Exhaustion.

The title of this blog post is both an excuse for my lack-of-posts, and also a warning to my friends who will soon be leaving the music ed nest at UVM and flying into jobs in the public-school world.

I haven't made it past 8:45pm for the past few nights. And the only reason I do occasionally make it until 10 or 10:30 is because late night rehearsals in Burlington don't allow me to tuck in before then. Because trust me, I don't want to be awake at 10. Or 9:30. Or 9.
I want to be asleep at 2:40pm when I have waved goodbye to my little chickens, stacked the plastic chairs around the room, and nudged the xylophones around in the cabinet until they sort of fit without cracking every wooden bar.

I am tired.
All the time.
Ask Alex, he'll agree.

But, Emily Fuller, the co-author of this blog is making me look terrible with her continuous and timely posts about how amazing she is at what she's doing. (She doesn't write that, it is information that I ascertain from reading. Though I will say that she's been obsessed with the contents of her food now for a while, don't let her fool you into thinking it's because of her nutrition classes.)

So here are a collection of things from the many weeks in which that I haven't posted.
I'll make a list! That will be new and different! Oh. No, it won't.

Karlie Hasn't Posted in Many Weeks. Here Are Some Items For You to Eat.

1. I've become close with our custodian because she and I seem to be at the school late at night and on the weekends. Because of this, I walked into my room after a meeting went late one afternoon, (and, thank you Daylight Savings, it was already pitch black,) and found that she'd turned on a string of white lights that I had hung. It brought me all the happiness I needed for the rest of the night. Here's a picture of what a little slice of the room looked like:

    

  

      2. There's a group of third grade gals who come to play guitar with me on Friday mornings. (Here is the part where many of you darling readers will say, "But, Karlie doesn't play guitar." And here is the part where I introduce you to the line that is keeping me afloat this year, "Just stay one step ahead of your students.") Here is a drawing I put on the board to teach them about tabs. Art Skillz. No. But, they seemed to get it because they told me how to fill in the chart for a C chord. We're well on our way to playing any pop song every written. 

I should also add that one of these gals gave me her school picture. I nearly cried.

3. Here's a song that I remember from 3rd grade, (disclaimer: I remember it from 3rd grade, it's entirely possible that I'm making up the words.)

Have you ever been down the water spout,

to the very bottom of the water system?

There you'll find a little alligator

who goes by the name of Alfred Alligator-

he's mine...

I lost him.

I threw him down the water spout,

and now I feel so lonely

 'cause he's gone...

I miss him.

(To be sung at top speed and with a lot of sad face-emotions.)

I taught this to K-8 this week. Every single class loved it. Here I say a thank you to Kate Ullman, my elementary school teacher, for managing to engrave it in my brain to be passed on.

The best moment was after an 10 year-old student heard me sing the whole thing once, she raised her hand and said, "That was lack of foresight." It took me a minute to figure out what she meant. And then I burst out laughing, because yeah, you threw the alligator down there, what did you expect?

4. I wrote a play for the small school I teach at. I'll keep ya posted. I've got no budget, no costumes, no set, and 4 school days to rehearse. : ) (Channeling all my SPAE vibes...)

5.  

From Wibbleton to Wobbleton is fifteen miles.

     From Wobbleton to Wibbleton is fifteen miles.

     From Wibbleton to Wobbleton, and Wobbleton to Wibbleton,

     From Wibbleton to Wobbleton is fifteen miles.

Your Directions:

1. Lean to the right every time you say, "Wibbleton."

2. Lean to the left every time you say, "Wobbleton."

3. Pat your knees three times on fif-teen-miles.

4. Don't mess up.

This is hysterical to watch, and to listen to. Especially when you ask students to speak in an "Opera Voice," a "Mouse Voice," a "Cowboy Voice," a British Accent etc. (They give LOTS of ideas for this part.) 

6. Still not sure what I'm doing in Middle School General Music... but I do know that giving directions through signs, and always keeping them guessing has been successful. And... when in doubt I've had great success with breaking them up into teams and playing, "Name that Song." Also known has, "How to Win Over Students That Only Want to Listen to Country Music."

