A New Beginning

I got a call on the Friday before the Christmas break. Apparently the teacher hired to replace me when I left at the end of last school year quit just after the staff Christmas lunch. The principal was in crisis mode, trying to figure out how to solve the problem before he hopped on a plane to Italy for the duration of the break.  He asked me to come back to finish out the school year, or at least sub for January.

My new baseline at home makes the idea of taking back the classroom and all the responsibility it entails laughable, but I talked to my husband, enlisted the help of friends and neighbors, and figured out how to make January work. It took me until Saturday to get into the space that used to be mine with my former partner teacher, intending to plan. But the room was a disaster. Apparently the teacher who quit had been out sick the two days prior to the holiday break. We spent two hours cleaning and rearranging the room to allow for two more desks for Korean exchange students who will be joining the class tomorrow.  It's still a work in progress. I feel like I need to dust, and there is a rather large stack of ungraded work that I have no idea what to do with.

That meant I had to plan at home. I spent the evening of December 30 planning for the first week back in my old space that decidedly does not feel like my space.  I had teacher's manuals and my computer spread out over half the table on a Saturday night, like old times. I don't want the demands of teaching to take over my home life again: I don't want to spend major time planning and grading when I should be making dinner, helping with homework, or just spending time with my kids. I am worried about the impact of working full time for four and a half weeks on my family. I'm also worried about the impact of having their teacher leave abruptly on the students I will be teaching this month.  Will they feel betrayed by her? Will it magnify the usual January crazy or will it afford me an easy path for resetting the classroom expectations?

But I'm also excited. I know several  teachers in the building are excited that I will be back, even if it's just for a short amount of time. I came home from my two hours in the classroom animated and looking forward to the week ahead. This January feels like its new beginning, full of potential.

Subbing

I subbed today and Friday. Both jobs were at the same school, but Friday was in kindergarten and today was in fifth grade.

Before I ever became a teacher, I told people I wanted to teach kindergarten or first grade. All of my classroom volunteering as an undergrad was in these two grades. Then, in my final year of college, I had the opportunity to spend a few hours, three days a week for the entire school year, in a kindergarten classroom. It was my dream come true. I loved working with the littlest group of kids. I helped Hope understand that using the mouse was more difficult for her than her classmates because she was left handed (like me), and that if we put the mouse on the other side of the keyboard, she had less difficulty.  I was there to be angry at and depressed for Sam's mom when she finally told the school (in December) that Sam might be having more than the average separation anxiety (sobbing for 20+ minutes every morning after drop off) because his Dad had been killed in a car accident two weeks before school started.  I was learning how to be there emotionally for children who had been alive barely longer than I'd been in college, and still challenge their learning at an appropriate level.

In January, a student teacher was assigned to the classroom. And my dream position became a nightmare overnight. The class that I had come to love became totally unmanageable. Throwing a new teacher who really didn't know how to manage students yet at first year elementary school students - right after the holiday break - now seems like a massive error on the university's part. But at the time all I knew was that a veteran teacher had a solid handle on the kindys and the new teacher did not.

I had an instant change of heart. I decided it was not in my power to teach kids to learn how to "do school." When I got to pick my student teaching assignment, I chose a 5/6 multi-age placement. I spent my first four years as a certified teacher in third grade, followed by two years of subbing, and then eleven years in fifth grade. As I told the school secretary today, fifth grade is my jam. Yes, those words came out of my mouth in a professional setting to someone who might have the ear of my future principal. I blame my most recent partner teacher. I was also wearing glittery cowboy boots I bought with her when I said it. Teaching can in fact keep you young.

I suppose my point is, I totally enjoyed BOTH jobs.  Those five year olds on Friday were incredibly sweet. I had endless patience to explain over and over that the BIG shapes needed to be circled in red crayon but in the next set, the LITTLE shapes needed to be circled in blue crayon.  This was too much for many of them, especially since the worksheet had four additional sections.  It was the kind of worksheet that makes teachers of older students wonder where the academics are, but teachers of five year olds wonder why it's really that important to gain mastery over these concepts at such a young age.

