Today was certainly a day to remember. It was my last day with the kiddos, but it was also our field trip to Indianapolis to the Children’s Museum! We had to be at the school at 6:30 to depart. The kids were all very excited. They were very good on the way there, especially quiet the first hour or so. After we stopped at the rest stop, had the chance to wake up a bit, and get a snack in their systems, they livened up a bit.

Our time at the museum was great! There was a lot to see and do, a whole 4 levels! It was great to see the students so excited. My cooperating teacher and I got to travel from group to group. I received many hugs from students accompanied with quotes such as, “I’m giving you extra hugs today since it’s your last day.”

On the way home, the real adventure began. After driving for like 20 minutes, we came to a halt. Long story short, there was a huge accident that involved fatalities. Both lanes, on either side of the highway were shut down. We were stuck on the highway, not moving more than 20 feet for 4 hours. While it sounds unfortunate, it was amazing to see the students, chaperones, and teachers come together and make the most out of an unfortunate circumstance. During those hours, I was thankful to have more time with the kids I’ve developed relationships with and love a co-op who I greatly admire. It for sure will be a last day to remember forever. I have never been good at goodbyes. This was no different. 26 lives that I’ve had the privilege to be a part of has been incredible. I am thankful to the University of Illinois and College of Education for this wonderful, truly life changing student teaching experience.

I can’t believe my last week of full takeover has ended. The past 4 weeks have brought their fair share of stress, business, tasks to complete, papers to grade, lessons to teach, and laughs.

One of the most rewarding parts was seeing how much the students seemed to value me as a teacher. It was satisfying to see how much progress I was able to make with the students over 4 weeks. It is going to be hard for me to take a step back since being full force is all I have known for the past 4 weeks. The hardest part I would say was either prior to starting takeover when having to plan a sequence of lessons spanning the course of multiple weeks or in the beginning. One aspect that was kind of nice was since I had planned, I was able to adjust more as I went. For example, early on in the semester, when given lessons by my co-op to teach, I sometimes felt like I needed to get it all in. But this time, it was nice to know that if I did not achieve what I needed to, then we had the next day to pick up where we left off. Fully taking over definitely forced me to embrace flexibility.

I’m coming to realize this week that it is pretty difficult to teach a solar system unit. I have to be done teaching space by May 6^th so I am working to get all of the information completed. But there is a multitude of information in the solar system so this week I have tried to incorporate the information in different subject areas as well such as writing. In writing, the students began searching for facts about the moon and constellations. In efforts to make it more student-centered and the goal of it being led by the interests of each student, books were differentiated based on ability level. Groups came up and selected a book on the topic they desired and received a note-taking template for them to record facts and questions (2, 3, or 4) depending on ability.

We spent the first couple days of the week on the planet Mars. The students did a much better job working in their groups to state the main ideas in their own words of their assigned section. Thursday we began planet research. It was awesome to see how excited the students were and how they truly demonstrated a sense of ownership, responsibility, and maturity when beginning their research.

2^nd week of takeover brought it’s own set of challenges and lessons to learn from. Monday not only brought a new a week, but also a new student. It was hard. Needless to say, I have never before dealt with that situation before. He arrived late, during morning work so it was a balance of trying to get him accustomed to the classroom and show him daily routines, etc while trying to keep the other students under control and engaged.

We finally finished the sun flip charts, which was a big accomplishment. I am excited to finally move on to something else in the solar system!  It was a lot harder than I thought it was going to be for students to learn how to take notes, translate the main ideas the author is communicating in a text to their own words (and even grasp that concept in the first place), to ensuring the notes on each student’s note-taking template met the expectations, and then begin the process of transferring the notes from the template on to the final product of the flip chart. This week in writing, Lauren, the special education student teacher, and I collaborated, planned, and taught lessons on 5 Sense Poems. We had the students write them about Spring. They did a great job!

It is a lot harder than I thought to initially plan units and even trying to fit the desired content within a certain time frame.  Trying to do this and then finding a balance in between wanting to cover the material while ensuring you are being flexible, adapting/adjusting to the diverse needs of the students. It is also crazy how literally every ounce of time during the day as a teacher is filled. I am constantly in awe how my brain is always rushing and thinking of things to do, or what I need to do next, going through mental check lists to ensure I am planned and ready.

Rarely ever does it occur, but when the students filter into the classroom after taking their chairs down and setting their folders and assignment notebooks on their desk, they begin to write down their assignments. On these rare occasions, I don’t even need to listen closely as the exclamations begin, “No math homework? YESSSSS!!!!!” or “we don’t have math homework today! Best day ever”

Needless to say, math has been a subject of frustration. The kids seem constantly distracted or bored during lessons and then have trouble with the material. No wonder! On Friday, I tried having all of them come closer to the SMARTboard, having my distractible students sit at the table, with the goal of them being able to be more hands on with one another in solving the problems and more alert in completing the problem set. It was not as successful as I would have liked it to be, but nonetheless it was another example of being receptive to the needs of the students.  A step back and ensuring understanding of the material is necessary is essential and this lesson did open my eyes to the fact that some of the students still did not have understanding of previous material that was necessary to understand the material I was trying to teach. After all, sometimes it is a game of trial and error, but there is always a lesson to learn which enables me to better help my students.

