The one with his head down

If you take a close look at this photo you will see that there are four students working and one student doing the opposite. I shall call this student Mr. F.

 

Let me give you some background information on Mr. F:

I have taught him language arts for two and a half years.

Half of sixth, all of the seventh and what is left of 8th grade.

He originally started off in general education classrooms, but was not making it so he was placed in all intensive classes.

I do believe his goal was to land himself into a life skills class so he would have the least amount of work possible...and by looking at the picture he close to completing this goal.

 

I have done everything possible to help him be successful.

Called "parents"

Spoke with other teachers

tried to get him to attend tutoring

gave him the benefit of the doubt

Provided him with art supplies

praised him with no end in sight

supported him when others wrote him off

 

and yet this is what I get. Head down with no interest to improve his writing ability. Now, he does have good days and even great days, but these last couple of weeks have been rough for him, myself and everyone around him. I am at the point where I have to let him go and give the attention he would be getting to my other students because clearly he has given up.

 

Do I want to give up on Mr. F?

No

Has he given me anything to work with?

No

 

If by chance he starts beliving in himself again I will reposition myself as his biggest supporter...until then I have others students to worry about.

 

 

And the count down begins

I hate tests

I hate that it turns my students into mindless machines printing out words to impress a scorer

Nevertheless testing season has begun in the sunshine state.

FL writes is less than a month away and to kick off the anticipation of this blessed day I made a paper chain. Yes, each paper ring has a date on it signifying one less day they can suck any knowledge out of me and cram it in their heads.

So to those other teachers out there...hang in there!

//SIDE NOTE\\

The majority of this post is saturated with sarcasm

Oh Christmas cards

I do believe my family has been cursed with some kind of Christmas card plague. Let me explain...we have taken pictures for the last fourish/threeish years and not one picture has made it into a card. I have joked that one year we are going to combine all of the pictures and create a flip book of sorts covering the last years of failed Christmas cards.

 

The point of me telling you this is because I have been camera less since Christmas in effort for my family to perhaps make this Christmas card season a success...well Christmas has passed and once again no card with our smiling faces was sent out. Sorry family and friends

 This is as far as the Christmas card made it
forever locked inside a camera

Well hello 2013

Hello 

I know it's been awhile so here is a mini update:

Testing season is upon us the most stressful time of the year

Essay writing continues

Teaching three grade levels is getting old

Still loving my students...although if I lost a few I would not mind

I maybe getting an intern so we shall see how that goes

I am pretty excited about what this year will bring

I promise to return when time is more available

Even though I am a slacker at blogging my Instagram is more frequent

@helloitsmeg

And the theme song for the week is...

Queen's Another One Bites the Dust!

Lets just say I have two empty desk that I am not sad about!

In fact I have been grinning all day long since I heard the glories news!

...and I was not the only one thrilled by the news there was some celebrating happening by students and adults!

 

IEPs explain a lot

I have sat through my fair share of IEP meetings in my four years of teaching. There have been IEPs that I have dreaded as well as ones I have looked forward to. I saw this pin on Pinterest and thought how very fitting it was for IEPs too.

I cannot count the times I have sat across a parent and had an "aha" moment. During these "aha" moments everything is instantly explained for why a student is who they are. Now this not only applies to students who are a hot mess, but students that are beyond awesome! 

Today I had three IEPs and in each IEP I was given insight into how this student became who they are either in a positive way or negative.

So this happened last week

I really do believe Halloween should be on the last Saturday of October. Some students treat Halloween as a two day event: day one preparation and day two recovery. 

 

Halloween always seems to come with its slew of questions:

Miss do we have Halloween off?

What are you going to dress up as?

Are we having a Halloween party?

Do we have to do work on Halloween?

Can I bring in candy?

This year not only did I receive the typical questions, but I was given a note.

Let me explain the situation...students are given two weeks to complete vocabulary homework: week 1 spelling and week 2 definition. The homework is rather simple and I cannot remember a time when I excepted a student's excuse for why they did not do their homework; so when this note appeared this student didn't stand a chance!

I was so tickled by this note I paraded it around school like it was the president of the United States showing it to everyone I came across!

For those that are wondering this students earned a ZERO for his homework that he had two weeks to complete!

Honest conversations

I hold my tongue on a daily basis while I'm at school. There are countless things I wish I could say, but do not because...well there not school appropriate. Now what I want to say and what I actually say are pretty similar; just with a little niceness thrown in. I feel that educators have to be ever so careful with our words and have to tip toe around the truth. When if we just said what we wanted to say maybe things would get better. 

I took this approach with my 7th graders on Friday. The 7th graders are a mess. Full of drama and lack focus on what really matters. I have given countless pep talks and said a lot of nice things, but it was not working. 

