Pinterest: 100, Kelsey: 1

A strange and wonderful thing happened this weekend. I actually made something that appears on Pinterest.

After viewing little stools made from file crates on the blogs of people who actually have it together (here, here, etc), and, more importantly, seeing these stools in action in the classrooms of two of my awesome coworkers, I decided to try to make them.

Something you should know about me: I am not very good at making things.

Something else you should know: I hate, hate, hate asking people to do things for me, especially things that inconvenience them.

I overcame the not being good at making things part of the equation and bought my crates, fabric, and batting to fill the cushions. The hard part was asking someone at Home Depot to cut pieces of wood to the right size for me, because I have an unfortunate lack of power tools in my apartment. Both coworkers assured me that the people who cut their wood had no problem doing it, and one even had it done for free from scraps. So, I sucked it up and headed in with my crate.

Long story short, it took FOREVER, about 7 prototypes, and a very long line of people behind me before the right size piece of wood was created and duplicated for each of my crates. I felt about an inch high. Everyone was super nice about it, but I can't stand to cause anyone any inconvenience at all, so I hated every second of it. I grew up with my dad and grandpa doing woodworking stuff, so next time I will have to save this kind of project for my dad and I to do.

Anyway, in the long run, they didn't come out bad at all! Feel free to experience my creative process below.

My supplies: Crate, hard-won wood, batting, scissors, remnant fabric, tacks, hammer.

Then you kind of awkwardly tack on the fabric and cram the batting in while you watch White Collar

Should end up sort of like that. 

And then put it on the top of the crate!

I had to make a "boy one," of course (Go Dawgs)

The finished set!

The score is still far in the favor of Pinterest, but I think I'm gaining.


P.S. 5/6 of these broke the first day. PINTEREST WITH THE REBOUND!

The Tao of Bubbles

Some blogs contain adorable printables and activities. Some blogs have great lesson ideas and clever organizational strategies. Some provide inspiration to be a better, more creative, more engaging, more technology-using teacher.

My blog may not have these things, but it does have wisdom. It has hard-earned wisdom that I have paid for with my blood, sweat, and tears this year. (Okay, I haven't bled. I've sweated and cried though.) Allow me to lay down a little of the wisdom I gained last week:

Wisdom #1: Class pets will die. This will probably occur riiiight about when most of the students are in love with aforementioned pet.

Wisdom  #2: Every child in your class will have a theory about how the pet died. "T fed it an eraser." "N squeezed it too hard." "C poked it with a pencil." It's better to just say, "Hamsters just don't live that long. It was her time," and ignore these theories.

Wisdom #3: Children expect a respectful burial and funeral for the class pet. Under no circumstances should you suggest that you might throw the dead pet over the fence behind the school before it starts to smell. Never say that.

Wisdom #4: If, for some reason, you DO happen to throw the dead pet over the fence, lie about it to the kids. If you don't, children that you have never spoken to, never even seen, will approach you on your morning duty, at recess, and in the hallway to ask if you REALLY threw the pet over the fence. SAY NO.

Check back with me in ten years or so to see if I am creating instructional resources. Until then, feel free to learn from my mistakes.

Also, please enjoy this video one of my students made of me petting a a turtle and uploaded on MY youtube account, which I apparently left logged in- oops. I guess this means we'll be trying videos for our next project!

Hyperbole

I think I mentioned in my first-ever blog post that Pinterest gives me a serious inferiority complex. However, my 5th grade team decided to have a poetry rotation for Valentine's Day, which consisted of each teacher teaching one mini-lesson on a poetic element. The kids rotated through all of the teachers. In anticipation of seeing all 155 or so 5th graders in one day, I found myself hunting Pinterest for a worthy lesson on hyperbole. I didn't find anything I liked, so I made my own lesson, actually used the die-cut machine for the first time this year, and went to it.

The truth is, I often use and learn from things other teachers post on the internet, so I hope maybe this time I can give a resource to someone else who is desperately googling "hyperbole" and "hyperbole lesson" and "hyperbole activity."