This job is hard, and amazing, and scary, and fantastic, and so many other adjectives.

It energizes me, and it exhausts me. 

Unrelatedly:

Break a Leg to my Leland and Gray Players, wish I could be there to laugh too loudly and cheer during every set change. I'm sending ALL my love!!

Good night,

Karlie

Teaching, Learning: It's all the same, really.

I have realized with this job more than with other teaching jobs that I have had, whether it was student teaching last fall, another one of my teaching practicums during college, or the paraeducator job I had last spring, that I have been teaching my students and learning from my students, which both seem obvious, but also learning WITH my students. I have noticed this in the 5th grade class that I help with reading everyday, the elementary school health classes I help teach, and in 6th grade beginning band. I have also been learning a lot from the different teachers that I have the opportunity to work alongside this year.

Health:

For November and December in health class, our topic is nutrition. While I have been working on finding lessons that are appropriate for the different age groups (since we teach kindergarten through sixth grade), I have found that my mind is consumed by nutrition. Every time I eat, I start thinking about the different nutrients in my food. I don't know if this is me going crazy, or me trying to be more healthy. Or maybe a little bit of both. Yes, that's probably right. I have been learning and thinking more about the nutrients that my food contains, rather than if my food is organic or all natural. I think a combination of both of these thought processes though, is the key to a good diet. I spent a while on Friday looking through a nutrition book, both for my benefit and for my students. I have been thinking more about becoming a vegetarian since I don't eat much meat anyway. All this talk of nutrition has made me realize that if I do make this decision, I need to pay a lot of attention to the vitamins and minerals I am getting. It's less about protein, because there are many ways to get protein that are not meat, but more about those little vitamins and minerals that are more difficult to obtain in a vegetarian diet. But if I just pay more attention, especially to B-12, it is definitely doable. Making this topic appropriate for K-2 is more difficult. And I am learning right along with them.

5th Grade:

I think I finally understand the basis for that show, "Are You Smarter than a 5th Grader?" It kind of makes me want to be a 5th grade teacher because they must be smarter than 5th graders? Right? 5th graders learn so many interesting things, and they retain the information so much better than most adults, it seems. One boy in my 5th grade class could probably recite at least 10 facts about each of the planets after learning about the solar system last week. It is amazing. And most of the kids are able to write about what they have read without referencing back to their reading. Last week the kids were learning all about the solar system, and a few weeks ago they were reading about the American Revolution. Since I will usually read with an individual student or a pair reading together, I have also been learning a lot about these topics. It seems like the 5th graders remember the information much better than I do. But! if I become a 5th grade teacher, I would be teaching the same or similar information each year, so I would in turn become smarter than a 5th grader. Good logic? I think so. I have been continuing to train my brain with Lumosity so hopefully that will help me retain some of this information too.

Some interesting facts I learned about the solar system last week:

1. Although Mercury is the closest planet to the sun, it is not the hottest because it has no atmosphere to trap the heat. Venus is actually the hottest planet.

2. Jupiter is the planet with the most moons because it has the strongest gravitational pull.

3. It would be very difficult to get to Jupiter and all of the other gas planets (all the ones past Mars I believe) because of the asteroid belt.

4. There are probably aliens somewhere in space.

Okay, I am probably stretching it on the last one, but it is pretty amazing to learn and remember how big and expansive space really is. Our solar system with our one amazing star (the sun) is just a tiny tiny tiny part of the universe. Doesn't that make you think that there are other stars out there with other planets orbiting them, that happen to have the same characteristics as Earth that make living things possible. I'm sure there are some more intelligent people out there that will disagree with this, or tell me something that proves this wrong. But it's cool to think about. And makes me feel pretty small. But we live with what we've got I guess.


Band:

Disclaimer: I don't understand this picture, nor do I know what kind of flute that is. But it is what I got when I googled "Saxophone vs. Flute.

