SBAC in a Picture

No words needed..

Then and Now

When I was going through my grandmothers things I came across this letter of hire dated March 19, 1951. She was a teacher in my current district! "Recent changes in teachers' pay schedule will bring you an annual salary of $3,000."

New Teachers Conference

Yesterday I spent the morning at a new teachers conference at Mohegan Sun with another new 4th grade teacher in my school. We sat in on a session titled "Common Core and You." It was so encouraging to speak with other professionals dealing with the same struggles. I was expressing my concerns that I feel like I don't utilize my paraprofessional and another teacher gave me some great advice. She suggested sending my high students to work with my para instead of my low kids. After thinking about it for a moment I realized how smart this idea was. My high kids and my para could work off a rubric, freeing me up to help my most struggling students.

And if I had known the amount of free stuff given away at these conferences, I would have signed up a long time ago...

Fourth Grade Friendships

The first Monday of every month I ask my students to write down three friends they would like to sit near. I do this for two reasons. First, it helps me get an inside look at who is friends with who, but it also allows me to see who is having a hard time making friends and gives me an opportunity to nudge my students to include a particular student or pair up students who will be accepting and kind to those who struggle with making friends on their own. I keep all their cards filed away by month, and it is amazing to see the changes in friendships. Every so often I will get a card that completely catches me off guard. This past week I collected the April cards and came across this one…Number 2 spot, not too bad! :)

Who's teaching who?

I knew my first year of teaching was going to be challenging (they told me so in the interview). I spent most of my first three months trying behavior plans and reading articles on hyperactive students in an attempt to help one child, in particular, control herself long enough to sit through a lesson. I was in constant contact with her mother, which helped keep things consistent between home and school. I started keeping data on when and where her behaviors were effecting her the most. I spent countless nights thinking, "What can I do to help her?" I asked other teachers on my team, the school psychologist, the special education teachers, and our principal. The student knew her behavior effected her school work. We had conversations daily about what she could do better and what she needed from me. I started to feel guilty putting so much time and energy into one student. I had 21 other students who deserved just as much attention and support. As we neared Christmas I started seeing a significant change in her behavior. She was sitting quietly and knew to ask for a break when she needed one. We had made real progress and we had made a real connection. She was earning her reward regularly (playing legos on the rug during the last 10 minutes of school). She loved it because legos are awesome but I grew to love this time as well. It gave me a chance to chat with her about things other than fractions and persuasive writing. She made my classroom fun and her classmates and I truly enjoyed her being part of our class. 

At the beginning of January I got the unexpected news that she was going to be moving- in two days. I couldn't believe it! I spent most of those last two days telling her how much she had improved and how proud I was of her. I had to hold back tears and be strong for her. I told her she was going to do wonderfully at her new school, but secretly I wasn't so sure. She needed me and I needed her. 

As I was cleaning out my classroom the other day I came across her composition notebook. As I was reflecting on how far we had both come since those first few months of school, I flipped to this page.

I immediately picked up the phone and called her. She didn't believe me when I told her it was Miss Montambault. We chatted for a while and she told me all about her new school. We set up a date next week and she is coming back to visit! I haven't told the kids yet but I know they will be as excited as I am! 

I bet if I tell my grandpa he will tell all his friends

After the initial introduction to blogging I was immediately in awe of the enthusiasm my students had once they found out their writing was going to be published. Every morning they came in asking, "Can we check the blog? Did you approve my comments?" It was incredible to listen to the conversations occurring during morning work and during writing class. They were giving each other ideas for their writing and talking about ways to improve each other's writing. Some even found similarities in their writing.

This past week I introduced Mrs. Banville's 3rd grade class writing blog to my students. We checked out some of their blogs! I had to hold back laughter at some of my kids verbal comments as they read through the blogs of students they didn't even know. "Wow, he can write pretty good for a 3rd grader," "He is definitely the class clown," "I bet if we were in the same class we would be friends." Already, through one blog post, my students were getting a sense of who these mystery 3rd graders were through their writing! It didn't take long for my students to ask, "Can we make comments on their blogs and ask them to make comments on ours (my plan all along)?!" I acted confused and posed the question, "Why should we comment on their blogs? We don't even know them." I learned real fast why we should comment. My students were outraged that I would even ask such a question. "Miss Montambault, it doesn't matter if we know them or not! We could help them with their writing and they could help us! That's all the matters!" So we did.