I started with a Powerpoint that gave the definition of hyperbole and a few examples (boring part.) Then we "spiced up" a few simple sentences by adding hyperbole to them. For example, "I'm really tired," became, "I'm so tired I could sleep for years!" (Pro tip- don't use the sentence, "My sister is pretty." Many 5th graders find their siblings rather stinky.)

Next I played song clips that contained hyperbole and showed the students the lyrics, and they identified the hyperbole. (Pro-tip 2- Don't use YouTube unless your school system's internet has greater buffering power than mine does.)

Finally, since it was Valentine's Day, the kids all used hyperbole to write a sentence or two about something or someone they really loved (giving the directive to NOT talk about boys/ girls at school. No love allowed in 5th grade). Once I checked it over, they wrote it on a die-cut heart and we glued them all to a banner to hang in the hall. Out of the whole day, I only had to veto 2 kids for writing something about a girl in the class, which isn't too bad.

Here is the final banner. "5th Grade Loves Hyperbole (a Million Times More Than Anything!)"

A couple of favorite hearts: 

   

"If swim wasn't invented, then I would die of boredom."

"I love wings so much I could eat them 24/7." (I hear ya, kid. I hear ya.)

Pics or it didn't happen.

Well, it's Friday*, and I am feeling appropriately "fri"ed. GET IT? GET IT?
*(Or it was when I started writing this post, which would not publish due to my terrible internet, hereafter known as ButtNet)

Okay, so, I am in the middle of the imaginary process of changing my name and not telling my students. That's how many times they've called me recently. Now, I am the kind of person that likes to be needed. I love for the kids to want me to help them or be a part of what they're doing. Sometimes, though, it gets exhausting.

Kids give a lot back, too. I'm lucky enough to get a lot of love, jokes, stories, art projects, and today, jabs in the face with a pencil.

Then there are these sorts of gifts: 

1. Messages stapled into notecards.

2. Tiny weapons made from classroom supplies. While this image depicts what appears to be a thumbtack-pencil mace, paperclip-rubber band bows with paper arrows are more common.

3. Math problems made of science . Amphibians: 1 life in water + 1 life on land = 2 lifes. Actually.. that was totally right.







4. Paperclip animals.











 5. Clever methods of avoiding silent reading. (In case you can't tell, this darling is reading a totally blank notebook. I can't, of course, post a picture of his face, but I can assure you that he was faking total engrossment.)

6. And of course, apparatuses for hanging teeny weeny clothes.

Happy Friday*.
*(Tuesday)

Paging Danny Tanner

My family has always been a Full House family, and my youngest brother is no exception. He's ten now, and when I was home for Thanksgiving, we watched bunches of DVRed episodes. They were the really old ones, from when the Olsen twins were babies, and everyone's problems were still pretty tame. (Did the problems on Full House ever stop being tame? Probably not.) Anyway, just in case your family didn't happen to be a Full House family, here's how every episode goes: Things start off okay, but someone invariably tries to skip school/ wishes his music career would take off/ doesn't get a part in the play/ has a fight with a friend, and things look pretty grim for a few minutes. Luckily, the episode always ends with a touching heart-to-heart in which Bob Saget lays down little nuggets of problem-solving wisdom.

I came home today emotional and frustrated. I love a lot of things about being a co-teacher (getting to pee when I need to, not having to plan every subject, the variety of students, learning from another teacher, another adult to look at, etc etc), but I also spend a lot of time wondering whether or not I am actually valuable in the classroom. Are my kids actually learning anything they wouldn't if I wasn't there? It's a double-edged sword. If I pull my kids out or pay too much attention to them, I'm doing that bad-teacher thing where I embarrass "my" kids or make them obvious to the rest of the class. If I leave them alone, why bother hiring me? A lot of the time I feel like one of my kids. I'll be the one who raises his hand halfway through a worksheet and says, "I forgot how to do this. I know I was just doing it but I forget. I think I'm doing it wrong." I can't even put my finger on what exactly I don't understand; I just feel unsettled.