For the first month or two with the 6th grade band, I played the flute along with them since that was the instrument that made the trek to Washington, and what I am most comfortable with. I was able to help the flutes, and also learned a lot about how to teach an instrument. But now for the past couple of weeks, I have been playing the saxophone. I started playing the bari sax in high school, and then played the alto sax in pep band at UVM for a while, until I realized the saxophone I had been using had some mold issues and other issues, so I got a little scared. I have been using one of the Pateros School saxophones, and I have been having a lot of fun playing along with the kids. I have also been learning a lot myself about the proper ways to play the saxophone since I only had a few lessons on the instrument in high school. And I think it requires less skill and an easier embouchure to play the bari sax than the alto. So when I switched over to alto, it was difficult at first. I still have some difficulties, but hopefully I am helping these 6th graders along, while also learning a lot myself. It is exciting to play the saxophone since I am learning and mentoring simultaneously.

So yeah, learning, teaching, mentoring, tutoring…It's all been going great, and I am continuing to enjoy my time in Pateros and in Washington State. Since it was Veteran's Day today, we had a three day weekend so I did some exploring on Saturday. I went to George (Because it is George, Washington!), Vantage (to see Ginkgo Petrified Forest State Park), Ellensburg (to drive through), and then drove back towards Wenatchee via Blewett Pass. It started to snow on the top, so that was exciting. Then yesterday I went ice skating. I only fell when I was trying to perfect my backwards skating. So that seems like an accomplishment. Next time I will wear full hockey player padding so I can really practice skating backwards. I'll be so good.

And to once again leave you with a random picture…here's a photo of the snow sneaking its way towards Pateros. Slowly, but surely...

Literacy Night!

One of the traditions of Reading Corps, which is the AmeriCorps Program that I was originally going to be a part of but then got cut because of funding, are Literacy Nights! A Literacy Night is a night (surprising, right?) after school when students and parents can come to get free books, and teachers can help promote literacy at home! Tracy and I decided to plan a Literacy Night, and we just had our first one on Thursday night. Our supervisor, who is the ELL teacher at Pateros, has a lot of brand new books that she has gotten over the years through a program called First Book. If you want to check it out, here is the link: http://www.firstbook.org (Karlie said our readers are lazy and don't want to google things themselves. Speak for yourself, am I right?) Anyway, we had A LOT of awesome free books to give away. We may have been more excited than the kids when we saw them. There were tons of disney books that we knew the kids would go crazy over. And many more!

Our theme was "Fall for Books." Every great Literacy Night needs a theme. I read that somewhere once. Here is a bulletin board I made for the event, and for the library in general:

The event took a lot of planning, and in the days leading up to the event, I was terrified that no one would show up. We had worked hard to get volunteers for the event and set up different stations and I was scared all this hard work would be for nothing, and we would just have an empty library. Luckily, we also put effort into advertising the event, so attendance was not a problem.

When I got back to the school a little after 5 to finish setting up for the event, there was already a family there. They thought it had started at 5pm instead of 6pm. Although this was stressful at the time, it turned out to be a good sign for the rest of the evening. More families started arriving at about quarter to 6, and from then until shortly after 6, people kept arriving quite steadily! And then they kept arriving... until the last family showed up after 7, when the event was supposed to be over. Although most people were trickling out by then, we let the boy choose some books to take home, and told him we would be having another event in the spring. Altogether, we had about 27 students at the event, and then their families. Most of the kids brought parents, although some that live in town showed up on their own, which was fine. It was great to see many siblings coming together as well. I learned about a few different siblings that I didn't know were related until that night. 

We had many different stations at the event, and about 10 different volunteers to be at each of the stations. We had two other AmeriCorps members come to help out, several teachers who are involved in the Afters program with Tracy and me, and even a couple of high school students. We really needed each of these volunteers so I was grateful for them. As the families walked in, I greeted them and had them sign in. Then each child got a leaf with a number on it for prizes later. Each adult also got a ticket for a door prize. Each student also got a bag that they put their name on to put their free books in! I also had the snacks at my table to make it a little more exciting. The next table was where parents could get more information about reading with their kids at home, and there were bookmarks for them to take home with tips, both in Spanish and English. I am not sure of the statistic exactly, but there are many families in Pateros that speak Spanish at home. So many of my students can speak both Spanish and English, and I am impressed by that every day. 

