welcoming a student teacher

On Monday we have a student teacher joining our class for six weeks. The kids are pretty excited to have a second teacher (not too sure how to feel about that!) and were busily preparing some important things today to help her settle in!

Earlier in the week I asked what they think a new teacher to ISM might need. They had so many responses:

Each student signed up for a creation task.

And then they...

created a large map of the most important places she'll need to find while she's here

set up a tour to take her around

decided on some getting-to-know-you activities for Monday morning

tidied up a large desk area in the room for her, complete with a desk plate and pencil holder!

collected email addresses/phone numbers of teachers so she can get in touch with people while she's here

wrote a welcome note

made a large poster

made a brochure of all the places she should go while she's in the Philippines

wrote a list to fill her in on the learning we're knee deep in right now

created a special calendar and daily schedule so she can stay organized

and

collaborated to complete it all.

Looking forward to this teaching and learning journey!

kindness.

Bucket Fillers!

We are officially Bucket Fillers in 2B! {Actually, we've been Bucket Fillers for over a month now but I haven't found myself the time to write this post.} I love this book

and I think it has such a positive and powerful message for our young friends. Hey, for us oldies, too! In fact today, after some group work that resulted in a couple of arguments and quite a few whiney and controlling voices, I had my class finish up by giving a bucket-filling compliment to someone in their group. It was a great end to a not-so-cooperative work period.

In the interest of time here's a quick summary of the things we did:

Group word sort. {Confession: I can't remember from whom I downloaded the words file, but they were perfect!} Each group had pictures and words - pre-selected for each student based on their abilities - and a T-chart for Bucket Fillers and Bucket Dippers. After they discussed and glued them on the right side, we made a whole-class chart. The Bucket Dipper side? Oh, we cut that off and threw it out. We decided we only want to focus on being Bucket Fillers, so we got rid of all that negativity.

Pledge and sample Bucket Filler statements.

This is our bucket display. I just made the little printable in my trusty PowerPoint, had the kids colour them, and then laminated them. Behind each bucket is actually a small plastic Ziploc bag... I was racking my brain trying to figure out how to display the buckets without them getting ruined, so having them hang like this has been perfect! I just hot-glued the plastic bag to the back and a strip of ribbon to the two top edges of each bucket, then taped the top of the ribbon to the wall, with the rest hanging loose. Maybe my description make that sound more complicated than it is? I swear it works and really well!

This is our Guided Reading groups display. The names are not attached permanently to the books so that my groups can be flexible as certain students move up in levels {perhaps faster than others}.

And this was just part of my weekend. I laminated these signs so I can rub off the details as we discuss the main idea of different books. Now we have a permanent "graphic organizer" on our wall! {No picture of the final display - oops.}

December 10 already... As they say in Korea, ASSA!

- Amanda