So on Friday I got real with them. I had them think about their future, what they want to do and how are they going to do it. Then I pulled out my old IEPs, read some amusing teacher comments from my past regarding my behavior in school (apparently I was a hummer in class and roamed the classroom). I also discussed how school was unbearably hard and how I hated having a disability. School only became easier when I stopped complaining and got down to business. I worked hard and did not give up. Giving up would be easy, but would not provide me with the future I wanted for my life. 

I went on and told them if I was a student siting beside them I would be incredibly distracted by their behavior. Paying attention to the teacher or to the student who is twirling his pencil would take top priority in my life. 

They are the first class that I brought out my IEPs and discussed my disability with. I hope my honesty brought attention to what they are doing and how its not helping them reach their true potential. I guess time will tell if this worked with them. 

Parent conferences are these week

...that's all I'm sayin'...

An unexpected gift

Today I was given a gift from a student. All three grades that I teach work out of interactive notebooks. Last year I gave students the opportunity to leave their notebook at school or to take them home. 

One such 6th grader took his notebook home at the end of last year. I was secretly hoping that he would leave it at school because he did an amazing job with it. Well, today at the beginning of class he came up and presented me his notebook he kept over the summer. He thought I needed it as a reminder of all the lessons and activities we did last year. We flipped through the notebook and laughed at the poems he wrote last year. One poem was about me calling his mom because he was not behaving in class. Its safe to say that this student has come along way and is a joy to have in the classroom!

Not a fan of...

Diploma option day for IEPs

 {For those that are unaware}

When a student will turn fourteen within the year of their annual IEP; the uncomfortable decision must be made about their diploma tract. There are two options: standard diploma or special diploma. Obviously you want to get a standard diploma. Unfortunately, a majority of my students get opted for a special diploma. Now with a special diploma your future is limited. Four year universities are out of the question, military is questionable, a majority of jobs as well as community colleges, trade schools and vocational training will accept this type of diploma. 

I guess it could be worse, but when you click on special diploma option 1 on a student's IEP and the parent is present a flood of emotions is bound to spill out.

Today was one of those meetings. A diploma option needed to be selected and when we clicked on special diploma option one, tears instantly fell down the parents face. My heart always aches as I hold back my own tears and put on a brave face for the parents and student in the room. I know that the diploma option can always change each year as the student progresses or as education laws and mandates change, but I always think that I could have a special diploma and my future would not be what it is now if  I was a student in today's schools. 

I want this shirt

Sometimes its nice to hear...

"Miss you know that your classroom is where I feel the most comfortable"

...melt my heart...

Clothes pin art

I like to display student work outside of the classroom. Typically, I just use painters tape and stick their work to the wall, but I was tired of going through all that tape just to eventually throw it away because lets face it...painters tape is a little pricey. I then came up with an idea that would use my glittery clothes pins to display students work.

I used command hooks, twine and the sparkly clothes pin to hang student's work. I only did two rows and then displayed the students work I liked best.

The work that is currently beign displayed are 8th grade "Where I am from" poem. This poem is version of the bio poem just more mature.

Hello salted goodness

Today was teacher duty day and I was planning on bringing in these lovelies today, but the caramel had other plans. Lets just say that a meat thermometer does not work like a candy thermometer. Gave the caramel another shot today and everything turned out just as planned. So tomorrow these cupcakes will be at school for the adults to enjoy and the students to wish they had one. Happy beginning of quarter two!

Recipe from 20 Something Cupcake

Donors choose update

Since school has began I have received three lovely boxes full of resources for my classroom. Two of the three boxes were class sets of books (Flipped and Dolphin Tale) and one set of biographies to be used with a research project at the end of the year. 

I still have three projects that are live and waiting to be fully funded.

Barnes and Noble Nook color 

Civics/history resources to be used for research 

A revolving book stand

I highly doubt that the Nook project will be funded. Although the local Barnes and Noble reached out and asked how they could help...I thought this was very nice of them! I would much rather have the revolving book stand funded since I have boxes of books in cabinets that have no home. If the civics project does not get funded I will just re-open another once it expires. 

Donors Choose has been a life saver as far as bringing materials into my classroom. I am so great full that there are generous people out there willing to help teachers in their classroom. If you are a teacher create a project TODAY! Donors Choose makes the process very simple and will walk you through all the steps...you will not regret it!

Passing Notes

Not a week goes by that I do not find a sweet little note from one of my students that they have left behind for me. Either on a post-it note or on a back of a test their sweet words make my job ten times easier. Unfortunately, I have no place to keep these notes and they eventually end up in the trash. So taking another great idea from pinterest I have created a keep safe box through the use of a shadow box.

Supplies

fabric

ribbon

letters

hot glue gun

scissors