There were a couple different arts and crafts tables set up. One had many different foam board activities that we found from years past. Another station was set up where kids could make their own placemats. The next table had a fall-themed word search that the kids could complete, as well as a fall activity book that the kids could decorate with a leaf print on the front. Two teachers were running a stations on spiders where students could learn about spiders and then make their own spider out of pipe cleaners and a mini pompom. When students completed one of these activities they could then go to the free book's tables to pick out a book! We had three tables filled with new books, and then another table filled up with used books that were also available to the kids. The most popular activity was the book walk, which was a game where kids could win even more books! They walk around in a circle with numbers labeled on the floor while music was playing. When the music stopped, the kids would freeze, and then a number was called. Whoever was standing on that number would go pick out a book.

Throughout the night, I called out numbers for kids to win different prizes. Luckily we had enough small prizes that by the end of the night, every child had something to bring home in addition to all their  new books. And then two parents won door prizes that we had specifically for them. I made sure every student got a leaf as they walked in, but somehow I missed a few parents for the door prize. One parent asked about it after I had done the drawing, but luckily they did not seem too angry. Something to think about for next time though. It is really all about the kids though, so as long as they went home with books, I was happy. 

It was so great to see so many kids I know come to event. And they all seemed to have a great time with their friends, parents, teachers, brothers, and sisters. This kind of event is a wonderful way to bring together a school community, and I hope even more students (and teachers too) come next time. Tracy and I are already thinking about ways we can improve the next Literacy Night, and brainstorming many different possible themes. (maybe a jungle theme!! Wild About Books?? Give me some ideas in the comments section below)

Oh, and to keep with the tradition of leaving something unrelated at the end of my posts, here is the YouTube video that I promised from last time. Enjoy! P.S. You should click on the link and actually go to YouTube for this one, so you can see the full description. And understand fully.

A Typical Day

Hey blog-folks. Emily here. I realized I haven't really written about what my typical day is like at Pateros School so I shall do that in this post. Of course this "typical" day will constantly change. For example, on Wednesday I have somehow been talked into subbing for the high school English teacher in the morning. That will be different and scary, but I'm excited! It can't go that badly right? High schoolers should be easier than small children logically.

Anyway, here we go....

I get to school at 7:30 most days, which sounds early, but I live so close to the school that it isn't too bad.

From 7:30 to 8:00, Tracy and I are in our office and available for homework help for kids that are there early and might have not finished it the night before. We don't get kids everyday, but I think it's a good option for the kids just in case they need to finish something up quickly.

8:00-9:00

Tracy and I are both in our office at this time so we work on anything we have to do for AmeriCorps, plan events, work on lessons for classes we are helping teach, or any other things we find need to be done. Lately, I have been working on planning a Family Literacy Night, which will be next week! We have gotten the word out to the school and are working on informing the community about it as well. Also during this time I have been training my brain with a program I learned about called "Lumosity." Check it out on the interwebs. I figure that's a good use of my time. The children need my brain to be smart so theirs can be too.

From 9-10 I go to the fifth grade classroom and help them with reading. I will either read along with the story they are reading if they are reading as a group, or circulate around the room to help individual students if they are working independently. We have been reading a lot of interesting short stories, and this week they are reading biographies. I learned all about Roberto Clemente today.

From 10-10:15 I usually have a little snack because teachers get hungry too.

Then most days from 10:15 to 11:00 I go help out with the 6th grade band. I try to bring my flute most days and help these beginning students while they try to make some sort of sound come out of their instruments. I focus mostly on the flutes, and will occasionally help the saxophone as well. Past that though, I am pretty useless. It is fun though! And I can really hear some of the students making improvements. Mondays are just woodwinds so it's a great time to work closely with some of the students.

Also during this time, I will occasionally tutor some 1st grade ELL students. I did this one day so far to fill in for Tracy, and loved it so much. I want more. All of the opportunities seem to happen at the same time though. I might be doing more of this as the year goes on since band is just Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays.

From 11:00 until about 1:00 I don't have anything specific scheduled as of now. Except feeding myself. This might change as the year goes on and teachers find more needs in their classrooms. But for now this is more time to plan events and lessons, eat lunch, and occasionally take a walk to the post office. Tracy and I usually keep pretty busy and there are teachers that will ask us to help out in different ways so we are never very bored. Our office is right next to the library so we also help out in there a lot of time when it is busy. I have mastered the art of checking out a book.

