Ideas from classes I've subbed in

In a few of the classrooms I have been a substitute in I have found some very cute ideas that I just might have to steal for my own classroom. My favorite is this wall of verbs the students are no longer allowed to use in their writing. This is such a cute way to display these verbs with great alternatives for students to use!

I also love this focus wall I found in another classroom. It has a bunch of "I can..." statements for the subjects they are currently working on.

I love all the ideas I find in the classrooms I get to substitute teach in. I'll keep posting the ones I find :)

Word walls

I've always thought word walls in classrooms were a great idea. A wall with vocabulary words alphabetized that students have easy access to after the words have been studied that keeps growing all year long. Then I was introduced to science word walls, I am even more excited to have one of these in my room. Instead of having the words in alphabetic order just up there for the kids to see the science word wall is split up into two sections. On the left you have the scientific words that we have gone over in our science lessons so far then on the right you have all of the daily vocabulary words that mean the same thing as the scientific words. What a fantastic idea!!!! I mean how boring is it to make students write definitions out and memorize them? Why not ensure that they know the words in the science lesson then post the words on the wall so they have easy access to it when ever they need the words!?

scholarships for school

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They have hundreds of different scholarships that you can apply to. You can search for jobs near you and also for internships. This site is free and does not give out your information. I've been a member since I graduated from high school. I got my first job from this site :)

Please use the link I posted. For everyone who signs up for a fastweb account through that link I get entered into their refer a friend scholarship. Thank you!!!

Spelling

When I was in elementary school I remember all of my learning of spelling to be based on spelling tests. I am horrible at memorizing lists and thus never did very well with spelling tests. I am still to this day a bad speller. Thank goodness for spell check. Although I know spelling tests should not be the bulk of my teaching of spelling I am unsure what other methods are out there. I know students learn to spell through reading constantly and through writing but once you get past a certain point how do you continue to add words to a students memory that they can spell correctly.  I hope through my courses to learn some better techniques to teaching spelling than spelling tests!!

Exchanging instead of borrowing

I had a parent ask me yesterday what the heck exchanging was. She had never heard of it and her son had no idea what he was supposed to be doing. So far in his schooling he had learning about borrowing and was not making the connection that these two words meant the same thing.

In my class now we are learning to move away from borrowing and move towards the use of the term exchanging in math. It is the same thing only you are emphasizing that the student isn't just borrowing one and moving it down a space but that they are exchanging one group of ten for ten ones. This is supposed to help with students are are borrowing but have no idea why or how they are supposed to be doing this.

I am disappointed in the teacher for not sending a letter home explaining what this new concept was because it is not a familiar concept but I really hope the parent sits down with the teacher and talks about it.

Dough

When subbing in a fourth grade classroom I got to experience their reward system called dough. The students earn dough for doing good things such as being on task with out the teacher asking but they also can lose dough for bad behavior. Then When they have earned enough dough they can purchase a license to sell. Then on a few Fridays the students set up shop in the classroom and sell the items they have brought to sell. What I saw was cookies, bracelets, headbands, pickles, toys, candy and soda. The stores were in 4 of the fourth grade classrooms and they all participated walking from room to room. They had so much fun and little did they know they were learning valuable skills. They were practicing their math when giving change and they were learning about running a store. One of the teachers was charging the students for rent, water, electricity and some of the other basic needs to run a store. I loved that idea!If I am in a high enough grade when I get my own class I will definitely be stealing this idea.

First experiences as a substitute

My first day of subbing and I was sooo nervous! Although I thought it would be an easy day because it was only a half day and I was supposed to be working in the office. Good thing I am flexible! I was asked to work in the SIP room. This is the student intervention program room for students with severe mental disturbances or behavior problems. To add to this new experience they were having issues in the office because of the system getting me a copy of the lesson plans. So for the first hour or so of the day I was left with no idea what to do or when to do it. I made it through advisory with no problems. It was supposed to be my prep after but one student refused to go to his next class and two others wanted to come back so I made them get notes. I found out as soon as I got the sub notes that I was not supposed to have anyone in the room with me during prep, oops! It was stressful but I survived. It could have been a million times worse. I left that day feeling like I could survive ANY sub job!

