Catching Up

Finally got my bulletin board up! It now is covered in "kindness bears," my school's reward system.

 

 

I've been neglecting the blog.  So I thought I'd summarize the last few weeks with a few pictures I've snapped between classes and after school.  It's been hectic, crazy, and very trying, but I think I'm starting (barely) to get hte hang of this.  Of course that means that I'm probably forgetting really important stuff and it will all come back to bite me in the butt, but I'm going to feel successful for now.

 

Xylophone!  I did an activity with these.  It was too early in the year.  It did not go well.

My favorite tool.  Boomwhackers! We've been using them

for the song "autumn leaves" teaching high and low.

Rhythm flash cards posted on the board for 4th grade.

Seating chart AND student composition tool.  I will be re-applying

this with blue duct tape to fix my seating chart problem.

My 3rd graders created verses for "Whole World in His Hands"

Lesson planning tools.

I have supportive colleagues.  I got this as a

congrats for my very first pay day.  Get it?

Prepping for the 5th grade Veterans Day assembly.

After making fall leaves for my k-2 lesson.

Before crafting.

A lesson for Kinders-2nd grade.  Notice the colors?

Boom!! *whackers...*

My second grade got a silent lesson one afternoon.

I lost my voice getting the last class under control.

They were really fun and participated without squawking.

I think they actually liked it.  It was something very

different for them.

On Special Needs, Movement, and Sanity

My special needs students are a lively bunch with a wide range of abilities, gifts, and difficulties.  Obviously, along with elementary music, I've never taught students in a self-contained special education classroom.  It's a steep learning curve.  With such varied age groups and levels, it's difficult to find activities that will engage a majority of students without leaving any in the dust.  There are some difficulties that I was unprepared for, like taking turns, or following directions when learning how to play the xylophones.  I'm learning several lessons very quickly, some on my own, and some with the kind redirection of the classroom leaders.

I played freeze dance with all of my students the first week, and I tried to modify that activity for the class.  I thought instead of freeze dancing, my non-ambulatory students could participate by playing percussion instruments.  I quickly learned that everyone wanted an instrument.  I also quickly learned that some were not able to follow the direction to stop playing when the music stopped.  It was noisy.  The next week, I tried to test their hearing.  I handed out claves and triangles hoping that they would play the woods when I was playing a wood instrument and the triangles when I played a metal.  Nope.  Not even close.  As soon as the instruments were handed out, I completely lost them.  The only thing I was able to do for the rest of the period was help a few students try to figure out how to play the traingle.  It was a very noisy disaster.

I was lucky enough to run into one of the classroom leaders.  She helped me greatly, and gave me the advice to use our technology to my advantage.  Each classroom in the district is equipped with a promethean board.  For those who don't know, a promethean board is basically a giant touch screen that hooks up to a computer, and the students and teachers can directly mainpulate objects and such.  It's am amazing tool for classroom teaching if it's harnessed to its full power.  For this class, however, it was basically a giant screen TV for youtube videos of preschool songs.  We sang The Wheels on the Bus, Hickory Dickory Dock, The Animal Sounds Song and other such wonderful titles.  I finally had them engaged.  We even did a little bit of choreography.  I kept them occupied until the last five minutes of class when we got to play freeze dance.  I ignored the instruments and instead with and danced with the non-ambulatory students.  I got giggles, I got some great dancing partners, and I even got blown a kiss at the end of class.

After some of the frazzled moments in my life this week, both personally and professionally, it felt great to have a success story.  I normally see those classes out the door and promptly lie down on the floor and stare at the ceiling for a moment to collect myself.  I'm not exaggerating or kidding.  Today though, I tidied up my room, gathered my goods, and almost skipped out to my car.

Subtle (and not so subtle) Differences.

I come to the world of elementary music from a secondary focused degree, a student teaching course with high school and middle school, and only a little tutoring experience with real elementary schoolers.  In my time thus far, I've noticed a few subtle differences, and even some similarities between secondary students and elementary students, and a few other differences in the education world.

One is this.  If I high schooler notices that my shirt has a stain on it, or that I have a scar or pimple, or that my hair is sticking up on the side, they will quietly motion to their neighbor, or make fun of you at the lunch table, where I can't (or at least likely won't) hear them.  If a first grader notices my pimple, he or she will gesticulate WILDLY to a neighbor exclaiming in a whisper rivalling a jet engine "look at Miss Alexander's face! Right there! Look at that pimple!"

It stung, kid.

Another is a little bit of a language difference.  "Abso-freakin-lutely" is an acceptable word in high school.  Not so with elementary schoolers.  I was immediately informed by the entire third grade class that my language was out of line. Really, I should have known that, but I just slipped into my old language pattern. Another word that has gotten me in trouble is "dude."  If a high school boy was doing something really dumb or rude, I would look at him and say "dude, really?" and the behavior would usually cease.  I look at a second grader and say the thing and he looks back at me and laughs because I called him dude.  Kinda kills the effect.

