"Miss Stepp, will you dob me???"

Okay, I have to say that I think it is the funniest thing in the world that these kids have never seen a bingo dobber.  They want me to dob everything!!!!  I use it for checking to see if they have done their planners and journals and occasionally I use it on another assignments too.  Apparently it is the greatest thing they have seen in a long time! 
On to more classroom stuff! My kids are settling into the routine a bit more each day.  They still have trouble standing in line quietly and not making sarcastic remarks/facial expressions. Hence, we spend a lot of our time practicing how to stand in line, come into the room as I expect and work!!  My students got a stern lecture from the other teacher while I was giving them instructions in the hall today.  They earned extra social studies work today! Ouch!! Someone whined about it and I asked them if they would like an extra page for whining or if they would like to sit and do their work without whining.  That got them to work promptly!!  Another thing my kids haven't figured out is how to sit in their chairs properly with all four legs on the floor.  I took away three chairs today and they lost the privilage of using them until the end of the day. My first kiddo lost theirs before morning recess at 10am.  OUCH!!! Needless to say they were very tired of standing or sitting on the floor by the end of the day.  Oh well!!! 
Not much else to talk about other than the fact that my days are going better and I am getting into the swing of things and my days are going better.  I was a bit tired today and so hopefully a good night's rest will fix that up.  I have been putting twelve hours into the classroom these past few days and though it is an enormous amount of time to be spending it doesn't feel that bad.  I love what I do and therefor it is good!!  Oh, and coming up, I have not one, but TWO three day weekends in a row.  The second one is not totally a work free weekend  because I will be in Billings for an inservice day.  Yay!! We have lots and next inservice days I will be headded to Helena for two or three days!!! Yippee!! Unfortunately, Helena is four hours away but hopefully I will have someone to ride with on the way over. Especially since I have never driven to Helena from this side of the state!! Tomorrow is looking to be another wonderful day. Oh yeah, one of my fifth graders told me not to be grumpy pants tomorrow...I told him I wouldn't if he would do his work then I wouldn't have to be grumpy....

Survival of the fittest

This whole beginning the school year is truly about who can survive.  I did, with all the excitement on the first day I was not sure how I was going to manage the rest of the week.  I did manage to get all core subjects taught to some extent this week.  I think this also correlated with the amount of whining that was occuring in my classroom. The whining, which I might add, is not tolerated.  My teaching ears cannot hear whining students! Shock!!!  The students are slowly starting to discover that I can understand some of what they are saying to their siblings in German and that it is not a great advantage to do this.  What they don't know is that most of the time it is the tone of their voice and the reaction of their sibling that gives away what they are saying; not what they actually say!!!  Social cues are so cross culturally normative!! I am really beginning to understand all this teacher stuff about outsmarting and outwitting the students.  It is really what it is all about.  They started out the year with being allowed to chew gum. The restrictions were that I couldn't see it, hear it or see them putting it into their mouth.  I knew this wouldn't last long and sure enough, yesterday morning, one of my students blew a bubble! So, no more gum!!  A few of my students had the guts to chew gum today and so on Monday I am going to have to stand at the door in the morning and do mouth checks.  Seriously, I did not know that this was part of my job but apparently since they couldn't handle the privilage, it had to be taken away.  Bummer for them. 
Okay, enough of my sarcastic realism remarks about my students and more about the perks.  I get a delicious meal ever day for lunch.  Today it was corn on the cob (I always cut mine off-old habit) chicken (suprise!!!) rolls and pickled cucumbers that weren't quite pickled. I also got some homemade rolls to take home and I have been told that this is a wekly occurance!! Yummy!!!!  I was also gifted with a bag of fresh garden veggies. I now have: carrots, green beans, onion, green pepper, lettuce, zucchini, cabbage and corn!!! I put some of it in the freezer because I would be eating veggies for a week solid if I didn't!!!! Oh yea, and I got squash which I made for dinner!!!! OOhh....I am going to get so spoiled with these yummy meals that I get. Even better, the lunch gets delivered to my room!! The other teacher and the para and I always have lunch together! Not much else going on!  The weather is cooler and we had a thunder and lightening storm roll over town today. That was pretty cool.

