Half Full

I am officially halfway through my first year of teaching! Hooray! In an effort to comply with Race to the Top and to have a successful administration who communicates with staff to build the school, our administrators have been going around to each teacher asking questions. These include, "Who would you like to recognize? What has been working for you? What resources do you need to do your job effectively?" Each time I am asked these questions, I realize that there are so many wonderful people at my school who help me from the copy ladies to the cafeteria, and that I really don't have many complaints (other than the sheer lack of technology in the classrooms).

Lately, school has been busier than ever! This past Thursday, we had Hibernation Day. The students were able to bring one stuffed animal that hibernates and wear their pajamas to school. We learned about different animals that hibernate, built a cave, and watched a movie about Klondike and Snow, which are two polar bears who were born in the Denver Zoo and abandoned by their mother. We learned that polar bears, like most bears, are not true hibernators, but can go into hibernation when their food source is threatened. We also felt ice water with our left hand while our right hand was inside a plastic bag to touch crisco which acts like blubber. This was a hands-on way to show how blubber protects animals from the harsh environments in which they live.

This week we also celebrated the birthday of Martin Luther King Jr. We had a birthday party (with brownies) on Tuesday after reading a story about MLK and an activity. During the story, one student raised their hand to ask whether they were black or white. I didn't want to tell them because I prefer that they remain color blind, but another student quickly responded "I know! You're a blackish brownish color!" It was interesting to see how they viewed race. Most of them had know idea of the concept. Another student, who happens to be Indian, said he thinks he is more white than brown. I wish that society as a whole could view the topic of race as these children do- unimportant.

Coming up we will be celebrating Japan Day! We will go to 8 classrooms which will each serve as a different station. The stations include painting our names in Japanese, Japanese story telling, a movie, Japanese artifacts, candy Sushi (rachelray.com) and more. We will also be having our standardized testing, have a college student join our class once a week for observations, celebrate Literacy Week, celebrate the 100th day of school, and celebrate Valentines.

The picture this week is of a bulletin board that is magnetized to my white board. The children are testing weekly on the kindergarten level decodable books. The children can pass up to two books a week. To pass, they must read a decodable book and answer three comprehension questions to a room volunteer. The volunteer records the date they pass the book on a chart and then I move their "car" to the next book. This is turning into a great project to motivate students to read and to focus on learning what they are reading.

As I go into the second half of my first year of teaching, I can truly say that I feel very blessed to know that I still feel as though my glass is half full thanks to the wonderful children in my classroom and the support I have from their parents, my co-workers, and my family.