Dr. Seuss Giveaway

Have you seen the amazing giveaway that Donna from Kinderglynn

and 

Erica Bohrer's First Grade

are teaming up for? They are giving away Donna's entire Dr. Seuss unit which is over 100 pages long. I don't think you are going to want to miss out on this!

I Just Want a Job!

After talking with the principal yesterday, I have been working on my resume and letter of intent that I will submit with my applications. I understand that I am really going to have to sell myself with my resume and letter of intent. For you all who have applied for jobs recently, what do you suggest for length, is longer than a page acceptable? Do you list your references on the resume? With the job market being so tough this year, I am really wanting to make a good impression with this. I am hoping that the principal will look at both and tell me what he thinks too.

This evening was the 4th grade production that the music teacher puts on every year. They did Annie and it was so cute. The kids were all so excited that I made it back in time for the play and I am sure they will still be talking about it tomorrow. I wish I would have gotten some pictures because they all looked so cute! 

Hope you all have a wonderful Friday, it is for sure my favorite day of the week...I wonder why?!?

First Observation...Check!

Today was my first observation by my field supervisor and I was very pleased with how it went. I got 112 of 120 possible points and fell right into the middle of the Proficient category which is the highest that you can get. Honestly, I was a little surprised that I scored so high just because I did not think that she would do that on the first one. The things that I got counted off for were not big ones either, and one was because one of my friends unfortunately did not take her medicine this morning and she was a little out of control and I had to do lots of redirecting with her. 

When I am teaching I do lots of think-pair-shares and also having the students give me a thumbs up if they agree and a thumbs down if they disagree. One of the statements that I asked them was false so they were supposed to have their thumb down. I noticed one of my brighter students had his thumb sideways and I was a little confused so I called on him to share his thoughts with us. I had to giggle though when he said that the statement was false but he refused to give me a thumbs down because he is an Aggie and they do not do that. It was too cute! 

Another one of the really good kid moments from my lesson was when we were talking about organisms and that an organism is a living thing. As part of this, I asked the students to tell us their favorite organism. One of my boys informed me that Baby Jesus was his favorite organism. I just had to smile because Baby Jesus would be considered an organism and I just loved the answer. 

My observation form is a carbon copy and one is for me, one for my field supervisor, one for my mentor teacher, and then one copy also goes to the principal. After school I went down to the office to give the principal his copy and we ended up chatting for a while. We did a little mini interview and he gave me some advice about my resume and also some sample interview questions. He also told me that I am guaranteed an interview for any open positions on the campus, but that I would not necessarily just be given the job. I really respect him for that and am glad to know that I will at least get an interview. With the job market being so tough this year, he told me that I really need to sell myself. I'm hoping that my interview will go well whenever it might be. I need to get working on my resume now so that he can help me with it. 

Hope everyone's week has been wonderful, here is to it almost being Friday!

Inherited Traits

Tomorrow is my first observation by my field supervisor and I am nervous, but feel very prepared. Lucky for me, the 4th grade teachers have completely rewritten the CScope curriculum and created power points for all of the science lessons. Since there is not really any text support in CScope you pretty much have to do something like this. If you use CScope in your district, how do you all supplement the material?

For my lesson tomorrow, I decided that I wanted to create a few things for the kids to do to make it a little more interactive. In part of the lesson, the students sketch two organisms and then have to figure out if they are related or not. I made a simple graphic organizer for them to use for that and I also created a notes page that they can add to throughout the unit. It will make students list different examples of the traits as well as writing the definition for the three types of traits that we are going to focus on. The lesson plan that I have to create for my field supervisor requires an extension so I created what I thought would be a fun home-school assignment that the students can do that won't take too long either. Not too sure how many of you all could use these resources, but I thought somebody might be interested in them. 

Are We Related? Worksheet

Inherited, Learned, or Instinctive Worksheet

Inherited Traits Extension Activity

Inherited Traits Letter Home for Extension Activity

Inherited Traits Vocabulary Concentration Cards

I still cannot figure out how to do the screenshot when I am using Google Docs, does anyone know of a tutorial that I can use for that? I am thinking about just putting it on Teachers Pay Teachers and just make them free. If you sell on TpT, how do you like it? I am considering setting up an account to sell some things that I have created and will be creating in the future.

