3rd Graders discuss the Presidential Debate

I was surprised how many students said that they watched the debate last night. Here were some interesting take-aways that they had:

"I think we should teach Donald Trump good sportsmanship"
"We should teach him some niceness"
"We probably can't vote for him, but when we are in the higher grades and 18 year old, we will be able to vote. But when we are older, we might remember him and see him again. If we teach him niceness, we might vote for him when we are older"
"If Donald Trump was here, I would teach him goodness, by teaching him times and division and stuff. If he is mean, I will put him in time out. If he is good, I will let him build like what he wants"
"He keeps interrupting people. People wont vote for him because he is Ornery"
"Donald Trump was sassy"
"Just because he has lots of kids and grandkids doesn't mean we have to vote for him"
"He was mad because Hillary spent a lot of money on ads that said dont vote for him, Vote for me"

"I liked Ted Cruz"
"My mom said Ted Cruz is too religious"

Other thoughts they had about being president: 

"If people dont have money to buy stuff, then I'd just let them have free stuff"
"If I was Donald Trump and one guy walked up to me and said I am broke and I have lots of kids, I would give him money so he could buy stuff and maybe people will vote for him."
"People don't like a president who is bossy"
"I would not want nuclear weapons to be out there. Because it might destroy everything"

Cute Discussion
"If Hillary is the president, she will be the first lady"
"I thought Michelle Obama was the First lady already"
(Followed by an explanation that the wife of the president is called a "First Lady" . When asked what Hillary Clinton's husband should be called: "First Man")

Deep stuff for 3rd Graders on a Tuesday Morning...

O.R.E.O Project

theoppbj.weebly.com/

So many collaborative projects out there! This week, we participated in the O.R.E.O Project as well.

The student first estimated how many they thought they could stack and then took turns stacking them. One got to 18!

(I have a student allergic to the dye in the chocolate kind, so I had to get the vanilla kind too) They sure had fun figuring out how to balance the cookies as the towers began to lean. 

Our class average was 16. We just got an email today with a class who wanted to do it over skype... I'll have to remember to arrange that next year. It would have been fun to do it with another classroom! 

Battle of the Books

Alaskan schools participate in the "Battle of the books" (http://www.akla.org/akasl/bb/bbhome.html) Where the 3/4 Grade read books and compete in a quiz over the phone.

We have read:
11 Birthdays
13-Story Tree House
and have just started: Dr. Libris.

Today in the Makerspace, one of the students started to create a "13-story treehouse", she plan to create a ladder using some cut up popsicle sticks and I'll post pictures as it continues to grow! 

Another student created the characters "Andy" and "Terry" out of pipe-cleaners. 

What a great way to combine STEM and Reading :) 

Another cool little treehouse design

The two characters are "Trading" 

13-story treehouse with ladder, roof, and sides. She chose to use paper to "not waste" the popsicle sticks

Only one student figured out that you could create without using glue ;) 

Teacher Attrition

Half of new teachers quit within 5 years. I totally get it. After last year, my first year in the American Public School system, I understand why. I had never been so completely demolished. Even this year, when things are better. I still bear the scars from what happened the year before. I know I have the grit to get through this year, but I don’t think I want to be a teacher anymore. I have lost that passion and idealism, I am worn out and cynical. 

I want to believe in Failing Forward and Continued Progress and Life-long-learning. I want to believe we learn through mistake and that failure is a critical part of the learning process. I want to believe that I can make a difference & I can impact the lives of these students. But I am disillusioned. 

Being a teacher is already fighting an uphill battle against standards, schedules, and tests. I know if I have it in me to do the fighting in the trenches of the classroom. I’m feeling more and more that I should move into administration and try to inspire the change I want on a deeper level, but in order to do that I really should get more experience in this K-12 public school setting. 

I am only in my second year teaching at public school and have these big feelings. It makes me wonder how many other people feel the same? That you work and work, but you barely make a budge in this uphill quest. I love my students. I love the work that I do. I just don't know if I can handle this stress: the uncertainly of being able to physically stay in this classroom the next year, the Union negotiations/budget crisis, testing & accountability… And there is never enough time. Despite the amount of prep given at school, you inevitably have to bring things home into your evenings & weekends. Its physically impossible to do your job in the time that is allotted. 

I keep reading things about teacher shortages, teacher retention, and how less people are going into the profession. The easiest fix is to give new teachers some stability. 

I know the teaching system in Thailand is that for new teachers, they get a multi-year contract in a rural (hard to staff) location. After they finish teaching in the rural areas, they receive a type of tenure and many move into a more urban location. It would be beneficial for Alaska to adopt a system like this. 

But for now, the sinking feeling remains in my gut. I love this school. I love this community. I love this students. But that still doesn’t negate what happened to me last year. I am determined to make sure that it means something and I am not willing to stay silent… and am still coming into what voice/what message that I want to bring. 

Education leaders need to listen to voices like mine in order to understand what the problem truly is if they wish to do something about it. I will do what I can to make sure my voice is out there. Half of teachers quit within the first 5 years. I wonder if I will be one of them. 