From 1:15 to about 2:10, Tracy and I both help teach an elementary school health class. This is the first year this class had been taught and the teacher gets a new set of students each day of the week, so she can really use our extra help. When we are not needed directly in the classroom, we will help her plan lessons that fit into the curriculum. They are trying to implement the "Why Try?" curriculum (google it if interested) as well as certain health topics, which is a lot to cover with students you only see once a week. Creativity is a must.

At 2:10 I head back to the library to help in there for the rest of the day. A lot of the time, our librarian (Pam) will have a class in there at the end of the day, so I will help other students while she is reading to the class, or help the little ones pick or check out books.

Then from 3:00-4:30 is Afters! I think this is one of my favorite parts of the day. Pam and I work with the 3rd and 4th graders and have a group of about 10 kids, depending on the day. The Afters program is sponsored by a 21st Century grant, and kids come to Afters that need extra help so they do not fall behind in the classroom. The teachers recommended students in their classroom that would benefit from this extra attention. First we have snack at Afters, then homework time, then Imagine Learning (a computer reading program) for twenty minutes, then usually some more homework. Kids that finish their homework early have other options of what they can do until 4:30. And on Fridays it is usually a fun day since kids don't have homework. Last week we took a little nature walk outside, and this week we are making Thursday fun by dissecting Owl Pellets. Sadly, sometimes Tracy and I miss these fun Fridays because of our AmeriCorps meetings, but those are fun too.

And that's really all! I am enjoying it so far, and I think I'm getting into more of a rhythm as time goes on. I am getting better at always having something to do or plan if I am not with a class.

And on a completely different note...

I'll leave you all with this from my crazy hike this weekend. Stay tuned for a youtube video in which I accidentally record a video of mountains on my iPhone... completely upside down. The video wasn't accidental. Just the upside down part. It's really quite the masterpiece. Until then---

The Deathly Hollows, Pitch Perfect, and The Hunger Games. Oh, and Kindergartners.

This is a broken trumpet painted by two fifth grade gals. Now they want to play trumpet, isn't that interesting? Maybe that's a new recruitment technique. Break all your instruments, let kids paint them, then buy all new instruments so they can join band.

This post is going to be a smathering of topics, I've lost the ability to organize in my head.

DISCOVERIES

#1 If I hold these cards up to Kindergarten, First, and Second Graders they will immediately learn to audiate (hear music in their head) better than if I tried to use words to explain it. Monster #1 Means: SING INSIDE YOUR HEAD. Monster #2 Means: SING OUT LOUD. 

So we sang a song we all knew, "Boom De Adda" You know, 

I love the flowers, I love the daffodils

I love the mountains, I love the rolling hills

I love the fireside, when the lights are low,

boom de adda, boom de adda, boom de ah...

BUT! It became a game. I'd start holding Monster-Mouth-Open and we'd sing the song, and then I'd switch quickly to Monster-Mouth-Closed. When I stressed that the song had to keep going inside your head my students learned to audiate. And what a fabulous job they did. Discovery #1.

#2 A variety of things have been going on in my choirs, (1st/2nd grade, 3rd/4th grade, 5th-8th optional.) Firstly I've had a lot of fun changing the orientation and configuration of the chairs. Sometimes students will come in and the chairs will be facing a wall they've never faced before. Or they'll be in a circle. Or they'll be in rows. Or they'll be in a few rows, and a semi-circle, or columns. I don't know, I just like to freak them out a little bit. They talk less that way. And let's be honest, I'm not using the piano so why orient them towards it?

     Secondly after that amazing first day of middle school chorus when 25 kids showed up my numbers have been fluctuating, sometimes I'll have 14, sometimes I'll have 20. Last Thursday I had 25 again. I decided it all depends on how funny I am in their general music classes that are all scheduled before chorus on the same day. Interesting. 