So I keep waiting for Danny Tanner to come in here and drop a wisdom nugget on me. I can't imagine what's keeping him.

Testing, 1, 2, 3

I am a public school teacher who doesn't really like standardized tests.

Original, right?

Over the past 6 school days, my grade level took a practice writing assessment and a fill-in-the-bubble standardized test of skills. There are lots of really legitimate reasons that standardized testing isn't a good thing, and you've probably heard them all. My reasoning is less reasearch-based and won't make any scholarly articles.

All of my special education students get small group testing accommodations for tests like this, as do a few regular education students with 504 plans. I got to take 7 darlings with me in the mornings to test away from our class.

I love these kids. They have huge, funny personalities. They are creative, bright, silly, and sweet. They have so many talents and gifts to offer.

Writing an essay in 3 hours isn't among those talents, and neither is taking a multi-hour test. Watching them test is an exercise in watching them struggle, guess, and be distracted by everything on earth.

During the writing assessment, my most rambunctious friend was an angel. He wrote the whole time. He raised his hand and whispered when he needed help, instead of yelling in my general direction like he usually does. When he finished, I read his paper, and it was so good by the standard of what he usually produces. Yes, one paragraph had only 2 sentences. No, the final body paragraph did not make sense. But he did it by himself, and I was so proud I could have burst.

[Will that be reflected in a score by a "standardized" rubric? Nope.]

My most quiet, unobtrusive friend was a mess during this test. He couldn't sit still. He couldn't be quiet. I finally broke down and asked what he thought his score was going to be like if he kept up the way he was going. He said, "I'll fail. I failed last year." It makes sense, if you think about it. Do your best and fail, or fill the whole page with the letter z and fail. One takes much less effort than the other.

I understand why we have these tests, I really do. I know that we need to have a general writing goal for all fifth graders, and I know that for most kids, this test is probably a pretty good way to measure how they write. I know that it's important to see what kids need to work on. It's valuable to see what my little buggers can do without help.

I'm just a softie and I hate to watch them struggle. That's the moral of my story. I'm ready to go back to our regularly scheduled daily programming.

Rationale and Farting

I. Rationale

Now look.

Let's be clear. The real reason I'm blogging is to hear my own voice more, albeit in my head.

That being said, there's another reason. As a sparkling new graduate, I spent a lot of time this summer on teacher blogs and, of course, Pinterest, trying to figure out how this teaching thing was going to work. I wanted (and still want) so badly for it to go well. I wanted organizational ideas, classroom management ideas, and creative lessons. Who wouldn't want all of that, really? I found all of those things in spades online.

I have to make a confession, though. Pinterest sometimes makes me a little nauseous. It's not that I don't like to look at it. It's just that the projects are so cute. The quotes are so inspirational. The meals look so delicious. Are these people for real?

I moved 700 miles to my first-ever teaching job this summer. Moving was an adjustment. Being new is still an adjustment. Despite that, though, I am so confident that teaching special education is exactly what I am meant to be doing with my life.

9 weeks into my dream job, though, I can look at those blogs and pins and know with absolute certainty that I will never be those people. No magical switch got flipped when I reached Tax-Paying-Insurance-Holding-Rent-Making-Adulthood-Status. I still can't produce attractive crafts. I still eat mostly tacos. I am still disorganized. I have not led my class through a single cute project. (We made number lines in math, and they were truly ugly. Our handwriting needs WORK.)

I have to imagine that there are a lot more people who don't have it all together than people who do.* This blog is for you, person-who-has-only-some-of-it-together.

And really? Despite the project-less-ness, the kids are learning. What we are doing may not be cute, but it's meaningful.** Despite my tacos, I don't have scurvy. Things are okay.

(*If you do, in fact, have it all together, this will just make you feel more successful)
(** More on this in a guest post my wonderful co-teacher didn't know she was really going to do)

II. Farting

On the subject of farting, I will let this text to my sister speak for itself.

Is it bad that I accepted that explanation as fairly legitimate? Is it weird that I just saved that picture to my desktop as "Fart Message"? I have all of the questions and none of the answers.