Thursday, February 26, 2009

julia thinks my blog needs more pictures. "it's so dark!" she says. ok. i will give my fans what they want.

today we had an early dismissal.


the drive home was SCARY but fun. i was glad i wasn't alone because i would have been even more scared. and, aside from my 3 carpool buddies, i had hanson to keep me company.




i finally have my appetite back! i've eaten many bunny cheese crackers and lots of chocolate. and we just ordered pizza! i hope the delivery guy doesn't go in the ditch on the way.




i hope that the weather clears up so that i can go to the cities tomorrow! i will cry if i don't see my favorite little sammy!



Wednesday, February 25, 2009

today was a lot better than yesterday. i felt sick for most of the day but my lessons went really well and my kids were a lot better behaved. i still have one student who doesn't want to do anything. he doesn't care about school and doesn't have anyone at home who does either. tomorrow there is a chance for a snow day. i'm hoping for just an early dismissal so that i can still count it as a day towards my required hours of student teaching. plus if i wake up to check if there is school i won't be able to get back to sleep anyway. its almost lost time so seacrest, out.

Tuesday, February 24, 2009

i had a sub today. he basically got paid to sit around and do nothing but read his book. "it's like 24. i can't put it down!" shut up.

my kids were out of control today. i had to yell at so many of them. they were tattling like crazy and talking and moving all around the room.

a lot of my kids call me ms. brackmen, ms. brackens, ms. brackerman, or mrs. bracken.

on another negative note, i feel like crap. i have hardly eaten anything today and i was ready for bed at about 7 this morning. i am hoping to be asleep by 830 tonight--we'll see how that goes.

i actually do have one good thing to say--my carpool enjoyed my playlist!! i even discovered someone to bring to the next hanson concert so that i don't have to drag julu there with me! she'll be so pleased!!

LOST TOMORROW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Monday, February 23, 2009

today was my first day of full time teaching. it went pretty well. i ran out of stuff to teach for reading but it ended up being fine. in math my first lesson was ok, but there was a lot i wanted to fix. luckily i get to teach math twice. the next lesson (which is to the low math class) went a lot better. that group of kids is a lot easier to work with. they are nicer and they try harder. the other group seems to think they are too good for school or something. also, i had to give a pretest for a project i have to do this semester. in the first math class one of the girls--who has been a problem for me since i've been here--was getting so mad and frustrated. i kept telling her it wasn't graded, that it is totally ok to guess, that i would never expect her to know all the answers, but she just got crabbier and crabbier.

i had to give out some checks today. for some reason, all the kids in the school have been acting up. when i talked to the other student teachers they all said that today was not a good day behavior wise so i know it isn't just my students. at first i felt bad that i was giving them checks but all three of them really did deserve it. plus, the first check is only a warning. getting it sure made S (my problem student that i talked about earlier) and A very mad at me. by the end of the day they seemed to have forgotten all about it, though.

after school i spent a long time getting a math game ready for tomorrow. i don't know how fun it will be, but most of my students are pretty competitive so i think they'll enjoy it.

tomorrow sheila will be gone and there will be a sub in my room all day. barf.

Sunday, February 22, 2009

this weekend went by way too fast. yesterday i went up to school and worked on lesson plans all day. i was the only one in the computer lab for most of the time so i was able to get a lot done but of course not enough. i've been doing more today. i'm trying to get my whole week ready so that i can work on my 2 semester projects during the week.

i should be sleeping by now. i have to drive tomorrow so i have to get up even earlier than normal. i don't want to miss the end of the oscars though. i'm really hoping milk will win but i guess it'd be okay if slumdog won.

Thursday, February 19, 2009

today was a crappy day. it started out great, though. the kids played "hot seat" which is basically taboo except there aren't any words you can't say. i made it on my smart board. one kid sat in the front with their back to the board which had a vocab word on it. the other kids called out words to get the person in the hot seat to guess it. they had a lot of fun with it. then after that game they were supposed to write sentences using possessive nouns. it sucked. they had had an indoor recess so they were loud and antsy. i got really frustrated. when they went to art i talked to sheila and she said it was just how they would have acted with her, too so i really shouldn't be too worried about it. it was still an exhausting day. plus ted and tony had to meet with their teachers after school so we didn't leave until 445.

but then we (julia, katie, alanna, and I) went to ruttles and i had a yummy veggie burger.

tomorrow is friday!!!!!!!

