How to Make a Trailer Feel Like Home

To say that I despise the trailers is an understatement. Nobody should ever have to work in a building that shakes when the wind blows, has leaks when it rains or snows, has one bathroom that is only in working condition 1/3 of the time, and has thin walls that do not block any noise. Just recently we learned that the windows can be broken just by pounding a fist on the glass. We are very secure! The drama of the trailer has added so much to everyone's job at South Lincoln. We have a heightened need for security, have to be extra positive in front of the kids about the situation, and always need to meet different maintenance mean to fix the lights, the ramp, the toilet, the sink, the toilet, the windows, the toilet...Are you sensing a theme? If we were all in one trailer that would be fine but the kids go back and forth between the trailers for their different classes. In one trailer is the main office, social emotional class, and computer lab. In the other is the tutor room, my office, and my "classroom". On a nice fall day this is no problem but lets face it, we live in unpredictable Colorado where the weather is always changing. Just yesterday when we had a snow storm, I saw kids one by one fall down and knock each other over like bowling pins trying to walk up the icy ramp into trailer #1. It was hard not to laugh at some of the kids who were trying to ice skate on it and immediately ate it. I warned them! Disclaimer: Nobody was hurt while ice skating. What was i supposed to do, stop teaching so I could shovel??

Anyway, I have done my very best researching countless hours on pinteret on how to make my hallway of a room feel like a classroom without spending much money. I couldn't use any fun furniture because we can barely fit three white tables and 20 chairs as is. In the corner I have two tiny tall bookshelves to hold our "library" and classroom materials. I have used countless packs of 3m tape since we are unable to staple, pin, or attach things to the walls in any other manner. The trailers have to be returned in the same condition that they were when we got them. HA! Packing in over 90 kids a day in two trailers daily is not going to work. The first day it snowed the carpet was destroyed. Below is a picture of what the classroom currently looks like. I think it still looks bare but the kids love it. They love to see all of their work posted up all over the classroom. The take ownership of their work when they know it will be posted or hung up for everyone to enjoy. I teach K-5th grade so work from all different grades are included. I think it helps kids know what will be expected of them the next year.Take that Lakeshore and every other over-priced teacher supply stores that charge teachers way too much for a silly posters. The power of student work makes a classroom a home!

Elmer the Elephant

In my kindergarten-first grade art class I have decided to incorporate literacy. Anywhere I can push books and reading I do. Every class I start out by reading a book and coordinate an art project to go along with it. This week I read the book Elmer by David McKee. The book is about an elephant that is multi-colored instead of grey like the rest of the heard. Elmer always is made fun of because of the way he looks. One day he decided to cover himself in mud to look like everyone else. When he blends in, the other elephants start to miss him. He didn't know how much people appreciated him. Then the rain comes and washes the mud away. All the elephants are so excited that Elmer is back, that they cover themselves will all different paint colors to look more like Elmer. This book celebrates diversity and being and individual. After we read and discussed the book, each student was given a cut out of an elephant. I provided each table with a variety of tissue paper squares. They layered tissue paper on their elephants to make their own design. Tissue paper and glue is much more difficult for little kindergarteners to work with than I had planned. Talk about a mess in the classroom. While the elephants were drying, each kid decorated a setting for their elephant. Some created a zoo while others chose to draw a jungle. When everything was complete they glued their elephants into the setting. We had an extra 10 minutes in class so I put on a movie about baby elephants. The kids went nuts! They loved how it all related to the book we started with.

Other book/craft projects we have done that I didn't document with photos include:

-Little Cloud by Eric Carle. We created shapes out of cotton balls and gluing them onto blue paper.

-I Know an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Leaf by Alison Jackson We painted leaves. I cut out leaf shapes from coffee filters. The kids used watercolors and saw how the colors blended. Once the leaves were dry we hung them up on the wall for decoration.

-Ten Apples Up on Top by Dr. Seuss. We wrote our own story. Each kid was given a page that said ___(name)______ has _____ apples up on top. They drew themselves and decided how many apples they had on their head.

-I Know an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Rose by Alison Jackson. We made our own valentine's for classmates.

-All You Need for a Snowman by Alice Schertle. We made our own snowmen out of marshmallows. I used the tiny marshmallows for the craft. Each kiddos drew three circles with glue and placed the marshmallows on the glue. They then decorated the snowmen. As a treat I brought in large marshmallows to snack on after.

-My Mouth is a Volcano by Julia Cook. In class we have a lot of kids who like to blurt out answers and stories. This is a great book to bring up the conversation about why blurting out isn't always okay. We then created three volcanoes for our class. I had already glued a 2 liter bottle of diet soda onto paper plates and made a triangle out of construction paper. The kids then put different pieces of construction paper squares on the volcanoes. They decided what colors to use and how big the volcano was. Then we took all three volcanoes outside and blew them up. **Make sure you do this part outside. Drop a whole pack of mentos into a 2 liter bottle of diet soda and watch the volcano erupt. The little ones were so excited.

I have many more art project/book ideas that I have tried in my classroom. If you need anymore, let me know or share some of your own.

