Around the Classroom

Here are a few pictures of the students in the classroom one day. They had a bit of free time to read, draw pictures, or work puzzles.

Field Trip to the Puszta

On the Friday of Stanford Testing week the whole elementary of GGIS (all 70ish of us) took a field trip to the Puszta! It was a ranch type place where some champion race horses live. The kids got to see the horses, go to a petting zoo, take a horse carriage ride, play on a great playground, and watch a horse show. They loved it!

I also loved it! This was my first field trip experience on the "teacher" side of things and it was a great experience to have.

Here are a few pictures from the day:

Stanford Testing and a Baby Turtle

The week of April 11th, we had Standford Testing Monday-Thursday. The students took tests all morning long and then in the afternoons we had some fun. :) One of the fun activities was watching a "baby turtle" hatch. It was not a real turtle. One of the teachers went to America and while she was there she found these eggs that when they were put in water they would gradually hatch a baby animal over a week.  Here are the pictures of our baby turtle, Shelly, hatching.

Day One: Egg in a bucket of water

Day Two: Here she comes!

Day Three: A little more progress

Day Four: A little farther!

Day Five: Meet Shelly the Turtle

Spirit Week at GGIS

This week was Spirit Week at Greater Grace International School where the school dressed up in different outfits each day to show school spirit.

Monday: Pajama Day

Tuesday: Cartoon/Movie Day

Here is one of my EAL students who has recently started really coming out of his shell! I love this picture of him:

A super secret spy...too cute! :)

Wednesday: Old People Day
 Here are some of the teachers (Prep-One, 1st grade, 2nd grade) and two administrators:

I love the look Saki (the girl in the picture) is giving the boys. Definitely a typical look!

Thursday: Cowboy/Indian Day (We in the 2nd grade went with the cowboy look)

That was a cute picture but here is what we are really like! Yee-haw!

Friday: Black/Blue Day (The 2nd grade wore black):

Measure with Feet and Inches

We learned how to measure with feet and inches this past week. The kids had fun measuring each other and how long our classroom was. The girls even measured the hallway for us. They seemed to enjoy it and learned the concept well!

Number Hospital: Doctors in Training!!

Today for math class we learned how to write numbers in expanded form. If you are a little dusty on this term here is an example: 327 written in expanded form is 300+20+7. To teach this concept our classroom transformed into a Number Hospital where sick numbers came.

Before the 2nd grade could see their number patients or perform any operations they had to be trained first. During this training time I, the expert number doctor, taught how to write a number in expanded form because our large number patients were getting sick from being so close to its fellow numbers. I showed them how to carefully cut apart the numbers and how to add zeros to make sure the 300 did not become a 3 or the 20 become just a 2, etc. I also explained the rare cases they might see of numbers coming in written in expanded form but needing to be put back together. So we learned how to write 300+20+7 = 327. After this they were ready to be doctors! I handed out their "Dr." name tags and their surgical masks. They then received 4 patience (ie, numbers to write in expanded form). The students worked carefully on their operations and successfully healed many numbers!

It was a fun activity! I am proud of all my little number doctors! :)

Caught Being a Good Citizen of Our School

In a recent history lesson we learned about being a good citizen of our country. To make this concept a little more personal for my students I decided to have them do an activity I called "Caught Being a Good School Citizen". I assigned each student another student's name. They were supposed to watch their person for the next and write down any time they saw their person do something "good citizen-like" for the class/school. At the end of the time period, we cut out some badges that said "I'm a Good Citizen!" and everybody colored for their person. On the back of the badges the students wrote something that they saw the other person doing that was good. We then had a little ceremony where everyone presented their badges to the person they watched. The students then wore the badges around school for the rest of the day!

Blue and Blew

Teaching the difference between "blue" and "blew" can be tricky for any second grader, but especially so for students who have English as an additional language. So, to help my EAL students learn the difference I wrote a story using the words "blue" and "blew" many times. I read through the story while going through the powerpoint with the pictures first, as an anticipatory set. I then asked if they heard two words that sounded very similar. They all said, "Blue!" Then I taught the difference in spelling and meaning.