The school's annual fun run was on Friday.  It was ridiculously exciting as we got to watch the KA aide race a mechanical pig with the other top fundraising classes. Sadly, "our" pig lost the race, but happily, she won the beauty contest.  But the most exciting part of the day, at least from a five year old's perspective, was probably when the principal was turned into a "human sundae" by the top ten fundraising students in the school. I was a little worried during the actual run when I didn't know where many of the kids were, but the aide assured me that the missing kids were with their parents. She was correct - by the time the parents who had attended the fun run had all left with their children, only one kindy was left. I read her two books and then we played on the "little toy."

If Friday was fun, today, I was in my element: speaking Pokémon and Magic the Gathering on a passable level; blending sarcasm with understanding; teaching from textbooks I had used for eight years, and even tweaked tests from, to better suit my needs.  There were two boys who saw a sub at the door this morning, and thought it was going to be a fun, no work kind of day. With all the experience I now have managing classrooms, and fifth graders in particular, it was easy to shut that down, fast.  When a student said he couldn't find his notebook I asked him to be a problem solver, and a classmate offered up the very solution I would have suggested. When a different student lamented that she couldn't find the pencil she had been using before recess, I told her, in all seriousness, "I didn't eat it."

At the end of the day I had the table groups tell each other the worst part about having me sub and the best part. My favorite response (overheard as kids talked among themselves, as I did not ask them to share these responses with the whole group): "Mrs. Conrow is as hyper as me!"

I can't sub tomorrow, as my foster-adopt son has a mid-day appointment, so I just had to turn down a job in my former building.  I'm disappointed, but not sad. Life is full and I can still rock this teaching thing - if only for a few days here and there.

The Family Leave Begins

Flowers from Valentine's Day and from my last day before leave.

The past month has been very full. I'm sure I missed several opportunities to write about the amazing activities happening in my classroom, but I never found the time to sit at the computer and compose my thoughts. In addition to getting ready for a long term substitute teacher, my students took a second round of standardized testing for the year, created newscasts or skits to showcase their learning from our novel study, created and presented projects displaying their knowledge of the liturgical seasons, observed and graphed the phase change of ice through water to steam, made and calibrated their own thermometers, and celebrated Valentine's Day during the past month.

Proudly showing off their custom thermometers.

My husband went back to work today for the first time since before Thanksgiving, when the foster kids moved in. He has been out of the office for 12 weeks. I will now be out of my classroom for 9 weeks (except for two days during spring conferences), taking my turn at home with the crew of kids.

I have very mixed feelings about the beginning of my leave. I am sad to be away from my students for so long, and anxious about what kind of "mop up" I may have to do when I return for the last six weeks of the school year. I am also worried about my ability to parent full time, to keep the kids' schedules straight and get everyone to their appointments and activities on time with a minimum of family discord. However, it's also very freeing to not have to worry about daily lesson plans and materials prep, meetings, and timely responses to emails for the weeks ahead at school.

But I also feel that this time with me at home is exactly what my family needs right now. The kids, biological and foster, need to know they rank a higher priority in my life than my students. The foster kids need time with me around to really get to know me as a parent so they can trust me and feel the love and stability I hope to represent in their lives. Somehow this all came together for me on Saturday when I attended the funeral of a former fifth grade student. He was not quite twenty when he died, and had been a student in my classroom a decade ago. As I sat in the church where I had taken him and his classmates for school masses, watching his parents sob for the duration of the funeral and beyond, I realized there could be no other reaction to losing a child. The gut-wrenching, soul-deep ache clearly displayed by the parents mourning for their son would be mine if I had to sit through the funeral of any one of the four kids I now call my own.

To Build a Density Column

January in the classroom can be a challenging time of year. The students know the routines, but they are out of practice, and internal motivation often forgets to come back from the Christmas break with students.  I have the added barrier of planning around our second round of MAP testing right now, but I have found that well structured group work will pull most kids back into the routine of the classroom. 

Occasionally there are one or two kids who shut down this time of year. I have one this year - a student who has spent whole group and small group time wandering around the room, laying across a desk, and playing with a variety of small items with intense focus. Attempting to draw this student into our novel study, discussion of liturgical seasons, or really any class activity has become draining in the past couple of weeks, but science investigations are a notable exception.