World's Largest Lesson

http://worldslargestlesson.globalgoals.org/

I am just in awe at the amount of free resources that are out there to share and connect with other educators. This week, I have been taking part in the World's Largest Lesson.

The students were so intrigued by the intro video, particularly the story of the girl who invented plastic from banana peels.

I focused my lessons on goals 14 & 15 since they pertain to my work here about Life in the water & Life on Land. We had a great discussion on illegal & legal hunting. It was a great talk since it is currently moose hunting season.

https://www.fws.gov/fieldnotes/regmap.cfm?arskey=23997

We talked about why we are allowed to hunt, what rules there are, and how some animals are endangered/extinct because people didn't follow the rules.

They did a fun "Kindred Species" page.

Fall Leaves...

Well snow came earlier this week, but has melted. I took the students on a nature walk to collect leaves. There was a beautiful mix of red and yellow. They all had these black spots on them, which made them look like ladybugs!

A parent volunteer came and did a beautiful fall art project with the students. They drew a leaf, colored with crayon, and then did watercolor on top.

A Positive Way to Look at Chronic Absences

I think its easy to get frustrated when students miss school. They miss instruction, they miss tests, and it is incredibly hard to differentiate to ensure they get the content while their peers are ready to move on... but here is a positive way to look at it:

This is an incredible opportunity for your students who have been present to be the teachers! They always say that the best way to learn is to teach.

1) You now have a formative assessment to make sure that those present students really did master the material.

2) The students who were absent get caught up by their peers. The peers could make movies for them, design problems/assignments for them to do, and it gives a good review lesson for those peers too. They will cement their understanding of those skills and then everyone will get caught up before you have to move on.

Instead of seeing absences as a challenge, lets look at it as an opportunity! I am excited to start this project!

Spooky Stories

The High School English Class is going to have a newspaper today. The students were pretty excited about it. They were looking for submissions of a "Spooky Story" So this week, I am starting this creative writing process with the students. We are starting with creating a character, then describing a spooky setting, and then working on elements of plot.

I talked about how these were "drafts" and we were going to write the same story over & over again. Each time they pick their favorite part and keep it or get rid of parts they didn't like or change a part.

You can tell this is an Alaskan spooky story because people get med-evaced...

Mystery Skype & The Great state of "LOWA"

This week we connected with a class in Florida, Oaklahoma, Oregon, and Massachusetts. 

As mentioned before, I am taking classes as part of my Alaskan Teacher Certification. The other class, I am taking is Alaska Geography. One of the things that the professor pointed out is how Alaska is mis-represented on the map. It is interesting how this came into play when doing Mystery Skype with other classes as we are seen as "South" of California or Texas instead of being in the North.

The students have seen the name of other states but not said or heard them before, which lead to some interesting mispronunciations such as "Lowa" (Iowa) and "India" (Indiana) and the confusion of Minnesota & Michigan. My students have gotten clever and now also look for clues ("They are wearing shorts, they must be somewhere warm")

Compliance vs. Objective

Some of the students were getting wiggly, so I threw on a Gonoodle.com video, which they loved. However, one student politely declined and chose to sit at his desk. It brought up an interesting paradigm shift for me.

It made me think about where I worked last year. The focus was on compliance. If a student was told to do something, they had to do it. No ifs, ands, or buts. There was no wiggle room. Working here, we are given a lot of freedom and I thought about the objective of the movement video: some students were having a hard time sitting and therefore needed a movement break before engaging in the next activity. If a student didn't need a movement break, wouldn't it be ok for them to opt out?

Last year, it would have not been okay for the student to not do it. I would have had to use all the skills in my tool box to get him to do some sort of movement to ensure unity in the class. This year, at my discretion, I am allowed to just let him do it. He didn't disturb anyone & anyone else who didn't want to do the quick 3-minute movement didn't have to.

Of course when it comes to things in our reading & math section, they might not get this freedom to opt out. Or should they be able to if they are able to propose an alternative activity that still gets the objective done?

With student absences, it is difficult to make sure that every student gets the exact same amount of instruction. What is the most important thing? Ensuring continued progress. Always.

Subsistence & "Absenteeism"

Elsewhere they may be debates about Gun Control. Here for show-and-tell: A student brings in wings from a Grouse they shot.

It is September. School has just started and also the Fall Moose hunting season has started. All summer long, these students have been helping with the subsistence. They have been fishing out at their fish camps and gathering berries & rosehips for jam.

It's interesting to me because as part of Alaska Teacher Certification, you need to take online courses. I am doing one on Alaska Native Studies and our focus this week was on food & subsistence. As I mentioned before, the groceries are expensive here because historically people were able to subside without processed foods.

Activities like hunting, fishing, and gathering are important. Alaska could never have year-round school because so many students would be absent during these summer months. I'm a little surprised that the school dates start right as hunting season starts. In order to combat absenteeism, it might be a good idea to start the school year after hunting season is over and maybe go a little later into June (because the berries & fish don't to come until a little later into the summer) or maybe have there be a "Fall Break" during hunting season with a shorter Christmas break later.