As a closing activity I read through the story again. This time they each had two pieces of paper - one was colored blue with the word "blue" written on it; the other was a cloud with the word "blew" on it. As I read through the story for the second time we held up the corresponding piece of paper every time the word was read. The students enjoyed this and it seemed to help them understand the difference.

Below is the story I wrote. I am not sure how to post the powerpoint pictures I used to go along with the story, but you can see the first one above.

The BLUE  and BLEW Story

Once upon a time there was a boy who lived in a BLUE house. He liked to play in a field with his BLUE kite. This boy loved watching as the wind BLEW his BLUE kite high up in the BLUE sky and would play with it for hours every day.

One day the BLUE kite BLEW into a tree and the boy could not get it down. The boy began to cry. A woman in a BLUE dress came walking by and saw the boy crying. “Why are you crying?” asked the woman in the BLUE dress. “The wind BLEW my BLUE kite into the tree and I can’t get it down,” the boy answered. The woman in the BLUE dress said, “You should find a long stick to poke it out with.” “Good idea!” the boy said.

The woman in the BLUE dress walked away and the boy ran to find a stick. He finally found a long stick covered with dirt. He picked it up and BLEW the dirt off of it. He then tried to poke his BLUE kite out of the tree. Sadly, the BLUE kite did not come out and the boy began to cry again.

This time a man came walking by carrying a BLUE ladder and humming a song. He saw the boy and asked, “Why are you crying?” “The wind BLEW my BLUE kite into the tree and I can’t get it down,” the boy answered. The man with the BLUE ladder said, “Do not cry anymore! I will use my BLUE ladder to get your BLUE kite out of the tree.”

So, the man with the BLUE ladder climbed up the tree and got the boy’s BLUE kite down. “Thank you very much!” the boy said. He was very happy to have his BLUE kite. The boy began to play with his BLUE kite again and laughed as the wind BLEW his BLUE kite high up in the BLUE sky.

Placement 2: Greater Grace International School, Budapest, Hungary

I am now in Budapest, Hungary student teaching in a 2nd grade classroom at Greater Grace International. I have 9 students:  4 from Hungary, 3 from Korea, 1 from Japan, and 1 from Sweden. They all speak English and all the teaching is done in English.

It has been a great experience so far! I am enjoying the small class size and multiculturalism of our classroom.

I have only been here for 2 weeks but I am already teaching many subjects, which has been great! The first lesson I taught in this placement was rough as I forgot how it was to start over again with a new group of students. I had gotten so used to teaching the last group of kids at Meigs North and they were used to my teaching, that I had forgotten what it was like to start with a new group. But, I think it was good that I got that reminder. It was a good lesson to see as I will have a new group of students every year when I begin teaching.

It has been a great placement so far and I am looking forward to the rest of my time here at GGIS!

Last Day at Meigs North Elementary

Friday was my last day at Meigs North Elementary. All my little students made me cards and my teacher gave me a bucket full of teaching supplies for the future. This was a wonderful first placement and I will truly miss my first students!

My next placement will be in Budapest, Hungary at Greater Grace International School. I am getting ready to leave on Thursday of this week to travel there!

Class Pictures

A couple of weeks ago we had class pictures. My teacher insisted that I be in their picture. I was hesitant to do so since I was only there for 7 weeks, but I am glad I did now! They had a couple of extra pictures and my teacher gave me one of them. So here is my first class picture:

Hat Day

Last week we had a Hat Day at school to raise money for a charity. The kids loved wearing their hats to school for $1. Some of them had pretty cute hats!

Valentine's Day!

Today was Valentine's Day! We had our party this afternoon. The kids made valentine bags last week and they put each other's valentine's in them. Oh what fun they had! We had ice cream sundaes for snack. The kids put lots of goodies on them. Thankfully it was a beautiful warm day outside and we were able to let them run and play for an hour afterwards. :)

The Promethean Board

Each classroom at this school has a Promethean Board. We use ours quite frequently! The kids love to draw on it and to play games. Recently the teachers were given wands to help their kids reach the top of the boards. The students absolutely loved them and begged me for days to use them. We used them one day to practice recognizing our High Frequency Words for the week.