Day 28: Religion

Religion.
This is something that is labeled as "better safe than sorry." So most teachers just don't teach this. But here in Norway they do teach it. They have two hours of religion a week where they learn about different religions.
Today I got to teach about my religion. I got to tell the students all about what I believe, when I go to church, where I go to church and other things like this. I was not teaching them to convert them, but rather to inform them. The more students know the smarter they are. The more they understand the better they will be able to accept other people they meet who may have different views.
The study of religion is one thing I wish the United States would adopt. But I guess I will have to keep to the casual mention rather than an entire lesson.

For English today I did mad-libs with the students. It was how to talk like a pirate. This is the story we ended up with:
"Ye can always pretend to be a bloodthirsty DESK, threatening everyone by waving yer CRAZY sword in the air, but until ye learn to GO like a pirate, ye'll never e UNDER accepted as an authentic LADY. So here's what ye do: Cleverly work into yer daily conversations BLACK pirate phrases such as "Ahoy there, PIRATES," "Avast, ye GIRLS," and "Shiver me SANTAS." Remember to drop all yer gs when ye say such words as sailin', spittin', and fightin'. This will give ye an ARM start to being recognized as a swashbuckln' baby wipe. Once ye have the lingo down pat, it helps to wear a three-cornered MAN on yer head, stash a LIVER in yer pants, and keep a NOSE perched atop yer EAR. Aye, now ye be a real pirate."
One student asked me "What does swashbucklin' mean?" that was an interesting question to answer.

In the lunch room the sun was in my eyes. I said "Look! I can see the sun!"
One of the other teachers looked up suddenly and said "Something must be wrong."

Day 27: Interview with a Celebrity

Ronny asked me if I would be willing to let the 5th graders interview me in English today. I told him I should and asked him if he wanted me to dress up at all. His suggestion... was great!

Me as Anna and the 5th grade class

Ronny had told the kids that they were going to get to interview a celebrity straight from Hollywood. When I walked into the classroom, you should have seen the kids faces. They knew it was me, but they couldn't really get past the fact that I was also Anna from Frozen (or Frost as it is known here). They asked me all sorts of questions, and I answered them as Anna. This lesson was really good for the students because they wanted to ask the questions. They had to come up with the questions first and then ask them, and nearly everyone asked the questions.

This is something that I want to have in my classroom. I want to have different characters, fictional or real, come into my classroom. So I am going to need a lot of different people willing to help me with this. My mom has already said she was willing to help me. When I was little my mom had a friend who would dress up as different people for my birthday parties. I loved having her come. We could all dress up with her and we loved it. 

I also taught the 7th graders about adverbs. Once again, I found a very annoying song to help them remember what an adverb was. Then we made a anchor chart of adverbs so they could remember them later. 

Day 26: Thanksgiving

Today marks the first Thanksgiving I have ever spent away from my family. It also marks the first time in a nearly 10 years my family is having Thanksgiving at my Grandma's house. Needless to say, I am feeling the 4,744 miles it is between Norway and Utah.

However, being in a country that does not celebrate Thanksgiving gives me an excellent opportunity to teach other people about my culture and tradition. So I created a small slideshow and presented it to my 4th grade class. They were interested in the Indians and Pilgrims. But they were VERY interested in all of the food. They really enjoyed learning about it, I think. I wish I had the forethought to make some of the foods for them so they could try them. Maybe I can make at least one of them next week. Perhaps a banana cream pie? Or stuffing...

I am increasing my knitting skills. Hilde taught me how last week and I finished my first hand warmer... it is a little lumpy and obviously not as perfect has hers are, but overall I thought it went well. I started my second one that I think it is going to turn out very good! Maybe I can give these for Christmas presents! It might not come from Norway but it certainly was inspired by Norway!

Day 25: Add to my Toolbelt

Hilde and I were talking about things I want to bring to my classroom and we had some pretty good ideas.

1. Parent Communication
I want to call 2 or 3 parents every weekend and tell them something good their student did that week. I got this idea from my first cooperating teacher and it seems like such a fabulous idea that I had to add it to my toolbelt.

2. Student Best Work
Save the student's best work to show off at parent teacher conferences. Hilde said a week before the conferences she goes through all of the work with the student and they pick their best work for each of the subject areas. My idea was to have a best work folder, the students pick their best work from each subject area that week and put it in. Then right before conferences they go through all of their "best work" and pick their favorites from those. Then there is not an entire semester's worth of assignments in there but the student is not sad about having thrown something away a long time ago.

3. Parent Teacher Conferences
I want to have student lead conferences, not matter what grade I am in. But I am not sure how I am going to do that if I am in a younger grader.