Today I decided to try subbing again. I chose 6th grade this time and a full day position. It was their jog-a-thon day so it was supposed to be easy. Today was so much fun!!! The class was extremely respectful of me and they helped me with everything I didn't know about. I had such a great day! I don't think the two days could have been any more different! I am so excited now to get into a classroom again that I signed up for another sub job on Tuesday as soon as I got home. I can't wait! All of my fears are gone :)

Love of reading and fear of writing

Yesterday we had a discussion about who we are as readers and writers. Almost everyone in our class are passionate readers and we were all so excited to share the books we love with one another. The group I was in struggled talking about writing.

Half of our group really like writing. They say this is because they were given many opportunities to write creatively when they were in elementary school and because now their writing has a purpose such as creating activities for children.

The other half of the group, this includes me, don't enjoy writing. Not to say that we aren't good at it, as most people who read frequently are at least decent writers, but we don't enjoy it. We only write when we need to. The reason for this was because we were never given freedom in our writing. All of our writing had to be super structured and the content didn't really matter as long as you got the format right. I remember in high school learning the shafer method of writing. Oh man did I hate this year in high school english!!!! These were some of the worst essays I have ever written but I got full points because they were perfect as far as formatting goes. They were so hard to read, they were choppy, uninteresting and really didn't make a whole lot of sense.

I also have a . . .I wouldn't quite call it a fear, maybe I am intimidated. . .anyway my spelling gets in the way of my writing. I am a HORRIBLE speller! I am always afraid students in my classes will look at my notes I am taking and laugh at the number of spelling errors they contain. I am trying to get over this and I am becoming a better speller but I still hate letting people read my writing unless it has been spell checked first.

I am very glad I started this blog. It gives me a chance to write as often as I feel and gives me freedom in my writing. I don't think I have written this much since I was a high school girl and wrote notes to friends. haha

Excitement Explosion

Ever since I took the intro to elementary education class at UNR I've been hooked on education. It has been 2 years and I'm starting to get impatient! I want so badly to be in a classroom already!! This itch to teach has pushed me to get a job, now jobs, that are teaching children. I am tutoring and subbing. Tutoring is great! Everyday I am excited to go to work, the kids I work with are great and most of them are eager to learn. I am always shocked when it is time to go, it never feels like it has been that long. There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that this is what I am meant to be doing! I am a tad intimidated by subbing. I've only been in charge of a whole classroom once before and the class was already familiar with me and their teacher was still in the the room. I am a very kind person so my biggest fear is being able to enforce the rules. Hopefully I can pull this pretending to know what I am doing thing off!!!

AAAAH! Social Studies!

What is it about social studies that seems so frightening? Maybe it is just me but that subject confuses me! I've always been confused as to what all Social Studies includes. The only thing I really remember about social studies in elementary school is learning about Egypt. . .this does not give me much insight into what the heck this subject really is about. Thank goodness I am learning about that this semester. I am most nervous and most excited about this class because I have no idea what to expect but expect to learn a lot. I can't wait for the mystery of social studies to be unveiled to me so that I can finally be comfortable with this subject.

Everyone can do Math

I want to make sure that all of my students know that math is an enjoyable subject, that EVERYONE can be good at math and there is nothing stopping someone from understanding math. I learned today that females are extremely underrepresented in mathematics fields, the people in these fields are only about 25% female. All students need to know that they can succeed regardless of their gender.
I was given a great bit of advice today, "do not address your classroom as 'boys and girls' because you are stating that there is a difference between boys and girls in an academic setting when there is not." A great idea instead was to address your students as "learners" or just simply "class". Everyone is equally as capable of being successful in a classroom and that needs to be portrayed even in the language we use in classrooms.

Litteracy ideas

• Teaching students to choose books that are on their appropriate reading level. Make sure that you first guide them in this process but also give them room to learn what books they are comfortable reading, which books they need help reading and which books are far too hard for them.
• Instill a passion for reading in all students, even struggling readers. If they love reading they are much more inclined to read on their own and to put more effort into decoding books that may be a little challenging for them. 
• Get to know students at the beginning of the year to learn their interests and to learn about them as a person not just a learner. The interests will also help determine how easy a text is for the student. Background knowledge can make a book at a higher reading level more accessable.
• Be sure to not only include narrative text but also informational texts. Informational texts are extremely underrepresented in classrooms which makes students less likely to read them in their free time. I can definitely attest to that. I was very rarely exposed to informational texts outside of textbooks and now almost have a fear of reading informational texts.