept up end of this blogging bargain up the past few weeks! I only really have one excuse, that student teaching has begun, and I have been inundated with lesson planning, note taking, journaling and reflecting, and go yes, a nasty stomach flu last week (welcome to teaching, right?). Posts will probably be few and irregular over the next few months, but I will try my best! So far it has been an amazing experience. I have learned incredible amounts since the first day of student teaching, and I know that is just a drop in the bucket compared with the remaining ten weeks. Here is my classroom for student teaching, in pictures. Names and faces have all been blurred out, to protect my kiddos.

Kinder Phonics

A few weeks ago Emi asked about my approach to Literacy and teaching Phonics and Reading.  This is a topic dear to me as I clearly remember learning to read in First Grade. It was magic!!   We all sat on the floor in front of my teacher as she would read to us from a big Dick and Jane book. There was one with a red cover and one with a blue cover.   She would read each page to us and discuss the pictures and have us repeat the words. The pictures were adorable and sweet. My brother and sister would have been Dick and Jane (I still love the name Jane) and I would have been the pesky little sister. 

Multicultural Week

This has been such a wonderful week at my school. It is multicultural week, where families come in to every classroom and share their cultural traditions (not just Christmas or Hanukkah). The week was kicked off with a wonderful Bollywood dance by a few of the moms, as well as the Fifth Graders sharing a song they wrote. Being in the area of Los Angeles we are, our school is so incredibly diverse. In my second grade alone, there are 20 different cultures represented- Israel, Palestine, South Korea, China, Taiwan, Malaysia, Indonesia, Mozambique, Egypt, Canada, Honduras, Mexico, South Africa, Russia, Latvia, Iran, Brazil, Philippines, Laos and Lebanon.

Before Break Craziness

It is crazy to me how quickly the weeks between Thanksgiving and Winter Break go. As soon as we got back from the week we got off for Thanksgiving, we have three weeks to make holiday crafts and gifts, give assessments, and jam as much actual teaching as is humanly possible before the three weeks of winter break wipe out a good chunk of the learning they've done so far. 

Polar Express Pajama Parade

We had a Polar Express Pajama Parade this week at school. Scholastic Reading Club /Classrooms Care has an amazing Pajama Program- more information on that can be found here and I encourage you all to look at it, it really was such a great experience both for us and for the kids.  We had our Kindergarten and First Graders bring new pajamas to donate (if they wanted to) and Scholastic will match each pair of pajamas with new book for a child in need- how wonderful, right? We had so many cute nightgowns and pajamas donated in our class, just look at this adorable Hello Kitty Christmas nightgown.

The Phonics Debate

Before I get too deep into this post, I wanted to share some good news!! Without going into all the drama and details, I have had some trouble with getting student teaching set up. First, I started student teaching in September but had to get pulled from that due to inappropriate behavior by my mentor teacher. Since then, I have been waiting for another placement to come through, but have not had any luck (that is one of the hard parts of doing an online program based on the East Coast while I live on the West Coast). Today, drum roll please, I got news from a teacher at the school I have been volunteering at that she would like to have me in her classroom!! More details once everything has been confirmed.

Giving Thanks in Kindergarten

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday - it's all about family, friends, fun and food. I  love the traditions and I have so much to be thankful for. It has become more meaningful since Emi and I visited Plymoth Plantation about 10 years ago and found out more about the true history of Thanksgiving. What a great place! I love history.

New to this Whole Blogging Thing

Aloha from Maui!  I'm Dana, Emi's Mom (lucky me!!) and I am excited to add this new dimension - Blogging - to my teaching and learning. I am quite the tech dinosaur most of the time - except when I'm the "tech guru" (ha!!) occasionally at school - which never fails to surprise me along with my colleagues. So, imagine my surprise when Emi broached the idea of us doing a blog together. I thought she was kidding. But... Hmmm, I love doing new things and the chance to grow and learn along with my sweet girl... I'm Stoked!!  (note - I am writing this by hand first as I sometimes compose my thoughts better that way - see what I mean - tech dinosaur!!)

I've known for a long time that Emi would be a wonderful teacher. She is so loving and compassionate and great with kids. It is a natural fit for her. Since she started her Masters Degree to become a teacher, it's been fun to learn along with her and to see that much of what she's learning is so relevant to what is going on in the field of Education today.

Teaching blogs are great.  Emi sends me links.  I am continually amazed and excited at all the cute things and great ideas that fellow teachers present on their blogs. Thank you for sharing everyone!!

I have been doing my Dream Job for a long time. In my mind, it is still the best job there is - for pay I mean. My favorite job ever is being a Mama. I decided at age 4 (in Preschool - more about that fun story at another time) that being a Mommy and a Kindergarten Teacher were just what I wanted to do. Suffice it to say, I made great choices as I've got the two most wonderful children - Jess and Emi - in the world and I teach Kindergarten!!!  I still wonder why everyone in the world doesn't want to be a Kindergarten Teacher. I have taught a few years of other grades: Preschool, First and a year of Third.  While they were all fun and had their upsides, my true calling and love is Kindergarten.  Kindergarteners are hilariously fun and so earnest and eager to learn.  I love breaking ideas and concepts down to small understandable chunks, creating aha moments all over the place. I love the wonder and magic of it all.  It's still a thrill!!

Thanksgiving in First

Like I said, I start my student teaching in January, so for now I am spending my time getting some extra classroom experience by volunteering in a first grade and third grade classroom every day. Most of my classroom experience has been in the younger grades- kinder and first- so it is really interesting for me to work with the third graders and see all that they can do. The teacher for that class, Mrs. C, is AH-MAZING, truly one of the best teachers I have ever seen in action, and I will have to dedicate at least one post to all that I have learned there. My first grade class is adorable and taught by Ms. S, who I was shocked to learn is a first year teacher this year- I never would have guessed, as she is so effective and engaging!

The Project Begins

Welcome to our blog! As a part of my graduate school program, I have come across some amazing teaching blogs, and I have been wanting to join the wonderful blogging community. Teaching is one of those professions that can be isolating, as we are each in our own classrooms surrounded by kids all day, and I hope through blogging we can cross some of those borders and connect. I am completing my master's and teaching credential online through a school in Philadelphia, so this process has been a bit more lonely than most education programs. Through reading other's blogs and seeing some of the great resources that are available out there, I have found support and comfort. I start my student teaching in January, and wanted to find a way to reflect and document my process as I become a credentialed teacher, so I decided to start a blog. My mom has been my greatest source of support and strength through my journey to become a teacher- few days go by without a call to discuss lesson plans, unit ideas or challenges I faced- so I could think of no better way to share that both with her and the great wide world. We are in somewhat of a unique situation- I am just starting my career as she is winding hers down (still more than a few years off though!)- so we get to share and compare our two different perspectives, activities and lessons, challenges and triumphs. I have much to learn from her, and she has often mentioned that she feels re-energized in her teaching now that I am sharing all my new ideas, so hopefully she will learn from me as well. This is new to us both, so I am excited and interested to see where this takes us!