This week, I started the “team points”. The way it works is there are six tables in the classroom. On chart paper, I wrote each table. During a transition time or if I see a table is the first one to have followed the instructions I gave, then they receive a tally next to their table number written on the chart paper. Once a table gets to five tallies, they get to choose a prize.

With the table configuration, I have been trying to promote an environment of teamwork and encouraging the students to work to help one another. One way I wanted to motivate them was using our spelling pretests. We always have a pretest the day before the spelling test and if students get everything correct on the pretest, they receive a “spelling vacation” and do not have to take the test the following day. I told the students if they got 8 vacations as a class, they would receive a class prize. During the pretest, I was circulating the room and noticed a piece of paper in one of the laps of my students  — the spelling list folded very small. My heart sank. Not only was this girl cheating, but she is someone who rarely gets in trouble, as sweet as can be, and most likely did not realize what she was doing was wrong. I didn’t want to draw attention to her so I did not confiscate the list right then and there, but positioned myself near her so she did not look at the list as much. Before recess, I asked her to come to me before she went outside. I was nervous! Part of me didn’t even want to address the situation, but the bigger part of me knew I had to teach her that doing so was not okay. I wanted to ensure I did so in a way that she knew I was not angry at her at all, but that cheating is not allowed. I told her that when we take our pretests, we need to do it by ourselves and with no help. I handed her test back to her and told her that’s why she can’t get a vacation because it’s not fair for the other students that did it on their own. She said she was sorry and I told her it was okay, but just not to do it again and I understand she wanted so badly to help out her classmates and be one to get one of the 8 spelling vacations. That was a hard thing to do, but I am glad I addressed it.

This week I really got a taste of what I will be doing for the rest of my time in the classroom. It is crazy though! I am not even doing everything, yet I feel like I never have a down minute during the day and there is constantly something to be doing. One of the hardest things about planning this week involved reading groups, computer lab, and science unit. I have to start teaching our next science unit, the solar system, after spring break. While I am thankful that my cooperating teacher gave me a binder of past materials and sample schedule of the activities she has done during this unit, it is still slightly overwhelming to think I have to plan every single part of it. Similarly, I also have to plan activities for the students to do during Computer Lab during my full takeover time. Reading groups is another challenge. As of before break, out of my six groups, I have one that is doing a novel study, which will last longer than one more meeting time. For the other five groups, I had to think ahead and gather materials in order to prepare for the week we get back from break. It’s just a lot to think that during one subject, depending on whom I meet with, I can be engaged in six different activities, etc. This speaks to the importance in differentiation in order to best meet the needs of the students. It is not like I am choosing to do this because I have nothing else to do, but because it is catered to the needs of the students. For example, my top two groups are doing novel studies with books beyond third grade level, The Westing Game and The View From Saturday because they need to be challenged.

All I can say is, what a night!

We also had parent teacher conferences throughout this whole week, but most of them were on Thursday night. I didn’t get back home until after 9PM. It was a great experience, though! I was amazed how well my coop interacted with the parents. I asked her if she ever got nervous because she seemed so natural. She proceeded to tell me about how her first couple of years she wore a turtleneck because her neck would get so blotchy and red because she was so nervous. After 9 years of teaching, she’s been able to move to normal shirts. She was very positive, yet honest about improvements or areas the student needed to work on. It was interesting to hear with a couple of cases that the students fight the parents when they are at home. They do not want to do homework and are very resistant to their parents trying to help them.

It was also encouraging to hear so many parents tell me how their child talks about me at home. I was honored. As a teacher, it is essential to work with the parents, be positive, encourage them, and support them in trying to be a positive influence in their child’s educational experience.

I don’t think anyone ever said that being a teacher is an easy job. This week I had a situation that reminded me of one reason why this is hard. As teachers, it goes far beyond the content. I not only have to make sure these bright stars are learning, but that they are shining emotionally and morally as well.

I had an unfortunate interaction with a student this week as well. So here is what happened: My cooperating teacher was in a meeting at the end of the day so I had to handle the situation entirely alone. We  started the positive behavior incentive chart with Isaiah last week. Since he did so well last week, my coop had a conversation with him informing him now in order to get a prize, he has to have two awesome days in a row. It was the end of the day on Thursday and the students were getting the papers from their mailboxes and gathering their coats, backpacks, and lunches from their lockers. Isaiah came up to me inquiring about his prize from yesterday and the current day. I explained t him and showed him since he did not get a star in the morning since he had a breakdown during writing, he did not get a star for the “AM”, so no prize for that day. Then, I showed him that he got all stars for today and praised him for that. However, he was confused and frustrated why he didn’t get a prize for today. I reminded him about the conversation my cooperating had with him about how now he needs to get two days in a row with all stars. He relayed his exasperation and it was evident he was frustrated.  I explained that I was unsure and he can take the prize from last week he had in his hand and we’d ask Melissa tomorrow. He started crying, saying negative statements such as, “this is stupid,” and “I don’t even want to do this anymore”, and threw the prize he had back in the bin. He said he didn’t want to come back to school, which broke my heart. I felt awful and even contemplated calling his guardian, forewarning her that he was upset when we left school and explain the situation. Sometimes though, I have to remind myself that even if they are upset, the students know how much I care about them. However, it is always going to be hard to see the lovelies I care about be upset!