My first day of school

Okay, I survived my first day of school and by the time that the first recess had rolled around I had totally ditched my lesson plans for the day and was just in survival mode.  Fortunately, by lunch time things had calmed down and the other teacher gave me a pep talk and the afternoon was much better.  I had to practice and practice and practice and practice the routines some more.  I have to tell you that these kids struggle with change.  Acquiring a new teacher and having to go through a new routine is like pulling teeth!!  They struggle and resist change at all costs.  The culture of these kids thrives on routine and purpose.  So, tomorrow and Friday I am going to do the routine over and over so that they get used to what I expect.  They are very opinionated and are very used to announcing to the world their opinions with no concequences.  Shouting out drives me crazy and so one of the behaviors that we practiced over and over and over today is how to raise hands without talking and wait to be called on. Struggle.  I do really have a nice group of kids though.  It is interesting getting used to some of the cultural norms that exist on the colony.  The kids usually don't listen to music but somehow they know all about the different artists! Somehow they found out that I like country music and they asked me today if I like Lyal Lovett, Alan Jackson, George Jones, George Strait and some other singer. One girl wanted to know if I got to watch the Mariners often and one of the boys wanted to know if Ichiro was my favorite player.  I think I was asked about the Seahawks too.  These kids know a lot of information even though they are not exposed to the news of what we English folk know as day to day life.  I had another long day after school today but I feel better about how tomorrow goes and I have a different strategy about how I am going to cram four lessons of reading and English and Math into my day before lunch with a ten minute break in the middle. But! The other teacher was to my rescue today to assure me that I was doing everything I needed to for my classroom to run.  Her pep talk was very helpful and assured me that it wasn't me that was nervous, it was also the kids. A new teacher makes them very curious and also a bit crazy I think.  All in all, at least with nearly passing out in the morning from the temperature of the room rising so quickly, and then the kids switching names on me, and trying to distract me at all costs, I think my day was successful.  Nobody got hurt, each kid learned something and I got some viable data worthy work out of the kids!! Now, data worthy work is to be held in high esteem over here with the district going to the RTI model of helping kids learn.  This is the training that I went through for two days and I really like it.  It is all about creating a plan and helping the kids before they are identified with SpEd and then creating a plan after a LD is discovered.  Basically, since many of the kids who are identified SpEd at the elementary level truly are not SpEd material, but this is how they qualify for help and additional learning time the model that Ryegate is using now will prevent all the paperwork that goes into a SpEd referral because a plan will already be in place when a student is ideintified as SpEd and therefore the testing that would be done with the old model no longer needs to be done. Run on sentence, I know..I am not in teacher mode right now dispite my little teacher soap box there. I think that is about all.  I got the kids started on social studies and sort of math, and tomorrow I am going to try to throw reading and English into the bunch. Wish me luck!

Almost there

I think it is official that I will not get very much sleep tonight.  I knowI am prepared for tomorrow and am looking forward to meeting all of my students officially.  I have met most of them when they come and bang on my door wanting to know if I need any "help."  I tell them, no, you can come in on Wednesday!  I have met even more people on the colony and I have not met one person I don't like.  I think the kids are going to be super chatty and curious tomorrow which is why I don't have much as far as curriculum planned.  Mostly just things to do to get them used to me and the rountines that are going to be implimented into my classroom. I have two weeks planned for a couple of the subjects I will be teaching.  I have my read aloud book picked out.  I will be starting with "Walk Two Moons" by Sharon Creech. It's a nice quality book, with some familiar themes they have heard of.  I really wanted to start with Uglies by Scott Westerfeld but decided that it was not something they were familiar enough with to warrent it being a quality choice for the kids.  I will have it in my library for them to borrow but not to read out loud.  Not much to ramble on about right now because I think most people would be bored reading about my ramblings that justify why I am teaching how I am teaching and what I am teaching and what order I am teaching things in!! Did you get all that? It might not make sense since I am on a natural high right now because TOMORROW IS MY FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL!!!!! I actually have my own classroom of kiddos whose minds I get to manipulate, err..mold, shape, encourage, expand or whatever other adjective you want to insert. Bye for now!

Less than 48 hours to go

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My "six trait writing" bulletin board

Check out those books!!

I am standing in my door way taking this picture. The board just has my to do list on it.

