Gettting to Know Myself

I remember the day I realized I was on the spectrum. I eight, maybe, sitting out in my dad's office while my rabbit stretched his legs on the floor. My mom had been watching a today show special that focused an autistic boy boy and his family, but she'd changed the channel as soon as she noticed me watching it. So I'd asked to take my rabbit, Luke Skywalker, to the office and turned it on out there.

And I saw parts of myself reflected in him. I tried to talk to my mom about it later and asked her if I was like the boy on tv. Her response was a hard no and outrage that I would even think that.

But that moment stuck with me. I learned something about myself that day.

I never talked about it again with my parents, but I thought back on it frequently over the years, often after people had teased me for being different.

I grew up in a small Alaskan village in the 90s, and although there were several of us that would grow up to realize we were on the spectrum we were never called autistic. We were simply "different." We weren't put in special classes or seperated in any way from our peers, but we were often encouraged to "fit in," to be more like the other kids.

Finally, in 3rd grade my mom realized I wasn't flourishing in public school and decided to homeschool me starting in 4th grade. With the pressure to fit in socially removed I flourish academically. My mom, a retired special education teacher, also worked hard to reduce my "differences" with mixed results.

By the time I returned to public school in 9th grade I was socially behind but academically advanced, but I learned quickly that because I had been homeschooled I was no longer considered "different." I now fit into the mold of "shy, smart kid."

Over the next four years, I made some friends and gained respect from the majority of my classmates as a quirky yet kind person who liked to bake.

By senior year I had made myself a name as a casual athlete, small business owner, and outstanding academic.

However, I wasn't one of those people who went off to college and found myself. I made a few close friends and had many others who would have loved to have been friends or who considered me a friend,  but I resisted, preferring to keep to myself.

I struggled with depression, anxiety, and unhealthy coping mechanisms as a result of years of child abuse (yeah I kinda glossed over that part since I wasn't abused because I was on the spectrum; I was abused because my mom has an undiagnosed mental illness, another post for another time) and suppressing half of who am.

After graduating college and at the suggestion of my dad, I moved back home to be there for my mom who had lost her mother the year before and was struggling with debilitating depression. It was hard going back home with the many unpleasant memories of not being able to be me, even in the privacy of my own home.

However, I was lucky to get a job at the local school, which I'd attended as a child, and with the help of several supportive coworkers who became friends I was able to continue getting to know myself and the person I truly am.

A few years later, when my mom was doing better, I took a teaching job and struck out on my own. There I found the acceptance and support I needed to continue getting to know myself.

I'm not sure if I'll ever be entirely comfortable in my own skin, especially after spending so many of my formative years learning how to not be myself, and I'm just now reaching a point where I can say "I'm the spectrum" outloud. But I feel each year I get closer to being "me."

Building Relationships with Students: Lunch with Teacher

 I've seen several posts asking about how to build relationships with students, so I wanted to share some of the things I've done for the past nine years to build relationships with my students.

Lunch with teacher is by far one of the most popular relationship builders I've done with students. Twice a month until I've made it through my entire class I randomly select 5 students to invite to lunch. I set up a time the week before for them to put their heads together and come up with what we're having and then I make it up over the weekend and pick them up after recess to join me for lunch either in our room or at a table in the cafeteria depending on their preference.

A lot of my students are impacted by food insecurity, and me making lunch for them has been a powerful connection. But it's also created an unexpected connection between my current and past students who love to pop in and see what the kids have decided on for the next lunch with teacher. Our principal will also usually drop in and have a slice of cake or something just to get a little facetime with the kids.

Here are a few pictures of things I've made for past lunches with teacher as inspiration (there are duplicates of each dish off camera, but I always stage a picture for them to see first thing in the morning the day of so they know I kept to my word).

                    

Creating Your Own Math Notebook

Over the past 10 years I've created notes for nearly a dozen different math, language arts, and science curricula, and I always start by looking at the structure of the textbook since most follow a consistent formula from lesson to lesson.

In the curriculum my school uses the first page of each lesson is usually an info dump or a think about it type of problem. With the exception of a few lessons this part usually isn't student friendly, leads to a lot of frustration, and has too much consolidated info, so I usually find the majority of the material for my notes on the second and third pages of each lesson in my book.

I try to limit what I put in my notes and spoken lesson to the 2-3 most important sentences from the book's lesson with blanks put in not for the bolded vocabulary words but for the smaller, yet still critical for understanding, words.

I've also noticed that a lot of curriculum give examples of how they want things worked out, and I love using these in my notebooks since I can highlight alternate ways to do the problems, have students compare back to the book, and have the kids use them for hints and answer checks.

                    

I've found that basing my spoken lesson off the notebook I've created for my students helps me to target my instruction and keep each lesson straightforward and easy to understand. 

The majority of my lesson and notebook is based off the book's examples with room for the kids to work them out themselves.

Giving Yourself Grace in the New School Year

 

Classroom Management that Doesn't Break the Bank Part 1

I'm a huge fan of classroom economies and have been using and creating them for the past four years.  

 

If you're unsure what I'm talking about, classroom economies are an intensive based type of classroom management system involving fake money that kids can earn and loose money based on behavior, and they can use their money to purchase things within the classroom.

