Happy Halloween!

I carved my first jack-o-lantern this week. I've observed the process numerous time throughout my life, but, until this week, had never personally wielded the knife to maim a gourd. Alas, my innocence ended on Thursday as we had a 'non-party' pumpkin carving lesson, and let the children help scoop the pulp, vote on the expression that our pumpkin should have, and vote on the shapes of the facial orifices. They had a blast! And I did, too - probably the most fun I've had teaching. So many moments become teachable moments; a simple pumpkin carving can be morphed into sequencing, sharing and turn taking, learning new words, making choices - the possibilities are simply endless.

It's hard to imagine I have only a month left in the student teaching process. I will most likely be substitute teaching as it appears there are no reputable districts in the area with openings. It's still a paycheck even if I will still lack the health insurance I miss so much. I've had to start preparing the students for my departure, which has been tough on all of us, but I've insisted that it's very likely that I'll see them again since I'll be substituting in the district.

Anyway, everyone, have a safe and wonderful Halloween! It's a bit embarrassing to admit this is probably my favorite non-Christian holiday. I love the festivities which accompany the "spooky" season. It's too much fun to decorate pumpkins, make spider webs, and tell 'semi-scary' stories with a flashlight and the lights turned off. (And during the pumpkin carving, it was pouring outside.)

Happy Halloween! MWUAHAHAHAHA!

The Elmer's Glue Webs

Here are a few pics of the webs we made in handwriting out of Elmer's glue and wax paper. The kids are sooo proud of them, and I think I've given the instructions and lesson plans out to EVERY teacher on the K/1/2 wing of the school. Of course, our class is right on the end of the wing, so all the kids have to walk by our class to go to music and PE - so we get "oohs" and "aahhs" when they walk by. Unfortunately due to the fact that I was instructing and because of potential liability issues, I don't have any pics of us making them.

Why We Have Zippers and Other Fun Things...

So far all assessments and evaluations have gone fabulous. People around campus keep telling me how much they are going to miss having me around when December creeps upon us, which is definitely a nice feeling.

Today was especially fabulous. I created a lesson plan for cursive handwriting with a focus on the letter 'w'. The 'under curve' seems to be difficult for our children, and since most of our lowercase cursive letters are constructed using the under curve, I decided to work on a letter that has three of them (if you count the optional initial stroke, which isn't taught everywhere).

So today's handwriting lesson was "Wonderfully Wacky Woven Web Wednesday." Some of you probably saw on my facebook status that I was practicing and creating a model this weekend for the children to see as they created their webs. We started with wax paper and Elmer's glue and made cursive lowercase Ws all over the wax paper. Then I asked the students to draw lines to make the Ws connect - straight, curvy, etc. to make the shape of a spider's web. We followed up the web creation with iridescent glitter and then stuck little black cardstock spiders in our webs and put them in the window sill to let them dry. The idea is, once dry, the webs, which dry clear, can be peeled off the wax paper and will have a sparkly almost glow-in-the-dark feel and be a bit rubbery. We'll hang them up for Halloween decor along with the sign the kids made to go with them, written in cursive, which say "Wonderful Wacky Woven Webs". The kids listened well and worked so hard on their webs - and they had a lot of fun. The webs came out really cute, and tomorrow I'm letting them add some eyes or a red hourglass to their spiders in glitter before we hang everything up. I have to toot my own horn a bit and say it was one of my most creatively thought up lessons thus far. I was ecstatic that the kids loved the activity. I'll take some pictures tomorrow once the webs are dry. I can't post the ones with the kids, but I'll get some of just the webs alone. I'm very proud of my munchkins!

I also got to work with our sign language student again today - he is learning so quickly, he'll pass my ASL abilities up in no time. He's doing his spelling words now by sign (seeing the sign, hearing the word, then using fridge magnets to spell the word). We're trying to get him to make the signs himself, but his agility isn't quite there. He's certainly trying though.

This evenings top story; however,is that I have finally learned the purpose of the zipper, as of today. Our speech path intern and I really get along and talk a lot during our lunchtime. He told me this great story he wanted to share. He had a student with three items pictured on cards in front of him, with the objective of the lesson being to identify the commonality among the items pictured. He had a zipper, a button, and a snap on the pictures in front of him - the commonality being 'fasteners on clothing.' The student was mulling it over in his head and was quite puzzled so the SLP asked him to tell out loud what he was thinking in his head so the SLP could help. The student replied, "Well, I know the button is, like, for a button-up shirt. This [snap] thing is on top of jeans. And the zipper is on your pants so you can put 'it' in and pull 'it' out...." I should mention the student has four brothers :) So in case you ever want to know why we have zippers on our clothing....just ask our kids!!!

Midget's After Bathtime Dance

I find it very amusing that my 15 year old Yorkie still pitches a fit after bathtime. She loves to play in the water, but when it's associated with a bathtub - forget it! Water is apparently only fun when it's at the beach or a big puddle in front of the house. And wet grass is not the same as a good old fashioned splash in a puddle.