Wednesday, February 18, 2009

woooo lost! i can't wait for next week--that episode is going to be awesome!!

school went well today. i made a jeopardy game for spelling/vocab and my kids had a lot of fun. i really need to work on getting them to be quieter, though.
tomorrow we are playing a few more games to practice spelling and possessive nouns.

oh, we got a new girl today. she was very shy at first but a few of the other girls gave her a tour of the school and throughout the day she started to open up. there are some really nice kids in my class and they were very eager to get to know her which was great.

i start full time teaching next week!!!! this weekend is going to be very busy with lesson planning, etc. i hope i can get a lot done!

Tuesday, February 17, 2009

Today was my first day of actual teaching. I spent a long time planning so I felt really prepared today. S even told me she was impressed by how organized I was (she is extrememly organized!!). My lessons went well--I did reading stations, a spelling pretest, and previewing a mystery story that they will be working on. Since I'm still not teaching math I took that time to work on the smart board. I made a jeopardy game, some sentences with typos that they will fix, and a game kind of like taboo. We're going to be doing them all this week. I love smart boards!!

I got all of my valentine's from last week today. Lots of yummy candy (that Julia ate most of) and some cute cards.

I made a girl named S really mad today. She had one of those stupid paper fortune tellers and was distracting some of the other kids so I told her she had to put it away. She didn't so I took it from her. I gave it back to her later but she was still mad at me. All the kids are supposed to high five me before they leave but she stormed off. She gets up at 4 every morning to go to day care so I am used to her getting crabby at the end of the day so I wasn't that suprised by her reaction. She'll be over it by tomorrow.

Monday, February 16, 2009

HACHE!!!

I saw Hache today. It was very weird. She looked the exact same.

I didn't have school today. Instead we had a workshop. It was actually way more interesting than I thought it would be. I learned about "Daily 5" which is basically using centers for reading. Then I had "Smart Boards." Smart boards are pretty much the coolest things ever--I hope I have one in my classroom next year. If not, I am stealing one from someone else. I'm going to try to use S's as much as possible in my lessons so that I get used to them. The next workshop was "Math Centers." Sheila was one of the presenters so I already knew a lot of the stuff she was talking about but it was still interesting. Then we had lunch. Hannah and I ate in a 1st grade classroom all by ourselves because all the teachers went out to eat but we had brought our own food. I brought left over cous-cous made by Angie and Katie. It was sooooo good!

After lunch I had "Library Resources." It was split up into three parts. One of them was on links to use to enhance your classroom. Two of the links were the best. sites. ever. taggalaxy.de is an awesome site that lets you search for pictures. I've spent a lot of time looking at pictures from Barrow. The other cool site was wordle.net. It makes pictures out of words. I've spent a lot of time on that too. After the workshop there was a staff meeting. It was actually pretty interesting even though not of it mattered to me.

It was a long day--I've been finalizing my plans for this week. I think the rest of the week I can start working more on my portfolio project that is a semester-long project.

Sunday, February 15, 2009

Because Julia wants me to...

On Friday I didn't go to Gaylord. We had a seminar on campus. It was basically 7 hours of listening to everyone's experience so far. It was nice to see everyone again but still kind of pointless. I had a meeting about Alaska during lunch and am getting sooooo excited!!
This weekend I went out to eat a lot and did a lot of homework. Coldstone now has cupcakes. They are amazing. And cheap. And pretty! I'm almost ready to finalize my ideas for lessons this week and write my lesson plans. I just have a workshop tomorrow so I don't have anything due. Tomorrow will be another busy lesson plan day.

Thursday, February 12, 2009

I get to sleep in (no class till 8:30!!) tomorrow

I'm starting to feel a lot more comfortable with my kids but I'm still nervous about officially starting to teach next week. I'll be in charge of the whole day except for math--but S teachers math twice for 70 minutes each time so really its a lot of time I don't have to worry about.