A Little Blog Love!

First off, have you seen the amazing giveaway that Erica is having over on her blog? She is giving away not one, but two signed copies of her book Reading Response Activity Sheets for Young Learners that has been published by Scholastic. It ends at midnight tonight so hurry on up and enter over at her blog! 

My very sweet friend, Mrs. Claborn, also awarded me with the Stylish Blogger award! I have known her for several years now because of camp, and hope that I can be as a great of a teacher as her one day! 

The Rules

1. Thank and link back to the person who awarded you this award. 

2. Share 7 things about yourself.

3. Award 5 great recently discovered bloggers

4. Contact those bloggers and tell them about the award

So 7 things about Miss Klohn...

1. I am absolutely loving my student teaching in a 4th grade inclusion classroom. It for sure has had its challenges since there are 5 SPED kids in the class, but all of the rewards and a-ha moments for sure out weigh the bad. Plus, have I mentioned just how amazing my mentor teacher is...she rocks!

2. I am really scared about finding a job for the fall with all of this budget mess with education in Texas. I know that God will provide and there will be one for me, but I would really like to start here in Fredericksburg. We will see though.

3. I have pretty much known my entire life that I wanted to be a teacher. I really believe that teaching is one of those things that you just know you are supposed to do. 

4. I am slightly obsessed with children's books, and currently own over 300 already for my future classroom. Yes, a tad too many but I want my students to have lots of choices to pick from. I have actually already labeled them all with their AR levels and quiz numbers too. Just need a classroom library to put them all in now. 

5. I am considering taking the 4-8 generalist test just to make myself more marketable...what are your thoughts? I am also planning on taking the ESL supplement too in June. 

6. I cannot go near a teacher store because I always find something to buy. I just love all of the fun borders and letters for my bulletin boards. My thought has been if I by those things here and there now, I will not be spending so much money when I have my first classroom. 

7. I want to have a theme for my classroom, but am not sure if I would want to do a sports theme or Hollywood. Do you have a theme in your room, if so, what is it? 

I am giving the Stylish Blogger Award to these wonderful teachers...

Hadar

One Extra Degree

Second Grade is Splendid

The Caffeinated Teacher

Miss Knight

Hope you are having a fabulous weekend and maybe even get to enjoy the long weekend! We have teacher inservice on Monday, boo!

I Love my 4th Graders!

I got some really great pictures of my kiddos this week and I can share them now with you all after getting some signed releases. A reporter from the newspaper was also there today to capture some to use in the paper for Texas Public Schools Week. I cannot wait to see all of their writing in the paper. 

I just love this picture. It really captures the kids personalities so well! 

The kids had early release today to allow for parent conferences, but we did not have any so it turned into a nice afternoon. We have inservice on Monday and luckily we do not have to go to the CScope math training. We are hoping to get some serious planning knocked out during the day. We will see how that goes though.

I have my first official observation set up with my field supervisor for next Wednesday. I am nervous, but am pretty confident that I will do just fine. I am excited because it means one step closer to graduation!

Fabulous in First Giveaway

Have you seen the amazing giveaway over at Fabulous in First? She is giving away everything that is in her TpT store to two lucky winners! I am really hoping that I am one of them. The giveaway will end on Friday at 8pm. Be sure and swing by to enter!

Resume Help and Center Update

I am beginning to apply for jobs, but am not too sure about my resume. What categories do administrators want to see? As tough as it is going to be to get a job here in Texas this year, I want to make sure that they are really impressed with my resume and cover letter. If anyone wants to look at mine and critique it for me I would love that or if you have a really great format for yours that you think would help me would be great too. You can e-mail me at k.e.klohn@gmail.com or if you are interested just leave me your e-mail and I will send it to you. If you are a Texas teacher, I am sure you are familiar with the Texas Association of School Administrators job search, I pretty much stalk it every day!