Here's her little after bath dance...

So, What is Special Ed?

What happens when three fourth graders have a chance to wind down after a tough lesson and enjoy birthday cupcakes courtesy of one of their mothers? Very entertaining conversation! We helped them begin the conversation by asking if they had enjoyed the previous evening with their families. One of the boys proceeded to tell us that his brother is in special 'aide' (not special ed, mind you - special aide.) Looking at one another, the teacher and I prodded him to explain to us what special aide is - to which he replied he did not know. Mrs. Fleming explained that it is a class where some students can go during the day to get extra help (since we know what type of special services his brother receives) on school work if they need it. He remained confused by this so one of the girls decided to help by blurting out - "Duh, you're in a class like that right now!" Definitely one of those "you had to be there moments," but if you knew and loved these kids like Mary and I do, you would have joined us behind the bookshelves turning purple while trying to maintain some composure and not laugh at them trying to define "special aide."

In other news, one of our boys is getting ASL (American Sign Language) instruction for 30 mins, twice a week, and I got to join him in his first lesson - which means I get to learn as well. The two young ladies teaching are both deaf themselves and come with an interpreter, but were so sweet as I mangled my way through finger spelling and demonstrating the few signs our student knows and the ones we think would be relevant to helping us teach and assess him. I can't wait to learn more! Today we worked on letters, numbers, colors, and his personal favorite: train. (He LOVES Thomas the Tank Engine.) So fun! I hope once I get a job and an income that I can enroll in some ASL classes myself. I think it's something that I'd really benefit from knowing!

Warm and Fuzzy Evaluations

I think my nerves are officially gone with regards to being observed (at least until the principal observes me). My observations couldn't have gone any more smoothly if I'd scripted them. The first was Tuesday when Mrs. Fleming observed me in preparation for my LSCO observation the following day. My lesson that day was still "Statements versus Questions" - but each day we focused on a different question word. Tuesday was 'who.' I taught them "Who stole the Cookie from the Cookie Jar?" and put the words to the verse up on the Smartboard so the kids could each come up and manipulate the verse before we got started. I had them identify the questions and statements in the verse, highlight keywords and punctuation marks, and then fill in their names as the person who stole the cookie when it was their turn. They seemed to really enjoy it - though it was probably more the opportunity to use the smartboard than it was my lesson :) Either way, the lesson went really well, and I was quite pleased. I, of course, have things to work on - but I expect to have things to work on throughout my career. I don't ever want to stop getting better :)

Wednesday, my official eval, was perfect :) Mrs. Dixon even told Mrs. Fleming she should take a 9 week vacation and just let me have her classroom. I have to admit that felt pretty nice. She gave me a perfect score, which I'm grateful for, but don't feel I deserve. I don't by any means think I'm perfect.

However, during the whole process, I think the most rewarding part was when two of the students looked up at me during their Independent Practice and looked at me with really wide eyes, saying "Miss. Simpson - I GET IT!" And they did - going from making a 20 on a worksheet to making a 100 on a worksheet - without my assistance. That moment and many more to come are why I know I'm where I should be. I can't tell you how warm it felt to know I'd helped them understand something they'd been struggling with. They have even shown that they can transfer the knowledge to other worksheets and settings - the sign that they really did get it and weren't just memorizing answers on a worksheet. Way to go, boys!!

My first lesson & Midget goes gigging

Well, my first official lesson as a student teacher was interrupted by a fire drill. The poor kids were out in the freshly mowed grass for 15 minutes smacking mosquitoes so much it looked like they were all dancing to the beat of some unknown music. Then there were the kids who stopped to wait in ant beds...sigh...needless to say, it took us about 10 minutes and lots of alcohol based GermX to get the kids to focus on the lesson and not the unbearable itchiness that was distracting their already uber-distractable selves. I did get through the lesson and felt it went well considering all that took place during it.

In other news, Midget has taken Gig 'Em to a whole new level. She has 'adopted,' per se, three little frogs which have taken up residence in the flower bed nearest the garage - underneath the big floodlight which illuminates the front walk (and half the neighborhood) where all the bugs fly around. She usually just 'herds' them with her nose to get them all in the same spot - in the flower bed if they've hopped over the bricks onto the sidewalk. For a reason unknown to me, she decided a few nights ago to pick one up in her mouth. I don't know if she intended to eat it, help it, or play with it, but regardless - the end result was that it peed in her mouth. Totally disgusting, but incredibly hilarious to watch her cough and sputter trying to get the pee-taste out of her mouth. It was like watching Donald Duck have a sneezing fit! I did brush her teeth and clean her face really well after we came inside (and she was furious about that!) and we didn't go back out the rest of the night. Needless to say, she has not made any further attempts to go gigging since the little froggy went wee wee wee all the way home.