Monday, September 7, 2009

back to school jitters

I wonder how kids would feel if they knew that their teachers are just, if not more, nervous about the first day of school than the kids are. I must say I am way less panicked then last year. Just a low grade tummy ache. That is the pay off of staying at the same school for more than a year I guess. the hardest part for me is that I didn't get everything done and ready that I wanted to do before the start of school.
I did not get these things done:
The star chart reward system.
*make a holder for all the classes and kids names on cards
* get a list from each teacher to make cards for each kid
*Make a chart explaining the 6 steps to getting a star
*labeling the star chart
*Laminating all the center station choices
*Laminating all the teacher names
*Laminating the last two champs posters
*Make samples for the first project for 6th-8th
I'm sure a million other things I haven't thought of yet

At the top of the list I will need to laminate the teacher names and champs posters before school. Somehow I got stuck standing outside the school with a SUPER thick stack of papers listing what class all the kids are in. If I understood correctly they just finished the class lists on Thursday afternoon, the office was closed on Friday and today so that means NO kids know what class they are in. If this is true then four or five of us have to look up and direct over 530 students to find the correct class. That is the stupidest, most disorganized thing I have ever heard of. I suggested that we post the last lists in the window of each classroom and then on the front doors of the school. Apparently this is a safety liability. Great. I will be very interested to see how this works.

I did go back to the school on Thursday till 9:15pm after my dental cleaning and I got a lot of work done. I got a bunch of posters and deco up. I made several champs signs and made all my PBS rules into laminated papers for a matching game. We are going to CHAMP our four main aspects of art before we do the in-depth PBS rules. I want to Champ by having a very heavily guided class discussion. I hope I have champs memorized by now.
Conversation
Help
Actvity
Movement and
Participation

Conversation: Can students talk to each other during
this activity/transition?

Help: How can students ask questions during this
activity/transition? How do they get your attention?

Activity: What is the task/objective of this
activity/transition? What is the expected end
product?

Movement: Can students move about during this
activity/transition? Can they sharpen their pencil?

Participation: What does appropriate student work
behavior for this activity/transition look/sound like?

The problem with CHAMPs is that it Can get long and tedieus. I broke our class into
*starting class
*instruction time
*studio/work time
*clean up/end of class

I want this to be pretty short and simple. With the older grades we will get into the more explicit PBS rules.

Basicly I hate the first day of the school year because we have to do all this behavior stuff. And I admit I poop out on it and then my classroom can get hard to manage. I hope if I start out heavyer on the exepectations that the kids will behavie better this year.

Each class will look like this.
Line up outside the room.
"Welcome to art. Just like last year I am going to tell you what table color to go to. Please go into the room and directly to the table. The tables are marked with colored tape."
(kids go into the room, have a seat and have a min to get settled)
Shake tamborine and start with may I have your attention please. countdown from 5. Praise is quiet by 0.
"Wellcome to art. I hope you all had a fun and exciting summer. Something exciting that happend to me this summer is I got married. I changed my last name so I am now Mrs. Bauer. It is spelled Bauer but sounds like Bow-er, as in take a bow. Another new thing this year is our new classroom and our new tables. We are going to work together to take good care of our new room. We have lots of other really nice stuff in this room and we will talk about them more today and over the next few weeks. Right now we are going to start class with a drawing warm up called a brain stromer. This year everytime you come to art you will find a warm up waiting for you on the table. You have the first 3-5min of class to do the warm up. Each activity will help warm up your art brain and help you brainstorm ideas for your art. Todays brainstormer has a circle drawn in the middle and asks you to make a drawing that includes the circle. the drawing can be of something or it can be shapes, desgins and colors. I am not going to show an example because I want to see what you each come up with. I am going to pass out cups with pencials, erasers and pcencial sharpners and crayons for you to use. When five minuets have passed I will ring the tamborine again. This is just a warm up a quick, fun drawing. Don't get stuck on the details.
5min to work
Tamborine
Ok good work everyone. Before we leave we will put up our drawings so we can see all the ideas everyone had. Right now please put all the crayons away and put your drawings in the middle of the table.
Because this is the start of a new school year we need to reviwe are art room rules and expecations. The first part I bet you all know. I want you to think about what our four school expecations are. I put the first letter of each one on the board to help you. Raise your hand if you know one of them.
Get the four answers
Respectfull
Responsible
Safe
Kind

with those four expectations in mind we are going to make four champ charts. This is something Mr. Mcleron and I are both doing this year. together we are going to decided how we should work together during class.
First we are going to talk about expectations for starting class. When we make a Champs chart we talk about five things.
Converstation
Help
Activity
Movement and
Participation.

Because we have a lot of us making descions together we are going to give our oppion with thumps up, middle for so so or down. Then if we need to talk more about something we raise our hands and be called on. This can go really fast if we pay attention and work together. So we are going to start with comming into the room and getting started with our brainstormer. So thumbs up, middle or down is it ok to talk when we come into the room and do our warm up.
Yes. How loud should we be talking?
quietly
How do I get Mrs. Bauer's attention if I need help. Raise your hand or wait quietly at the door till everyone has been seated then talk to Mrs. Bauer.
What should I do when I first come in to class and durin brainstormer time. come in, go right to my table and start my brainstromer. Work on my brainstormer for five min.
Can I be moving around/out of my seat during this time. No right to my seat and then working on the brainstormer.
How do I participate ? be working on my warm up.

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