Speaking of math, it was my favorite part of the day today. They are working on division right now. S does timed tests which I really don't like but I do think it makes them really work hard to learn the multiplication and division facts. The two math classes are split by ability. In the first class they almost all pass the tests every time. In the second class I think there are only 3 or 4 who have passed everyday. They get to play a lot of fun games to learn them though. That's mostly what I do with the kids while S works with a small group. Today D--one of my favorite kids--got in trouble during recess which is right before math. He is EBD so he has a really hard time of cooling down on his own. S asked if he wanted to practice his 2s in division since he still hadn't passed them. He said yes so she asked if he wanted her to help him or if he wanted Miss Bracken. He chose me!! And after we practiced he passed!!! A little girl named T didn't pass her 2s though and she was really sad and started to cry. She has a twin sister who is in the high math class and has done well on her division tests so I think that might have something to do with it. S said that if T wanted she could retry the test in a little while after practicing some more with me. So I worked with her and then she passed too! I think that both D and T know how to do division they just can't do it very fast and aren't good under pressure.

Another good part of my day was when I was walking back to the classroom after bringing my kids to art. A little kindergarten boy passed me and I said hi and he ran up and hugged me. He was missing a bunch of teeth and couldn't talk very well. It was really cute.

Wednesday, February 11, 2009

tired

I'm tired so I'm not going to write much. Today was another good day. L bought me a pop today; it was really cute. They are doing division in math and I am so jealous. They played around the world and I wanted to call out the answer everytime--especially when they took forever. The best part of the day was "Kick Back and Read." I got to read too and then I wrote a summary of what I read on the board. I'm reading "The Pushcart War." So far not much has happened but the kids seemed to be interested in it.

Lost was pretty good, mostly because Charlotte died.

Tuesday, February 10, 2009

Today was another good day. I joined a carpool of 3 other student teachers from Gustavus. We've had a bunch of classes together so it'll be fun. The only problem is that their teachers get to school early and mine gets there right on time (or a little late) so I have to wait out in the hall for her. Today there was a little girl from the other 4th grade class that I could talk to, though.

Today was D's golden birthday. He is slowly becoming one of my favorite kids. S told me that at his old school he got in all kinds of trouble for threatening and hitting teacher, but she's had no problems with him at all. I think he's a really sweet kid. Since it was his birthday he brought everyone in the class a donut. He is probably the smallest kid in the class. It was so cute to see him carrying a huge box. He could barely see over it. He was so excited that it was his birthday. He got some little presents from S (a free assignment, a pencil, maybe something else) and we sang him Happy Birthday. There also is a postal service within the school and he got a few letters today which was cute.

I got to start teaching a little today. I didn't write any lessons or anything but I helped with one of the guided reading stations, I read the class a chapter from "Shiloh Returns" and I worked with some individual kids who were gone yesterday. We also did stations in math and I was able to walk around and play games with the kids. I also was in charge of filling the class "Me Box." I took it home last night and filled it with things about me. I put a few pictures, a cat book, my movie and concert tickets, and one of my cutmolas in it. In all the pictures they first guessed that Julia was me. Barf. One of the boys asked if my nephew was a boy or a girl. LOLZ! They LOVED my cutmola. They had art later in the day and made me promise to bring it with to show the art teacher. I did and she was doing them with her 6th graders and so she asked if she could borrow it to show them. woooooo. I've never met anyone who has heard of them but she also went to Gustavus and she knew my art teacher from here really well so I think she probably learned about them the same way that I did.

Time for trivia. Bracken, Out.

P.S. P told me I was really cool. Oh, and A is obsessed with me. She wasn't here yesterday so I went up to her right away to talk and the rest of the day she kept asking me for help or telling me to sit by her.

Monday, February 9, 2009

Day One

Today was my first day of student teaching. I got lost twice on the way there but still managed to get there right as my cooperating teacher S got there. Speaking of S, she is really nice and seems to be a really good teacher. All of the other teachers make fun of her for being too organized but it is very helpful for me.

Some of the highlights of the day:
  • a boy named L bought me a cookie at lunch
  • we got to visit the public library and it was awesome
  • someone said it felt like April out and S said she wished it was. D said he didn't want it to be April because then Miss Bracken would be gone.
  • by the end of the day I had all their names memorized
  • I bonded with a girl named L over our love of cats. P told me she used to have a cat named Smokey. He was a boy.

Lowlight of the day:

  • my sandwhich was disgusting

Tomorrow I am going to start working more with the kids. Today I basically just observed without getting involved but from now on I'll be helping with small groups and starting next Tuesday I will be teaching everything except math and the week after that I will be teaching full time.