We built density columns this week. Simple ones made out of vegetable oil, corn syrup, and colored water. Although students were enthralled by the pictures of columns with up to seven different layers, they were grateful that I did not require them to weigh and measure that many liquids to calculate their densities before pouring their liquids into one graduated cylinder and watching them separate into three distinct layers. My kiddo who is having a difficult time participating these days commandeered the group's calculator and was meticulous about rounding and proper notation.  Mission accomplished: full, active, participation... for at least one class period.

Watching my little scientists observe the liquids as they separated and settled was definitely the highlight of my work week. One student was adamant that I photograph the density column from above, and many thanked me for the activity on their way out the door. I wonder how many students are building more complex density columns in their kitchens this weekend.

Happy New Year

We staggered back into the classroom this week, many teachers were bleary eyed and still reeling from ringing in the New Year. My school had school on Monday, January 2, the only one in the area, probably only one of a very few nation wide to have school on the National Holiday (observed). But students were excited be back and the only student in my class who was still on a vacation was in Mexico, and did not return until the end of the week anyway.

My school has short school-wide get togethers to start and end each week as a whole community. Monday morning we gathered in the auditorium for prayer and to discuss the International Baccalaureate attribute we are focusing on this month: inquirers. Energy was high and students were probably more focused on each other than on what the principal had to say. Two weeks can be a very long time, especially among kids, and there was much to discuss: What did you get for Christmas? Where did you go? Who came to visit? Why didn't you respond to my texts?

The best lesson plans for these circumstances require students to move around, get into groups, and work together. I think I was able to meet these criteria most of the week. We are investigating the properties of matter in science. Students worked in small groups to find the volume and mass of different quantities of water and calculate its density. They also measured and weighed blocks of different substances to calculate their volume, mass, and density. Not everyone quite understands what it means that density is a characteristic property of a substance quite yet, but we will continue our work with this next week with irregularly shaped objects.

We started a novel study this week to compliment the fifth grade social studies unit on the Revolutionary War. My class is reading My Brother Sam is Dead. Their comprehension of the book so far is high, but the vocabulary has them scratching their heads nearly every page. So I had students come the board and write down any words they weren't 100% sure on the meaning as it was used in the book. I use this phraseology in an attempt to free students from the worry of what their classmates might think about the words they don't know. This time it worked - the students covered the board with unfamiliar words. I took their words and wrote one on an index card for each student to define and illustrate. I love my word wall since I started doing it this way.

By the end of the week, I was done - ready for the weekend. The first week back is tough, even if the break was "only" two weeks (which, I reiterate, can feel like an eternity to kids). So if your kids, or loved ones who work on the school schedule, are a little tired or grumpy this weekend, cut them some slack. And maybe, suggest they take a nap.

Merry Christmas!

On this, the third day of Christmas my children all have their faces in screens. At least three of them are playing a video game together, and the fourth is watching a movie with Dad. I guess I'm no better, with my own face in my computer.

The run up to Christmas at a Catholic school is very busy. Not only do all the teachers want to finish up units and projects to get to tests and presentations before the break even when snow days cut into our time, but the season of Advent makes for a very chopped up schedule. We have weekly prayer services for the four weeks of Advent, and a school wide Christmas music pageant that has us rearranging our schedules for extra music practices, tech rehearsal, and dress rehearsal. Somehow my class also always ends up hosting the Mass of the Immaculate Conception (not to be confused with the birth of Christ - the Immaculate Conception refers to Mary's conception and birth without the stain of Original Sin) which occurs during the season of Advent, making it even harder for many people to overcome the aforementioned confusion, and requiring me to adjust my schedule even more to allow time for students to practice their readings and songs for mass.

This year I was able to close out my units or at least come to a reasonable stopping point with a bit of time to spare. My partner teacher worked on a craft with half of the fifth graders at a time while I showed A Charlie Brown Christmas and The Grinch Who Stole Christmas and ate popcorn and candy canes with the other half. I think I got the better deal.

Energy was high on the night of the Christmas music pageant, with my students all decked out in their finest clothes. They did much better than I expected at keeping quiet while walking to and from the church for their performance, and the finale (with Silent Night sung in English and German) was beautiful. Videos can be seen via the school's Facebook page.