The biggest difference I've noticed is between morning classes and afternoon classes.  My third graders this morning were on it.  We mastered Frere Jacques in a round.  The kids pulled out all the stops.  They sang almost in tune.  They were focused and excited about their accomplishment.  My second graders in the afternoon were a wreck.  They were like little hulks that specialized in smashing xylophones.  I tried and tried to get them to listen while I explained the movement directions.  I really was trying to get them up and moving, and it did not work.  By the end of class I was reduced to Simon says. I had to save my sanity and try to prevent bloodshed.

I'm operating in a whole new world.  It's a world with a chorus of "I have to go potty" and "tie my shoe" and "When's recess?" But it's also a world full of kids who want to hug you.  It's a world where a majority of the boys haven't discovered that girls are pretty yet, and they still just have fun being boys.  It's a world where my kindergarteners wave goodbye after every class. 

It's a world that will take some getting used to.

Shake It Off

My fifth graders this morning were amazing.  They were picking it up, throwing it down, and owning their lesson today.  I got to watch them do rhythm math, and explain their thinking to the class, and each kid had it down.  I heard them sing, and it actually was a pleasant sound.  I had a chat with them about behavior, and how I want to treat them like the middle schoolers they're about to be, rather than the kinders they were 5 years ago.  They heard me, behaved, listened, and I'm pretty sure they actually learned.  I was on top of the world.
Wham. second grade.  Squirrely, wriggly, and dropkickable. My I-got-kids-to-learn high didn't just wear off.  It burned off before the kids even sat down and looked at me.  Granted, that took almost ten freaking minutes.  
By the time I got to my first graders at the end of the day, I was snippy, frazzled, and I was pretty sure I had blood shot eyes and a serial killer smile. This suspicion was confirmed when I walked out of my room to find a wide eyed colleague looking at me.  "You look... tired," I was informed.
I was tired.  I spent the next 90 minutes putting together some plans and tidying up my classroom for tomorrow.  I put my things away, gathered my goods, and trudged out to my car to head home.  The whole drive home, though, I was stressing and fuming.  The kids were little hellions.  I was a horrible teacher.  The classroom teachers were all amazing teachers with phenomenal careers and pretty hair, and I was the crazy music teacher who was going to be bald from tearing my hair out in chunks.  I couldn't shake it off.  I couldn't leave my classroom in my building.
Other than heavy drinking or punting the seven year olds you see at the supermarket, how do you unwind? How do you shake off a day that seems to be following you around? How do you cleanse the stress? Possibly more importantly, how do you convince yourself after a really long day or floundering and failing that you're a competent educator with very nice hair and that your students are not all spawn of hell demons?

Rookie of the Year

I graduated three months ago.  I walked across the stage, grabbed my fake diploma holder, shook the president's hand, and walked back to my seat.  I was radiating with a mixture of pride, newfound adulthood, and strong desire to get out of that arena and pack my stuff up and start my real life. 
Three weeks later, I had a job landed.  I was the brand new music teacher in Enumclaw, WA. I spent my summer looking at teaching magazines, apartment hunting on craigslist, and enjoying my last summer of riding around in gas guzzling trucks, couch surfing, and going on dates in the middle of the day on a Tuesday. I was getting ready to be a teacher and a real life grown up who plans lessons a month in advance, and drives an efficient sedan and has a small but nicely furnished apartment.

It's one week into the school year.  I'm currently sleeping on a mattress pad in the spare room of my best friend's barn loft apartment.  I loosely plan my lessons the weekend before, and firm up details as the week goes along.  I drive my same little toyota held together by epoxy and luck.  I'm still learning things like the location of the staff bathrooms, where I'm allowed to park, and that I AM in fact allowed to leave my classroom and the building to get coffee or food during lunch.  I am also learning the names of my 500-some phenomenal students.  We're having a blast.  I get to watch them dance, and I get a "thank you" and "you're awesome" from at least one student a day.  My colleagues have shown me their appreciation in forms like little gifts from my classroom, thank you emails, comments at lunch, and even a full on hug in front of some of my third graders.  This is nothing like I expected.  This is nothing like I was prepared for.  Some of it kind of sucks.  Some of it makes me laugh so hard my belly hurts. 
So I put together a blog. I wanted to record this time in my life.  This time in my life is going to be trying and joyous, difficult and telling.  I'm hoping that this blog serves as a way to share my day in day out funny stories with my family and friends, as well as a way to reflect on my success and mistakes.  Perhaps it will be a way to put my feelers out there for other young teachers and we can bond over our shared experiences.  Who knows.