Moose stew, moose jerky in the Teacher Lounge. People share their harvest :)

September 13

It is snowing today.

Icarus & Dedalus

We are reading a literature anthology this week since we cannot start the reading curriculum till next week (The kids were getting placed this week. We have a whole school reading block from 9:00-10:30, so kids can receive instruction at their grade level).

We read Stone Soup and the students wrote a recipe. We read Amelia Bedelia and the students wrote a story about colloquialisms. Today, we read the Greek Myth about Dedalus & Icarus. It was neat since  it was written in a play format. There were 9 roles and so each student got to play a character. Afterwards during our GeniusHour, they decided to make costumes of their role.

They made a crown & beard for King Midas. (He later wanted a drink, but couldn't with the beard. So they problemsolved for him to use a straw)

A Minotaur Mask. (She says she wants to be a Minotaur for Hallowen now!)

Helmets (and then... tridents, shields, and armor for the Guards)

And wings for Icarus (She even laced them so that they would stay on her arms)

I love how the best lessons are ones that you just can't plan for!

Labor Day Weekend

For Labor Day Weekend, we flew into Fairbanks so that we could pick up the rest of our stuff in the storage unit. It was the weekend of the Alaska State Fair, (www.alaskastatefair.org/) so we drove 5 and a half miles down to Palmer to attend.

I have never seen Denali before, so it was a beautiful trip. It was 7:30 when we left Fairbanks so it was quite dark, but we got treated to the Northern Lights above the mountains! Didn't get any pics, but I sure look forward to seeing them this winter.

On Friday, I found this great news article about the State Fair which talked about the Alaska Record pumpking (1400 lbs!) The class asked me if I was going to see it. We didn't, which was a bummer. But I'll definitely get some seeds to inspire them to grow! But there were tons of food vendors, rides, shopping booths, and music. We also got to hang out with my husbands family who lives in the area. It was a great trip.

On the way back, we bought a cooler at Fred Meyers. I filled the bottom with frozen juice concentrate... bought some lobster (2 tails for $13) and King Crab (4 legs for $13) We got some cheese, butter, lunch meat, yogart, and Positano Frozen Pizzas (seriously the best!) We also got some jarred, dry, and produce so we wont have to do a bush order this month. Our fridge is seriously stocked now! :)

The Denali Park was beautiful on the drive up in the light. It was a good time of year to go because of all the beautiful fall colors. :)

Mystery Skype

We have had fun "Mystery Skyping" this week. We connected with a 5th Grade class in Alabama and  a 3rd grade class in Minnesota. The students had fun asking each other questions "Do you border Canada?" or "What time is it there?" "Do you have snowy winters?" "Does your state start with a vowel?" Such a great way to teach US geography! :) 

The class in Alabama showed us their classroom Caterpillar. They live in the fire hydrant capital. They also get snow days when it snows! One of my students had shot a Grouse the previous day, so she showed them the feathers. 

The class in Minnesota also gets cold (-40) They had several students who had the same names as our students. My class thought it was crazy that they had 20 students there. They asked the teacher if it was "hard to control" lol They also taught the students some Gwichin like how to say "My name is" and "Good bye" 

Debates and voting

There are 2 playgrounds. We have been playing at the one in the back. Today once girl wanted to play in the one in the front. I had the students both present arguments about why they wanted to play at the different ones. Then we voted.

Democratic process in action

Great Week

1) I love Kahoot. I did a spelling test & math vocabulary test with it this week, which worked out great. The students loved doing the challenges in the groups.

2) Front Row is a really cool app as well for tracking ELA & Math. I look forward to learning more about it in the coming weeks.

3) I love how they teach math curriculum now. They stress that there are multiple way to solve the same problem and looking at the kid's illustrations you can really see it!

LOVE IT! :) 

Connected Classrooms

I love connected classroooms. My 3rd Graders are going down to Kindergarten to read with the students. It is so sweet to see them reading & interacting with the little ones! I hope we can make books with them and do other activities together. 

I have some mystery Skype sessions set up for next week and the week after, I think we are pretty popular since we are in Alaska! :) Hopefully next week, I will have the kids write up some math problems so challenge kids on that Global Twitter Math Challenge... 

Goals

I had the kids draw out a dream of theirs and then write 3 goals for themselves in order to make that dream a reality. I was so impressed. A lot of great future student-athletes! 

Seriously! What a great group of students! :) They asked me yesterday if they could call me "Auntie" instead of teacher. So sweet. 

Center Time

I love my schedule this year. After our major "Reading" and "Math" blocks, I have some flex "Center Time" built in. Yesterday after our doing round-robin read-alouds about summer vacation, I had the students write a story about their summer vacations.

Many of their stories centered around going to the "Fair" or "Fairbanks" There was quite a bit of mis-spellings so I did a quick spelling lesson afterwards. We talked about how to spell the word "Fair" and how the word "Fairbanks" was the word "Fair" and "banks" smooshed together. Just like the word "Play" "Ground" I'll do a quick oral quiz again today randomly to make sure they remember.