Time to Revive this Blog

I haven't posted in what seems forever. This last school year I got pregnant and had a baby just 2 months ago. My life has now been consumed by caring for an infant and not giving teaching a second thought. In September, I go back to work and will be teaching Kindergarten. I'm sad I'm leaving first grade but it will be a nice change. Maybe I should think about changing the name of this blog but who knows what grade I will be teaching in 2015 since I'm a SPED teacher and I can be bounced around in my school. ICT's depend on numbers and this upcoming year we have a lot of K special needs kids and two ICT classes. First grade only needs one ICT class so I was the lucky one to get bumped. I think it was because I was on maternity leave when reorganization happened and it was easier to move the teacher who wasn't in the building because she wasn't there to bitch lol. Oh well, I love my co-teacher for next year.

This past school year was extremely difficult for me. Between being pregnant and a new teacher evaluation system I was always on edge. Basically I'm observed 6 times during the year and my principal and assistant principal can walk in at any time and sit down for 20 min and observe my lesson. It's awful! One observation my principal didn't think was well planned and I was pretty much told that not so nicely. It was a Math lesson teaching addition strategies doubles plus one and doubles minus one. Google that if you don't know what it is. I've never taught a concept like this before and Go Math was brand new to me. I went to some PD's for it and was using concepts taught at those PD's and she didn't seem to agree with them because everyone else was doing the same thing except me. My reply to her was "Well they got the lesson by the end." Isn't that the result we want regardless how we teach it? She stated to me "They're six. Of course they'll get it!" I really didn't know what to say. That was the most ridiculous answer an administrator has ever given me. You can't even argue that. Needless to say she made me cry and feel like an incompetent educator. Ten years I've been teaching and NEVER had a bad observation. She had not one positive thing to say to me. But she didn't count it and observed me another time. Still, I will never forget that day and how she made me feel. I definitely have a different outlook of my school after that. But that's a different post for a different day. Are you being evaluated by Danielson's Rubric? How is it going? Any NYC DOE teachers out there dealing with it? I think we as teachers know our students better than anyone else academically. I have a very hard time when someone walks into my classroom and from one glimpse tells me I'm doing something ineffectively. Hoping for a better upcoming year.

Dealing with Bullies in the Classroom

I haven't posted in what feels like forever. The main reason being that I just had 2 new students enrolled in my class and one of them has completely changed our classroom environment. My other student isn't behavioral but his focus and organizational skills are another challenge for me but that's a separate issue for another day. This one student has managed to change our once peaceful and fun learning environment into a war zone and my kids are scared. Well he met his match because I AM NOT HAVING IT! I will give you some background on this child. He is labeled emotionally disturbed and comes from a very "street" family. They think discipline is screaming and calling him names so now we know where it's coming from. He calls my students names, punches them, kicks them and threatens them daily. This is something I will not allow to happen in my classroom. He told me on the first day his last teacher was mean and yelled at him all the time. I explained that we are responsible for our actions in our class and if you make a bad choice that there will be a consequence for it. He said "Oh I like you." I replied,"Great! I can be nice as pie when you follow directions. I will joke around and play fun games. BUT! If you choose to do the wrong thing in my class then it will not be fun and games. That's how life is inside and outside the walls of this school." He gives me the whole yes yes yes and 2 seconds later is tearing ass around my classroom. HELLOOOOOOOOO! Did you not hear what I just said?! He says, "Sorry, Mrs. Guidice." The first few days he seemed to really be falling into the routines. He was earning his points left and right. Then one day in the closet at the end of the day he tells one of my students he will punch her in the face if she gets in his way again. When she tells me I confront him. He denies and denies it. So I asked if anyone heard him and 3 other kids raised their hand and correlated my other students story. I said, "Well, how do you explain that then? Three other students heard you. Are you still going to tell me the same story or will it be the truth?" He then changes his story to some nonsense about the light. I know off the bat he's lying and I said that lying is not a good character trait. Then last week he tells me he wants to be a cop. I said to be a cop you have to follow the rules first. He replies, "No I'm going to be a bad cop." I seriously couldn't believe what he just told me. In my 9 years teaching I have NEVER heard a child say something like that. I said, "Well bad cops get caught and go to jail just like everyone else who doesn't follow the law." He says, "No, bad cops never get caught and they can't go to jail cause they are a cop." I looked him in the face and said "That is not true. People who are bad eventually get caught. Maybe not right away but they will get caught and go to jail." Oh my! I just thought to myself this kid knows way too much for 6 years old. What is he being taught at home or what is he watching? Our school doesn't have students like this. It's not tolerated. The stories go on and on with this child. I could write a book. Basically whenever he gets caught doing something he shouldn't be doing his first response is "Sorry!" I hate when kids think that saying sorry makes everything ok. I explained that saying sorry doesn't mean anything if you are just going to do it again. I don't believe you are sorry because when I turn my back you are engaging in the same behavior. You are only sorry you got caught. I said to him to show me with you actions and not your words. The other kids try to help him do the right thing but he verbally or physically attacks them. They don't want to be his friend and I don't blame them. They make it very clear at lunch when they all sit away from him because they are scared of him. Today he told on of my kids they were mean and stomped on her foot. When I asked what happened they told me he was being mean to them and said that they didn't want to talk to him. I moved him out of that table to one that has some more privacy where he can't bother other kids. This kind of behavior will not fly in my classroom and I have no problem saying that to his parents. Looks like it's going to be a long year but I'm staying positive that this kid can turn it around.