The last day before the break, I left a little gift on my student's desks before they arrived at school: mugs from the dollar store. The staff sang carols to the parents and students at morning drop off (in sub freezing temperatures) and students were offered cookies and hot chocolate. Fifth graders who had hot chocolate left over when they got to my room, promptly poured them into their new mugs. 












My principal knows the kids and teachers are all focused much more on the break than on anything academic on the last day of school for the calendar year. It has become a Saint Luke tradition to have a school wide caroling competition. This is the first year a trophy was awarded, and I am pleased to share that my "house" won!  The caroling was followed by three indoor snowball fights, separated by grade levels. Hands down, Saint Luke has the most fun on the last day before a break.

On the home front, this was our first Christmas with four kids and we kept it low key intentionally. We visited my husband's family in Oregon before Christmas and spent Christmas day at home, just the six of us. We almost met our goal of no tears on Christmas, but were foiled when Christmas dinner was served. My son loves the turkey legs, which we love about him, but something we said made him feel like we were mocking him. I liken his reaction to Marty McFly being called "chicken" in the Back to the Future movies. Whenever he perceives mockery directed at him, his reaction is immediate and HUGE. But he eventually regrouped, and we ate off of our fine china and drank out of our crystal glasses. I went to bed feeling incredibly blessed and told my husband that it was probably the best Christmas I have had as an adult.

I opened my school bag this morning, intending to grade all the assignments I didn't get to before the break began. I was able to grade everything I brought home... but since I forgot to bring home the book reports and the writing grade sheets that have student prewrites on the back at school, I still have two assignments left to score, and will need to make a trip to school today. Disappointing, but since I didn't wait until the last couple of days before school starts again, easily recoverable.

Snow Day!

From the time I started teaching until two years ago there were always snow days impacting teaching and learning in December and January. Then, just when I switched schools, the snow just barely dusted the yard, and on a weekend. Last night I saw the snow built up on the top of the car when I was up in the middle of the night, but was still convinced it would start raining and melt all the snow long before school busses took to the roads. Happily I was wrong. There is still plenty of snow all around the area this morning, so my kids and I all have the day off. We slept in and had a post-breakfast snowball fight Perhaps we'll actually get decorations on the tree today.

The fall open house event was very fun this year. I had parents emailing the afternoon of the event asking if it was too late for their fifth grader to join the list of presenters. In fact, so many students wanted to come to present their learning that my partner teacher and I had more students than guests while the middle school students were taking visiting families on tours of the school. Students were so excited to present their learning that they made and posted signs in the hallway to entice visitors to stop in and see their presentations. I didn't snap a picture of my favorite one, but they wrote on the frosted glass outside of the classroom with a dry erase marker, "Awesome presentations inside!"

When an unsuspecting prospective parent did stop to listen to a student present on the geographical regions of the United States or the process of fossilization, they invariably got pulled to watch several other presentations by a line up of fifth graders who were all eager to showcase their learning. It was really amazing and heartwarming to watch my students tweak their presentations in the moment - asking for samples of certain rocks or help quickly finding just the right picture to answer questions from the "real" audience who had come to open house. In all my years of teaching I can't remember a time when so many of my students were so passionate to share something they learned in my classroom.

I was able to follow it up with some fun hands on investigations as we begin our unit on Properties of Matter. The unit begins with eight quick observations that attempt to show one or more properties of matter we will investigate in the rest of the unit. Although it was stressful for many students to have a very short time at each station before moving to the next investigation, by the end most of them had some fun, and understood that they were going to get to dive deeper into each type of inquiry later in the unit. There were giggles as students blew into water and limewater, and at the end of it all, with water, sand, shaving cream, and oil in little puddles near each station, one student even thanked me for letting them do the messy activities.

Advent is always a busy time of year. There are prayer services every Monday morning and extra music practices for the annual Christmas concert. Sweet treats are handed out on Saint Nicholas' Day, adding to the pre-two week break crazy. In addition, fifth graders were tapped to host the mass in honor of the Immaculate Conception of Mary (not to be confused with the Virgin Birth of Christ) which adds even more rehearsals into the schedule. Adding a snow day into the mix decreases the teaching time this year, but it was very welcome as we are settling in with two new kids in our family. An extra day at home together was just what we needed.