We spent the afternoon reading Mrs. Banville's student's blogs and adding comments. The next day at lunchtime as I was passing my class's lunch table walking to the teacher's lounge I overheard this conversation (It was too good not to write down before I started my lunch):
"Do you think Eric (a student in Mrs. Banville's class) finished his list of 101 ways to bug your teacher?"
"I commented on it but it will probably take him 100 years to finish a list that long."
"Yah but anyone can comment and there are like a billion people in the world."
"We should tell all the people we know to comment and then he will fill his list fast."
"I bet if I tell my grandpa he will tell all his friends."

This was lunch conversation! How can you beat that?!

Our experience blogging

After tweeting with so many awesome educators during our online class on February 18th I felt encouraged and empowered to start blogging with my students. I had idea after idea running through my head. I barely slept that night. I went into school extra early Wednesday morning to sign up for the laptop cart (every week until SBAC testing). I pulled up some old and new material on what it means to be a digital citizen and the importance of being safe online and I was ready to go. My kids were SO excited when I told them we were going to be learning about being responsible on the internet so that we could eventually start blogging. They had so many "what if" questions and so many stories to share about their experiences on the internet. It sparked some great conversations. I started off by using a resource suggested by Marialice about making Paper Blogs first with students to prepare them for online blogging. We talked about what a blog is, what features a blog has, what tags are and how they are useful, what we will be blogging about, and how to give helpful comments. The paper blogs came out awesome! Once the blogs were done, students took time to comments on each other's with sticky notes. I was shocked at the responses from even my most stubborn writer's. They were hooked! They were begging me to get the laptop cart so they could get their blogs up and running.

The next morning we got on the laptops and I showed my students how to log on. We created our posts together and then practiced giving each other comments. It was a bit overwhelming because I had to approve all their posts and comments in that moment so they could respond to each other but we managed. Later that evening I pulled out my computer to show my mom our classroom blog and I had 27 comments awaiting approval all submitted after school hours! I had several students blogging from home! I wanted this excitement to stick! As I was reading, approving, and replying I started to realize that not only were my students being forced to work on their writing skills, but I was spending hours giving constructive feedback. I immediately recognized the difference between the authentic comments I was replying with and the check marks and smiley faces I was so used to giving on paper.

As I sat back and watched as my brilliant fourth graders helped each other through the blogging experience I found myself in the midst of a wonderful teaching opportunity. One of my girls posted in her blog that her grandmother made homemade pasta with her secret recipe, while another girl commented saying that her aunt had a secret recipe as well. A third student commented on the post asking for the secret recipes. I then posed the question, "Why should you never post secret recipes online?" The first response back was, "We are sorry Miss Montambault. It won't happen again." I brought this up the next morning in class and we talked about how everything on the internet stays there forever. The girls soon caught on and agreed that secret recipes are best kept off the internet.

So far it has been a wonderful experience. I am learning as I go which is a little scary. I like to have a plan, and if I am being honest I really don't have one. Should I be encouraging blogging from home or should I keep it strictly to something we do together in school? What should my students be blogging about? We talked about the importance of rereading and proofreading before submitting posts and comments but some of my students don't know when to use capitalization and don't see anything wrong with their run-on sentences and grammar mistakes. How do I address this?

First Year Teaching

I spent the last week of my summer rearranging desks, making name tags, labeling books, and practicing writing "Miss Montambault" in my neatest hand writing on the board. Every desk had two perfectly sharpened #2 pencils, a school agenda, and a school folder placed strategically on the left side, and a StoryTown text book on the right side. I even bought, hemmed, and hung curtains. I was ready.

Days later my first class arrived. Twenty-one little bodies scooted into my classroom. Twenty-one children looking me in the eye silently begging me to teach them, accept them, love them.

While teaching often feels like a series of codes (PLC's, DRA's, IEP's, PPT's, SRBI), I have come to learn that while data collection is important and drives instruction, it is my students who drive me. My students are the reason I get up every day and come into school with well thought out lesson plans. My students are the reason I stay late on Fridays decorating the room, and making colorful morning messages. My students are the reason I spend $1,980 per graduate class in hopes of connecting with other educators that will help me provide resources and materials that will create an exciting and engaging learning environment.