Go Math

Well here it comes. I hate change. A lot. I think I'm worse than the kids. Last school year we were using Everyday Math which I found to be really difficult for students who do not have number sense or reasoning skills. I embraced the thought of a new curriculum and so much as tossed my Everyday Math to the side in my closet. Banished from the current curriculum for this school year, I was looking forward to my Go Math workshop over the summer until I got there and found an extremely overwhelming curriculum with so many different books and tools. I liked this at the beginning. It all sounded so great when they talk about it like Math is the only subject you teach. I left feeling like I had a pretty good grip on it until...the boxes came. The amount of books and the sizes of them were crazy. The student classwork journal is huge for first grade. Last week we were suppose to start unit 1 but postponed it because we didn't feel confident enough to teach it. We administered the beginning of the year assessment which I found to be pretty hard and a waste of time. I already knew what it told me. Scratch that for next year. Monday we started unit 1 and already I have an issue with it. There are a lot of pages the kids are suppose to do for one lesson. Today in lesson 4 they had to complete 3 pages plus a mid chapter check up. We didn't have enough time in our math block so it went into social studies which I don't mind cutting short but that can't happen all the time.

Two things I noticed today. Kids didn't seem that engaged and I had 3 kids go to the nurse with a stomach ache. Could

just be a coincidence but I'm skeptical as always. I want to love Go Math but we just aren't there yet. My hope is as it goes along we will enjoy it more. There are so many different tools and everything is scattered on ThinkCentral. Only time will tell if I give this curriculum 2 thumbs up or down. Right now it's 1 up and 1 down. 

Teaching Manners

Every month our principal chooses a book of the month. Every other month we have to submit a classroom writing response to it. Then the book is sent home with a child everyday accompanied by a notebook for both parent and child to respond in. This months BOTM is "Do Unto Otters" by Laurie Keller. I've never heard of the book but when I read it I just thought it was the cutest book ever! The characters are adorable and the way she displays the text in the book is so unique. After reading we created a list of manners that rabbit spoke about. We also discussed the way rabbit said these things using speech bubbles! Our response to the book was creating a poster using speech bubbles. Students wrote in the manners they thought were most important. I wanted to have them write why they thought that manner was important but due to lack of time it just wasn't possible. I got the idea from rowdy in first grade. If you need a book that teaches good manners and is engaging then I suggest you check this book out. I also found these these awesome resources on picture book lessons blog. I really need to start remembering to take pictures of the work we do.