Over the years I've been asked if I feel that I'm bribing my students or teaching them bad habits through monetizing tasks and behaviors instead of relying on intrinsic motivation, and I think the age and perspective of my student is a huge factor in why I feel comfortable using a classroom economy.

I teach 6th grade and my students respond very well to the idea of school as their "job," so getting paid for certain aspects of school (coming to school on time and prepared, being a good roll model to younger students, turning in their homework, and doing their classroom jobs) really resonates with them.

However, there are certain things I won't pay students for like doing their work in class or being respectful to me and other students. They can also get charged a fine (usually $10) if they break our classroom rule of "do nothing to keep others from learning." 

 

"How do You Create Worksheets?"

 I recently had a student teacher reach out to me with the question "How do You Create Worksheets?"

I wasn't the first person they had asked, but they gotten a lot of very general answers like "in Power Point" or "on Google Slides." However, I got the impression they were looking for something deeper, more of a how to than a where.

I wanted to share my answer in case anyone else out there had a similar question.

 I start out with a basic 7.5x11 Power Point Slide since you can put the elements flush against the edge of the slide and still end up with a gutter when its printed off, and Power Point is also easy to upload to Google Slides if you decide you do want it digital.

 

I like to keep my lines clean, but I did invest in some cute boarders to keep things visually appealing. After I've fitted my boarder to the page I like to start things off with a catchy title that I can reference any time I need kids to get something specific. Every writing project and recurring worksheet I use has a title. 

When I'm setting up the formatting, I'll often use several text boxes across the page to break things up and create a visual transition from one part of the task to the next. For fonts I like to use something crisp like Calibri or Comic Sans (my fav because of its readability and formatting for the "a") since dyslexia is very common in the community where I teach.

On occasion I'll use a little black and white clipart along the sides to spice things up, but I usually find it just clouds the "lines" of the layout and makes it hard for some of my students to follow the flow of the worksheet.

For variety and inspiration, here are a few examples of worksheets I've created.

This is one of my more recent worksheets. Here is the basic template I created to base all my vocabulary mapping worksheets off of. Having a base template for each type of assignment helps create a cohesive flow and gives the tasks consistency.

 I like to keep color graphics out of my worksheets, but I like to add a pop of color into some of my reference sheets, especially if the images are "busy" since I can use the colors to separate things out a bit.

I throw in a little Word every once in a while for very basic or highly compartmentalized worksheets because I prefer the table function in Word to that in Power Point.

I like to spice up my creative process here and there to keep things interesting, but these are my tried and true building blocks for creating worksheets and other things to use in my classroom. If you're trying to get started creating your own worksheets and have other questions about the process please let me know, I love to talk teacher shop.
    

How to Greive for Someone you Never Knew

I was sitting at a table eating lunch 600 miles from home when I heard the Kobe Bryant had died. This morning all I knew about him was he played basketball and several of my 6th grade students shout out his name with something unexpected happen.

You make a 3? "Kobe!" 

One of your classmates brings random cupcakes to class? "Kobe!"

Your friend asks a girl to mini prom and gets turned down? "Kobe!"


Even knowing next to nothing about the man other than he's famous, he played basketball, he died in a helicopter crash, and his daughter with him the one thing I did know about his death was that it would devastate several of my students and I wouldn't be there to help them through it. I almost immediately picked up my phone and fired off a text to my teacher bestie and my sub.

Kobe Bryant died in a helicopter crash today. Could you kind of keep an eye on how if at all that effects my kids tomorrow?

Other than that my plan was to by and large ignore it, but then I went on Facebook; the words no fairy tail ever started with...

A lot of teachers were talking about what if anything they should do to address, acknowledge, pay homage to the life and death of Kobe Bryant. The responses were a mixed bag and everyone had their own reasoning to back it up. Lets just say I learned more about various aspects of Kobe Bryant's life than I ever wanted to know.

Then I started getting texts from parents whose kids had been effected and coworkers who were unsure how to address the whole range of reactions they knew they were going to see in their rooms on Monday. I could name at least 2 boys off the top of my head who would be devastated, who according to parent texts already were beside themselves. Then on the other hand, I knew at least 2 other kids who would be next to clueless, perhaps even more so than I was. Add to that a wide range of kids with past traumas, dramatic kids, and kids who would be unsure how to feel about the loss not only of a person but of a commonly used expressive tearm, and I realized that I had to do something to give those who needed an outlet and outlet while respecting those who didn't feel the need to grieve.

So, between conference sessions I created a basketball acrostic poem using the word "baller," which like Kobe is a common term used in my room both as a replacement for cool and to describe someone who plays basketball. After a lot most angsting and debate than should have gone into choosing a graphic for an acrostic poem I settled on basketball faces showing a wide range of emotions.

Baller Acrostic Poems

In the end I intentionally made the prompt very open that students in our basketball centric town can use to express their feelings and opinions about what has happened, basketball, their favorite basketball team, their intramural basketball team, or even their own experiences or love for basketball.


Just being able to tell coworkers and parents that, even from 600 miles away and even though I couldn't physically be there for my students, I had a plan seemed to help, not just them but also me. If you need a resource for next week, a place for those affected to get their feels out while still giving those not affected a way to avoid being forced to talk about feelings they don't have for a man they don't know, here's a link to my Baller Acrostic Poems, which I'm marking as free for the rest of the week to make it easier for any teacher who needs an activity like this to gain access to it.