I have had two and a half days in my classroom to turn it into my own class room.  At this point my classroom has all the necessary things in order to be a functional classroom.  I have made two bulletin boards, put up the obligatory maps and given each student supplies and their textbooks. They each have an array of at least twelve books on their desks; some of which are traditional textbooks, workbooks and supplimentry materials and practice books.  They each have a handwriting book that they will practice in and then a practice book for each of the subjects I will be teaching them.  Today I had the morning in my classroom to plan lessons.  I was able to plan reading for all of my students.  I will tell you that planning for four grades at once does not leave a lot of room for creativity or transitions.  I will have to be rigerous about my training my students to transition from one activity to another in no time flat!  The other teacher has been wonderful about helping me out and giving me ideas-my motto this year is beg, borrow and steal whatever I can to make my life easier!!  All you educators I know probably know exactly what I am talking about.  Plus, why reinvent something that has already been done??  Point being, there was a nice handy cart left that had two columns of colored bins that were nicely labeled with various school supplies.  They are all school supplies that I need and will have my students use on a regular basis so why in the world would I waste time to redo the labels?? I did change one of them because I didn't need three bins of "scratch paper" so I changed that one to pencils and erasers. I have a lot more resources than I ever imagined I would have as well.  Tonight three of us went into Billings to go school supply shopping on the school districts dime! It is so much fun spending someone elses money (don't worry, we were on a budget). But seriously, buying for 26 kids was awesome!!  That is something else that is different about the culture I am teaching in.  These kids do not buy their own school supplies because everything is communally owned.  So, we teachers get to decide what they will need for the school year and then go purchase them!  Neato!!! I am looking forward to so many things this year; it just blows my mind that someone actually offered me a job without my having "real teaching exerience." Haha...anyone who has subbed knows that is real enough experience.  I am lucky to have an awesome teacher to help me along with my first year of stuff.  She has a great sense of humor but tells it like it is. You don't mess around when it comes to the serious stuff.  I am looking forward to a great year and just thinking of all the things I am going to learn makes me giddy!! Nerdy I know but it's a teacher thing....Till next time....Tscheuss! 

This board has my calendar and policies and procedures on it.

Day 2

I have just nearly completed my second day in my classroom. It is beginning to look more and more like a classroom each day. I now have two bulletin boards nearly complete and all of the curriculum on the students' desk. These students are going to be working hard all day. They go to school for almost eight hours, including German class. I had a meeting with the superintendent and the educational leader out there on the colony this morning. That went well. I found out what time my school day will begin and end. The student day will begin at 8:20 in my class and go until 3:20. They go to German school both before and after my class, totaling a lot of learning in one day. I have met a few of my students and their younger siblings. They are super curious about me and are always knocking on the door to see if I need help. I always tell them, "nope, I have to go work!" they just are so interested in me, mainly because I am so tall. There are tall women on the colony here so I think it is more of the fact that I am an outsider and I am wearing pants and flip-flops. I had the most wonderful meal on the colony today. Those women sure know how to cook. I am going to have to start running a lot when I eat their food. We had for lunch today, greenbeans (seasoned), yummy chicken wings, homemade potato chips, soup, fresh cucumbers and delicious bread (a close second to Holden). Yummmyyy....I have a lot of food in my belly right now. Tomorrow I am going to tackle the curriculum that I organized today. I locked up my teacher's manuals and am ready to go for tomorrow! Till next time...Aufwiedersehen...

My first day

It is all starting to hit me now, just how much work I have ahead of me. Today was my first official day as a school teacher in my own classroom. I went through the first aid and cpr training so now if you stop breathing I can help you!! THen I learned all about the online grading system that the district uses. I won't necessarily use all aspects of it because the parents of the students that I will be teaching do not use computers! However, I do have all the basic categories in which I am going to grade the students all entered in. That was a big accomplishement for me today. After learning all this I finally got to out and see my classroom. It is a bit smaller than I am used to being in but I have my desks all arranged, a bulletin board started and some pocket charts hung. I have a few things to bring out to the colony tomorrow that will help me with my set up. I am not going to bring out my library of books until next weekend so that I can teach the kids all the routine things that they are going to need to know to be successful in my classroom. It was a huge accomplishment to set my the physical structue of my classroom so that all the kids could see at least one of the whiteboards. They are set up in the corner-not the ideal way but definately relieved to have a white board at least. Tomorrow the other teacher and I will be setting our schedule and putting the curriculum in my classroom. I think I am going to introduce it to the kids gradually to not only keep myself sane but to not overwhelm them. There is no time for homework after they leave my class so that is built into the day. Interesting concept but I think I will get used to not having homework handed in every day. I haven't decided if I am going to have a long time at the end of the day for homework or if i am going to have two shorter periods throughout the day to do the work. It's all these teachery decisions that I have to make for my classroom to run smoothly. Hopefully I will have most of this figured out by tomorrow. We'll see. I have lots of planning ahead of me. Here are some pics to hold you over and curb your curiosity about where I live.