Monday was day one of using centers during our ELA block and it has been such a hit. The kids love it and I also think that they have been able to get more out of the content because of the small groups. I am most excited for my center tomorrow because we are going to do the conversation hearts writing activity that I posted last week. I hope they really like it and are creative with their quotations. I am ready for the writing TAKS to be over though so that we can not work so much on writing and can dedicate more time to the center activities. 

Something else that has been pretty exciting this week in 4th grade, is that our class was selected to write for the local newspaper for the upcoming Texas Public Schools Week. One 4th grade and one 5th grade class was selected. We were given 2 topics for the kids to write about that are really pretty fun. The topic we have been working on the past two days was "What do you think school will be like in the year 2050?" They were so creative and I am hoping that if they are in the paper I can share some of them with you all. They wrote about things like inventing exploding homework in science class, anti-gravity classrooms where if you get in trouble the teacher just turns on the gravity switch and you fall to the floor, and robot teachers. I am pretty sure none of that will happen, but it has been fun seeing what their imaginations think of. The topic that we are starting tomorrow is for them to plan a day at school where their parents join them. The newspaper lady is coming on Thursday to take pictures of them too. 

Hope that everyone survived Valentine's Day on Monday! I cannot wait to plan my own Valentine's party next year!

Centers in 4th Grade

My mentor teacher and I have decided to revamp the ELA block and introduce centers to the students each week. I am really excited about it because I think that it is really going to help us to differentiate our instruction more efficiently. Next week I will be responsible for the grammar center and I will be meeting with the small groups each day. We are also going to have a skill center that Mrs. I will do and it is going to be on Author's Perspective and Author's Purpose. The other two centers will be self-managed and will be spelling and independent reading. I hope the kids will be as excited about them as I am. 

In the grammar center we are going to be focusing on using quotations correctly and also punctuating them correctly too. I was having a hard time finding some worksheets that I really liked so I decided to create my own. 

Conversation Hearts Paragraph

Do I Need Quotation Marks?

Quotation Marks Practice

Quotation Marks Quiz

I am still trying to figure out Google Docs, is there a way that I can embed it in my post? If you can help me let me know! In the meantime, I hope you enjoy the free printables!

First Lesson...Success!

Today was my first official teaching day in the classroom. My first subject that I am taking over is Science and today's lesson was on shadows and what causes them to happen on earth. Since the district has C-Scope, which I am not a big fan of, for Science, the 4th grade team has pretty much dissected it and created power points for each lesson in the units that are being covered. It is really great since C-Scope does not really have any text support with it. Does your district use C-Scope? The district where I am student teaching is also adding it for math in the fall which should be interesting. We have been using Sharon Wells which I really like even though it is all worksheets. 

I started my planning for next weeks Language Arts today and I am really getting excited about doing the centers approach with the kids. I think that it is going to be helpful in meeting the educational needs of all the students in the class since they are all so different from one another. I am going to be responsible for the grammar lessons next week which are going to be on quotation marks. That has been the focus for this week, but they kids have struggled with it thus far. Do any of you all have any suggestions for teaching quotations? I have found a few really good websites, but want to find or create a game of some sort too for them to play. 

One last question, what do you give your kiddos for Valentine's day? I found a memory Valentine's game at Target over the weekend and the cards are so cute. I think I am going to just make a label and stick it on the back of the cards and they will become my cards to the kids. Do you usually give them a little treat too?

Leslie also sent me a preview of my header last night and I love it! I cannot wait to share it with all of you!

I Love My Class!

I cannot even begin to tell you all how amazing my mentor teacher is! Today we discussed the plan for me as far as teaching and she also got me started with some great resources for next week. She is even going to let me start teaching Science on Monday even though I am not supposed to do anything until Thursday of next week. We also talked about totally revamping the ELA block to incorporate centers and small group instruction since the needs of the kids are so diverse. I am really looking forward to this. Do any of you all who teach 3rd grade or up use centers/work stations in your classroom? I am trying to get some ideas of how to set it up. 