Valentine's Day

This is a few days late but I had the best Valentine's Day this year. It was simple and did not include chocolates, flowers, or a boyfriend. I was surprised by all of my kiddos with Valentine's that they had made in another class. All they used was pink paper and markers to make these wonderful cards that brought a smile to my face. I am so lucky to work with such amazing kids.

James and the Giant Peach

This is a little late but in my 2nd-3rd grade movie-bookclub last year we read the book James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl. Since the reading levels of the kids were all over the place I read the story too them which they followed along in the book. We spent a lot of time discussing literary elements of the story and new vocabulary. When you work with ELA kiddos, the more discussion and exposure to the English language the better. We would spend half of the class reading the story and half of the class watching the movie. It was amazing to see the lightbulbs go off when kids noticed the similarities and differences between the two. As a project, the very first week each student created a peach. We mailed a photo of our class, the peaches, and a letter to many friends and family around the country. Thank you to everyone who participated! The idea was to see the peaches travel the country and learn about its adventures. My friends and family were wonderful. Everyone sent the peaches back with photos of the peach at a variety of places in their home town as well as a letter. Some even sent extra goodies for the class. We tracked where the peaches traveled on a large map. It was a great project and very simple to do. The peaches are simply circles with orange, yellow, and peach tissue paper glued on. Allow 4-5 weeks from when you send the peaches out to get them all returned.

I'm Back!

Wow it has been so long since I posted but I am back! Since I last posted I have worked in Douglas County Schools as a severe special needs paraprofessional. Don't get me started on this experience. I loved working with the kids and learned a lot but it was a toxic enviornment. The special ed teacher did so many illegal things and treated the staff and kids with disrepsect. I am greatful for the friendships I made at Rock Ridge Elementary School but a year in that position was enough for me. Next I found myself looking for a summer position to hold me over until the next school year. I ended up emailing an old contact from the Bridge Project where I volunteered as a college student. They were in need of a summer teacher. I accepted the job on a Friday and started on a Monday. Since I had volunteered at the program before I know what I was getting myself into. The Bridge Project is a non-profit after school program that serves kids living in Denver Housing. They offer literacy classes, social emotional classes, technology classes, tutoring, and homework help. The goal is to keep kids in the program, engaged in school, and eventually into to college. If kids stick with the program, the Bridge Project will help them pay for college. It is an amazing program and it has always been my dream to come back and work there someday. Just my luck, at the end of the summer they were looking for a new education specialist at the South Lincoln site. This is the site I had been working at most of the summer. I LOVED the kids and the staff at this site. The day I was offered they job I cried. I was so excited and felt that my dream had come full circle. I was right where I belonged, helping kids that truly appreciated everything they received. Majority of the students at this site are Somalian refugees. I had no idea we had such a large population in Denver and it has truly been amazing learning about their culture and what they have been through in their lives. Now don't get me wrong, not everything at work is a walk in the park. When I first started I had to prove myself to the kids. There was a lot of butting heads and challenging authority until I proved I was in it for the long haul and would love them unconditionally no matter what they did. The other challenges include what every school in this country is facing. Large classes with students on a wide spectrum of levels. I had kiddos in my k-1 class who had never seen written language before or held a pencil to kids that were advanced in their grade. Add on top of that limited resources and not enough books for each student. Luckily I am thrifty and creative. I am now coming up on my two year anniversary of working with the Bridge Project and I could not be happier. I have seen kids grow so much in their maturity level and reading levels. There is no better felling than raising a kid from below grade level to ON! This year we were faced with a very challenging situation. Our old site was torn down due to redevelopment in the neighborhood. We are now located in two tiny trailers with even less resources. I happen to be teaching more classes and I have decided to look at the glass half full and make my lessons even more engaging and exciting for students. The are not required to come everyday to Bridge but yet at 3:05 each day the kiddos come busting through the door. I plan on posting some of the things I have done in the classroom. If I can do them in a tiny trailer with a bunch of crazy kiddos after school, anyone can do it in their classroom.

Behavior Management

This week I only substituted three days and it was filled with much of the same behaviors and lingering questions. I seem to raise my voice more often than I would like and spend much of my day trying to put out fires between students. My major issue I have when substituting is classroom management. While this is one of my strengths when in a classroom setting for awhile, the techniques I use are no feasible for a one day assignment. I am a stronger believer in community circles and building open relationships with students therefore when they have a problem, it is not awkward to have a one on one conference to figure out together a way to solve the issue. This week in particular each classroom had a different method for handling behavior problems. The first class used the red light green light behavior chart. When the clip was moved to yellow, a student loses 10 minutes of recess. When the clip is moved to red, a student must fill out a refocus form where they describe their behavior. I found it very difficult to be consistent with moving clips, partly because I did not know all the students names and because it took away time from the lesson. One student in particular was very vocal and always misbehaving. When he was told to move the clip from green to yellow he started talking back and arguing with me. Needless to say, by the end of the morning his clip was on red. There was no consequence after being on the red card; therefore he took it as his behavior the rest of the day didn’t matter. I wonder if there is a better method to use in the classrooms, especially for substitutes. I had a similar experience the following day using the same system. However this time when I asked a student to move her clip for throwing a pencil at someone, she burst into tears and made a big fuss. I again had to take time away from the whole class to get her to settle down. The rest of the day, I found myself overlooking some of her behavior because I didn’t want to move the clip to red and deal with a meltdown again.

