Hi everyone!!! So I haven't been keeping up with this blog very well, but I wanted to let you all know that I only have 4 days left!!!! I am so excited to be done with student teaching, but I definitly will miss the teachers at this school and the kids! The teachers at Sibley are so nice and super hilarious and while the kids have their own issues, they are still really fun to be around, and I am really going to miss them! So yea I am done on Thursday and then I have to start working on the portfolio and then graduate!! YAY! It will be nice to finally be done with Dordt, while I have loved everything about it and I will definitly miss all of you, I am ready to move on to the next phase of life. I hope everything is going well with you guys, oh and GERON!!! I talked to Karla (the girl you are living with) to make sure you were staying behaved, I got a good report back so I guess I don't have to worry about you :). Ok well have fun with your last few weeks guys and I will see you for the portfolio workshop, give me a call/email when you get back!!!

March 17, 2009

I have finished my second day of my 2nd student teaching placement. I am in the reading room and I am loving every minute of it. I absolutely love having small groups, and that I am not with the same class all day. It is fun to greet new faces, and the kids here are adorable and so nice! One little girl who I don't even know came up and hugged me today..haha I just hugged her back and in my head I was thinkin..who is this child! It will be interesting to see what happens when I get some more control and start teaching.

Oh and I have learned a few new things about brain exercises and neuro feedback, yea it is all very interesting and new, but it is cool to learn about! Oh and they have smart boards here, those things are amazing! Well that is all for now....probably my last update for awhile, I don't have too many interesting stories.....

Art Project: Paper Bag Puppets

Well I know that I have been done with my first session student teaching for awhile now, but I forgot to upload some of the last pictures I had taken! :) I wanted you all to see how very talented and gifted my students are, they are such great artists!

Pooh Day

Hello Hello! So I am phasing out this week and I am done on Wednesday! I super sad to be leaving my kids, but I know it will be good to have new experiences in another classroom. It just sucks leaving after becoming so comfortable :) Anywho we had pooh day on Friday which was super fun but I wanted to put up some pictures of my students so that you could all see how precious they are! I LOVE THEM!!!

Full Control

So this week I have had full control of the classroom. It is super fun, but I am starting to realize how fast the recesses go when you are full time!!!! I mean the kids walk out for recess and then it seems like 2 seconds I am getting them back in from recess. I like full time teaching almost better than just teaching a few subjects though because the days go by much quicker and although it is super busy, I don't mind it :)! One thing I definitly need to keep working on though is my classroom management skills, I am a little bit of a push over, and I am not tough enough on them! WELL that is all for now, not much new to say, we are going to make animal puppets out of bags on Thursday and Friday and I think they are going to love it! Hopefully I will have some pictures to put up!

Kente Cloth Art Project

So last week I taught an amazing art lesson and we finally finished in on Monday :). Since we have been studying Black History, I decided to incorporate a project that dealt with African Americans from a different culture than the ones we typically see. So the students made designs on construction paper with paint, they made their designs look like kente cloth, which is what African people in Ghana typically wear for celebrations, and they hand weave the kente cloth. It is amazing how cool the different designs are! The different colors represent different things, yellow represents strength and royalty, purple = femininty, red = life and blood, blue = innocence, black = unity and people, green= nature and earth, and white = purification. Anyways, the kids had tons of fun doing the art project, I don't think I have heard a 2nd grade so quiet or seen a 2nd grade class so intent on their work :) I loved their designs and watching them make their creations. My teacher took some pictures so I am going to let you check them out! ENJOY! Oh and with this unit I incorporated warm and cool colors, the book My Many Colored Days by Dr. Suess is a great book to use to introduce students to warm and cool colors, plus they love the fun pictures throughout the book. In addition, the book itself could be used for making a pattern book with students later on :). Ok well I hope all is going well, it sounds like everyone is getting busier and busier! I can definitly relate!

More 2nd grade humour

"If you could change anything in Sioux Center what do you wish you could change?"


Response: "That they don't cut down the trees in the forest".......

hmmm...last time I checked Sioux Center didn't have too much forestry..lol

We were talking about Martin Luther King Jr. today, and we were talking about his I have a dream speech. The 2nd graders are going to write down their dreams later this week, and when I asked the students what their dreams are, this is what one little girl said :).

Funny 2nd Grade Quote:

What is your dream???
"I don't remember my dreams."

Haha, I know I know I said I was done writing after that last post, but then I saw something on my fri'dge that reminded me of a something that happened this week, actually it happened yesterday. So *Jake (name change :) ) was messing around during math, and I didn't see what he was doing, but apparently he was writing funny numbers on his white board making the kids on the other side of the room laugh, but from where I was standing I couldn't see that, however, the teacher did..haha so he had to write me a note of apology and read it to me, this is what it said :
I'm really really sorry that I was goofing off when you were teaching us math Mrs. Boggio. I will try not to do that again.