This weekend I am headed to Austin all weekend for volleyball so that means a stop at Teacher Heaven too. I am hoping to find some good resources that I can use to help plan for my work stations that the kids will enjoy too. Hopefully I can walk out of there without spending too much money, but we all know how that goes. 

Happy almost Friday, which means the weekend is almost here! :)

Day 1 Update

My first day of official student teaching was way better than I ever could have expected. The kids were so excited to see me and Mrs. I already let me even do some teaching today. I got to do part of the math lesson with the kids and I pretty much did the entire last hour of the day too which included science and also getting them packed up to go home. I also found out today that the SPED teacher is no longer going to be with us in the mornings which is going to be a good thing. Mrs. I and I were already talking this afternoon about how we can make the ELA block much more interesting and also challenging for the kids. If today is any indication of what the next 12 weeks are going to be like, I cannot wait. 

This morning I also took a note to the principal to thank him for allowing me the opportunity to student teach at FES. I think he was a little surprised by the gesture but I really hope that it was the right thing to do especially since I would love to teach there in the fall! I figured that it could not hurt anything. 

____________________________________________________________________

I am also linking up today with one of my favorite teacher blogs for a Meet the Teacher blog hop.

I am currently a 22 year old senior at Schreiner University where I will graduate from in May with a degree in elementary education. I just started my 12 weeks of student teaching today in a 4th grade inclusion classroom. I cannot wait to have my own classroom in the fall hopefully in the school district where I am student teaching. I have been subbing for the past 3 years when I have not had class and have loved getting to experience every grade before having to teach full time. Reading is my favorite subject and I cannot wait to read books to my classes no matter how old they are. 

Now for the questions...

Q: What would you be doing if you were not a teacher?

A: If I was married with a family I would love to be a SAHM, but I have a feeling I would miss teaching too much. My 2nd choice though would be a professional photographer.

Q: What are your hobbies?

A: When I am not reading, I love to coach volleyball and take pictures. I am also really active as a volunteer with the youth group at my church which has been such an amazing experience. 

Q: When you were little, what did you want to be when you grew up?

A: I wanted to be a doctor or lawyer when I was younger. Teaching is about as a far as away from those two things as you can get. Maybe I will just marry a doctor or lawyer!

Q: What are your guilty pleasures?

A: Diet Coke, Teen Mom, Survivor, tote bags, Vera Bradley and 31 gifts, White Chocolate Mochas at Starbucks, my Kindle.

Q: What is your biggest fear?

A: Right now it would have to be getting a job for the fall. All of these budget cuts in Texas are really scaring me!

Q: When you're on vacation, where do you like to go?

A: I could spend all summer at the lake! I just love starting the day reading on the deck and then riding around on the jet ski.

Q: What's the best advice you have ever received?

A: Don't sweat the small stuff...but I have a hard time doing that most of the time! 

Q: What do you value most in others?

A: Trust. I have really struggled with this during my lifetime but am so glad that I have people in my life right now who I fell like I can really trust.

Q: If you could choose one of your personality traits to pass down to your kids, what would it be?

A: I am going to have to agree and say my sense of humor. Humor makes life so much more interesting and really adds some spice to it.

Q: If you could have lunch with anyone in the world...living or dead...who would it be?

A: Jesus, Princess Diana, and my kindergarten teacher because she was amazing!!!

One Random Fact...

Believe it or not, I am a 22 year old who has never been kissed. I am anxiously awaiting my HTB to be placed into my life by God. 

Head on over to The First Grade Parade and link up!

P.S. Be sure and head on over to my personal blog to check out my amazing giveaway! 

Almost Time

Tomorrow is the big day when my student teaching begins. I am nervous, but so excited all at the same time. I am lucky since I already know all of the kids and also am familiar with the classroom. I cannot imagine walking in for the first day and not knowing anything about the class, students, or mentor. I am finishing my last research paper right now for my classes and then just have to submit it through email.

I am hoping to blog at least 2 or 3 times a week about student teaching, but we will see. I have a feeling that might be a little more difficult as I get into the full teach portion of it. 

I am also having a giveaway over on my personal blog that I think a lot of my teacher friends would really enjoy!