The next day the class used a jar of marbles as a reward system for behavior. When everyone in the class turned in their homework or came into the classroom quietly. While this started out as a good idea in the morning, by the afternoon I ended up having to take away move marbles than I put in. This was the way the instructions read from the substitute lesson plan. Is it fair to punish a whole class for the behavior of a few students? I noticed near the end of the day when I would take a marble out for people not being on task and wasting time, certain students were targeted as the reason the whole class lost a marble. Usually they were not causing the problem; I’m not sure what was going on there. It made me wonder if there is a better way to manage a class without harming the self-confidence of certain students. If one kid does not bring their homework, will everyone in the class gang up because they did not earn a marble? Is this idea using peer pressure in reverse?
The last class I substituted for this week used team collaboration as a method for monitoring student behavior. The student’s desks were in pods, with each pod given a different team name. Teams that were on task or the first table to be prepared for the lesson would receive a point. It seemed like a very competitive environment. Similar to the marble jar classroom, I noticed certain students were constantly blamed for their table not receiving a point, even if it wasn’t their fault. I also noticed students were more interested in the points each team accumulated than the lesson we were working on. I tried to avoid giving many points because it seemed like a distraction. In this method, students were rewarded for good behavior but bad behavior was left unnoticed. A few of the students had also given up on the system. I believe after weeks of repeatedly not receiving points for their table, they decided to not even try to earn points. They refused to stay on task or quickly transition to the next activity along with the rest of the class. What is the method to fix this behavior? I didn’t want to give them points when they didn’t deserve it just to boost their confidence.

Of course with all of these behavior methods, I still keep a list of students for the teacher who were extremely helpful and those who were in need of refocusing. Do student need to see their behavior in a visual way? At what cost are these methods effective? Is there a method that substitutes could use that would be simple, yet effective?

Teacher Researcher

Substituting in relatively new for me but so far I like it. I can’t wait to have my own classroom someday and have more control over the situation. I’m in the Far Northeast section of Denver which is considered Montebello and Green Valley Ranch. I didn’t even know there were that many schools in that area. It’s a rougher area but urban education is one of my interests. I also substitute for Jeffco but did not have any jobs in that district this week.
This week I only substituted four days this week but it was filled with much of the same behaviors and lingering questions. My major issue I have when substituting is classroom management. This week in particular each classroom had a different method for handling behavior problems. The first class used the red light green light behavior chart. When the clip was moved to yellow, a student loses 10 minutes of recess. When the clip is moved to red, a student must fill out a refocus form where they describe their behavior. I found it very difficult to be consistent with moving clips, partly because I did not know all the students names and because it took away time from the lesson. One student in particular was very vocal and always misbehaving. When he was told to move the clip from green to yellow he started talking back and arguing with me. Needless to say, by the end of the morning his clip was on red. There was no consequence after being on the red card; therefore he took it as his behavior the rest of the day didn’t matter. I wonder if there is a better method to use in the classrooms, especially for substitutes. I had a similar experience the following day using the same system. However this time when I asked a student to move her clip for throwing a pencil at someone, she burst into tears and made a big fuss. I again had to take time away from the whole class to get her to settle down. The rest of the day, I found myself overlooking some of her behavior because I didn’t want to move the clip to red and deal with a meltdown again.
Another class where I was a substitute used a jar of marbles as a reward system for behavior. When everyone in the class turned in their homework or came into the classroom quietly. While this started out as a good idea in the morning, by the afternoon I ended up having to take away move marbles than I put in. This was the way the instructions read from the substitute lesson plan. Is it fair to punish a whole class for the behavior of a few students? I noticed near the end of the day when I would take a marble out for people not being on task and wasting time, certain students were targeted as the reason the whole class lost a marble. Usually this was not the case. It made me wonder if there is a better way to manage a class without harming the self-confidence of certain students. If one kid does not bring their homework, will everyone in the class gang up on them because they did not earn a marble? Is this idea using peer pressure in reverse?
The last class I substituted for this week uses team collaboration and the method for monitoring student behavior. The student’s desks were in pods, with each pod given a different team name. Teams that were on task or the first table to be prepared for the lesson would receive a point. It seemed like a very competitive environment. Similar to the marble jar classroom, I noticed certain students were constantly blamed for their table not receiving a point, even if it wasn’t their fault. I also noticed students were more interested in the points each team accumulated than the lesson we were working on. I tried to avoid giving many points because it seemed like a distraction. In this method, students were rewarded for good behavior but bad behavior was left unnoticed.
Of course with all of these behavior methods, I still keep a list of students for the teacher who were extremely helpful and those who were in need of refocusing. Do student need to see their behavior in a visual way? At what cost are these methods effective?