He was so cute when he read it to me, his little cheeks were so red and he looked like he was going to cry, I felt so bad for him, but then again, it probably taught him something! :)

Oh another story!!! HAHA we were singing today, and we typically sing with the other second grade class and this little 2nd grader (in the other 2nd grade class) kept staring at me and he wasn't singing, so the other 2nd grade teacher was like Eddie (not his real name of course) stop staring at the student teacher, I know she is pretty but I think she is a little old for you, any who this kid turned like bright red and all the little girls were laughing, oh and the 2nd grade girls always want to sit on my lap, which I find funny ;) OK I am seriously done for the night! Time to spend some time with the hubby!

Here I am again! The end of my third week, well I have made it this far and there is no turning back now I guess! :) So this week was pretty trying for me, I am now teaching Math, Bible, and Science. My Science unit on matter is now finished and I am moving onto Social Studies, which will be about map skills..oh the fun 2nd graders have. Anywho MATH...I HATE MATH, or maybe I just hate the textbook this school uses. Anywho I just had to get that out. Actually I don't mind teaching math, but so far I have been teaching the 2nd graders about telling time, it had been going okay, and I had been drilling them throughout the week having them practice on little clocks while I give them times to find, but some of them just do not get it..like for example, this one little girl thinks it is 1:1 when the hour hand is on the one and the minute hand is on the one. I have tried to explain to her that you count around the clock by 5's, but she still doesn't get it, finally after drilling her today over and over again it seems like she is getting it, but I had to sit with her for over a half hour, ignoring the other students..it is hard to because some of the other kids are done with their math worksheets in like 10 minutes while it takes others 45 minutes, what do you do with the ones that get done, well most of those kids are excellent mathmaticians so they have special math folders that they can work on or they read a book, but I would like to be able to move on once every one is done..ANYWHO and THEN today I had to teach about quarter after, quarter to..wow this is way to hard of a concept for 2nd graders. They did not get it at all, plus who really says at 6:40, oh it is 20 minutes to 7, I don't..so I don't see how they will really use it anyways, however I do think that quarter to and quarter after is pretty important..I just somehow have to get it across to them how that works..yea..good luck with that I say!

Oh and then there is Bible, these kids are so bored with Bible stories, probably because they have heard most of them a million times :) I mean I love the Bible and I want to learn more about God, but it is so hard to teach Bible because you can't act out the stories every day, but you do want to have some variation as well, and you want them to learn the important messages that come out. I had a lot of fun with the Bible story today though, and I really think the kids did too, we acted out the story of The Centurion who had faith that God could heal his servant from a distance, either way they were excited about it and I think it will overall help them remember the story better :) OKAY well it has been a busy day, I hope all is well in Florida, California, and DES MOINES, :) I miss seeing each of you every day! Oh and I loveeee loveee loveeee all your stories! Can't wait to hear more!!! That's all for now!

So...after an email from Geron I decided I better start up a blog, so you guys can see what is going on in the world of teaching in Sioux Center! For those of you who don't know I am in the 2nd grade at Sioux Center Christian, and I started my student teaching on January 5! So I am into the 10 day mark and this past week has been bitterly cold. We got out early on Monday, and we had late starts every day except Friday. It was actually really nice though because the days flew by! :) The kids were very hyperactive, but what can you expect for 2nd graders! Ok so here are some pictures of me teaching my Science Unit :)

This week I taught a science unit, which the kids were super excited about because they don't normally get to be so hands on, yea I realized why after I taught the first day. The classroom was totally out of control. Ok so I am doing a unit on Matter, right, and I wanted it to be hands on because it is kind of an abstract concept. So the second day into my unit I gave the kids balloons to show them that they can change the shape of a gas, they were all running around and being crazy, which was minorly hilarious, ok so it was REALLY hiliarious! Anywho I couldn't get there attention back, and I was trying to talk over them, so then I just gave up. This led to my purchase of a whistle. You know the whistle your PE teacher always uses, yea that kind of whistle, so the next day I told them if they got out of hand again, I would use the whistle and they would have to look at me and stop talking, well it actually worked, and I didn't have to blow it more than like 5 times! YAY!

Oh and is anyone else thinking some of our professors were dreaming when they said you can do cooperative learning in the early grades. I split the students up into groups during science to wiegh different materials, pretty sure 2nd graders don't work so well together. Note to self: when there is only one teacher in the room, do not do three different centers becuase you can control them all or get all there attention or make the group smaller.

Well that is all I have for now, I am sure there will be more interesting stories later on. Oh I am starting a Bible unit as well, I taught my first Bible lesson this week, I think they were sort of bored, but I am doing a skit with them next week and hopefully they enjoy it. Oh yea and I forgot I made one of the students cry, not purposely, but I yelled at her and told her to listen to me, so she started crying. I didn't feel bad though, because she needed to listen. I know call me mean, but I need to gain some respect from these kids, haha well I am really going to be done for now, because you are probably bored by now.

ps...I miss you all :)