4. Brag Board
Have a board where students can brag about something nice their friends did. This board would need to have correct spelling and punctuation, but we would have 5 minutes after lunch to fill it out each day.

5. Spot the Mistake
Have a spot the mistake board where I find articles or books that have mistakes and early finishers get to go and try and find the mistakes.

6. Early Finishers
I would like to have a file of early finishers work. They can go over to this file when they are done, pick the subject we are doing and then do the activity. This could be something as simple as a worksheet or even a project that spans over a few days. Whatever it is, many students may want to participate it and so will work to finish their work.

Day 24: Kindergarten

The kindergartens here are totally different than the kindergartens we have in the US. Kindergarten ages are 8 months - 6 years. Sometimes they are splint into two groups (older and younger) but often they are all together.
The year before the 6 year-olds are going to start school, the 4th graders get to start becoming friends with them. When the 6 year-olds are in 1st grade next year the 4th graders(then 5th graders) will be in charge of them at recess to make sure they are having a good time and they have a friend to play with.
I wish we had something like that in America. It wouldn't be that hard. One big kid for every little kid, make sure they are having a good time. But then we don't really need to have that because our kids don't all go out to recess at the same time.

The 4th graders and the kindergartners went on a walk today. When we got to the spot we were going to have lunch the kids immediately ran off and started playing. They slid down the muddy hillslide, bounced on moss covered rocks, tried to pull tree's out by the roots. This last one they actually succeeded in doing. It took 8 kids 20 minutes of work. At first I was pretty horrified "You can't do that to the tree!" and I don't know that I liked them doing that. But Hilde said it is good for the kids to be challenged sometimes. And getting the tree up was challenging, they had to use their weight and their brains to get it up.

One of the kids was complaining about being thirsty.
"Well, let's go down to the river and get a drink." Hilde said. She led the kids down to the river and they got to experiment on how to get a drink! I told her how we shouldn't drink straight from the rivers in the US. She simply responded "We're vikings, we drink from the river." I loved that response!
She actually used that response a few other times while we were there. She told me that the kids are tougher, which I believe. The kids can fall down and suddenly they are okay.

One little boy fell down  and Hilde asked him what was wrong. He told her he got his shoes muddy and she said, alright do you want to try and drink from the river. He was so involved in drinking the water that he forgo to be upset about his shoes. I loved that!

On the way back I asked a student to teach me the Norsk Alphabet. I don't know that I have ever had a better teacher! She sang the whole thing for me and then went through it letter by letter. When I did something correctly she would praise me "Good job!" and then continue on. When I had trouble she would say the letters and have me repeat it at least three times. Then when I had successfully learned the alphabet she praised me some more then encouraged me to sing it for everyone around me individually. She was a perfect teacher! I hope I can be like her when I grow up.

Day 23: An Awesome Math Idea

I got to see the end of a really cool math lesson. The teacher had the students write 6x1 = 6 and then do all of the 6 times tables up until 12. Then the students wrote over that in marker before cutting the answers off of the paper, but leaving a small piece at the top attached. She showed the students that they could then roll up the answers to test themselves on the times tables. She did tell them that they had to say the entire problem, not just the answer. "six times one is six." I thought it was genius. I may use that for my students in the future.

I also got to teach 6th grade English for the first time today. It was really fun. We learned the noun song and the verb rap. We also talked a little bit about adjectives. The students loved learning the songs and I enjoyed helping them refresh their memories.

I haven't ever really put my schedule up here. That could be something interesting to know.
Monday: Plan, Assessment, 6th grade English, 3rd grade English, 7th grade English.
Tuesday: 4th Math, 5th English, 5th Study Hour, 4th P.E.
Wednesday: Plan, 4th English, 4th Arts and Crafts
Thursday: 4th Math, 4th English, 4th Social Studies, 5th Arts and Crafts
Friday: Plan, 5th English, 7th Arts and Crafts/5th Music/2nd P.E., 6th Music/5th P.E.

I love going into the 3rd grade classroom. The students there want to talk to me and they try so hard. And we both get frustrated at the lack of communication, but neither of us give up. It is a wonderful feeling. Both the students and I enjoy each other's company even though we can't talk to each other very well.

Day 22: Melodies and Harmonies

Music with Sylvia today was enlightening. I learned so many new songs and had several insights into classroom management.
Sylvia taught 2-4th graders and they all loved to sing with her. I think all children love to sing. She spoke to them in English at a normal pace, but used a lot of hand motions. I think those hand motions are what helped the students to understand.

I am very excited to bring music into the education of my students. There are so many songs available on Youtube and through other resources, I could even make some of my own if I wanted to. Music is a powerful way to teach and a wonderful way to help the students learn what they need to learn.