     And lastly I have introduced the... JIBBERISH BALL. A squishy pool ball that fills up with water and splats against someone's face. Except in music class its function is to steal away the holder's ability to speak in real words. So I will be speaking to my class and telling them how wonderful they are when suddenly I pick up the ball and dwee ap ta te beedo beedo beedo wop wop wop etc. At first, each group was shocked. Ms. Kauffeld has actually gone insane. And then they realized that they were going to get to have a turn and we had a collective-near-meltdown from excitement.

     It goes like this, when you have the ball, you speak at your neighbor, pass it to them, they respond to you, then turn to the next person. And, very importantly, ONLY the person with the ball may be making noise. (Some classes struggled with this. Once you've crossed into the world of Jibberish it's nearly impossible to sit quietly.) What I found most exciting about this activity is that some of my students who had said only four words total since I've met them would suddenly have A LOT to say in jibberish. This will move us towards talking about Improvising and Music as a way to Communicate. 

Sometimes I scare myself.

#3 I've started thinking about the play that I need to create for/with the Kindergarten-4th graders at Folsom and the pre-K-6th graders at Isle LaMotte. At Folsom there is a paper hanging in my room with a pencil on a string that's labeled, "IDEAS FOR OUR PLAY." This idea backfired. "The Hunger Games" is written 5 times, each one if followed by about 34 check marks as if to say, "I agree." Other suggestions were, "Pitch Perfect," "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" (as the audience would clearly just fill in the rest of the story,) "Minecraft," ("It's a game. And it's violent, but there's like, no blood," the student justified to me after writing it.) That being said... I think I'm going to have to act as Teacher-As-Authoritarian and choose the story that we'll adapt without giving much consideration to their suggestions. But, 5 year olds just shouldn't be retelling the story of college a capella groups or cubes that attack each other. (My understanding of Minecraft is flawed, I know this.)

I've started to spend a little time here and there introducing some acting exercises in various classes, because they do help students to become more Artful, one of my three main goals.

     In one particular game I begin with a magic blob of goop that I sculpt into an object, use the object, and pass it to my neighbor who smooshes it up and re-sculpts it. The activity went swimmingly in the middle school. And then I played it with the first and second graders and we couldn't guess a single one of the objects made within the class. My favorite object sculpted by them? "It's a little skeleton hanging from a string!" Well, sure it is.  Second favorite? "It's my name! I can't believe you didn't get that!" 

#4 Here's some other stuff:

     -I went to a farm on an all-school field trip. My most productive endeavor was chasing an 

      escaping-preschooler through a pumpkin patch.

     -I'm bad at yoga.

     -I attended my first inservice that's during the school year which I deem makes it more real. 

      I probably shouldn't write about how it went in a public space.

     -We listened to The Token's version of "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" and then a South African version in 3rd and 4th grade. They extracted evidence and made an argument about which one they believed to be from South Africa. (This was all to satisfy the requirements of my assignment for Inservice for our Common Core work.) It ended up being quite successful and fun. Methinks. 

That's all I can muster...

Now the students are taking the NECAPs. And that's the worst, no denying it.

So, cheers to all of us NOT taking the NECAPs!

-Karlie

Making It Work.

The theme of this post shall be, “Making it Work.”

(See Future Post Entitled, "Winging It.")

I’ll begin with a clear and tangible example.

I’m taking a lot of John Feierabend’s music pedagogy methodologies and materials to design my curriculum this year. Quick disclaimer: I haven’t been able to actually be trained in this, I’ve only been able to attend a handful of workshops, talk to people, and read stuff with my eyeballs.

“Fingerplays” are beatful rhymes/chants that you say while acting out the story with your hands. Sometimes you can use puppets. While using these in the classroom my students have been able to practice listening, remembering, echoing, keeping a steady beat, playing with tone of voice, being artful with our hands, engaging our imaginations and other great things that I probably don’t even realize.

Here’s a fingerplay that we used this week:

For the first character you use a very high voice, and the second character a very low voice.

1: Where are you going Big Pig, Big Pig?

2: Out in the garden to dig, dig, dig!

1: Out in the garden to dig, dig, dig! Shame on you Big Pig, Big Pig!

2: I’m sorry Ma’am but I’m only a pig, and all I can do is dig, dig, dig!

(Look, here’s a video of someone doing it on youtube. I don’t know why.)

So I went into my little box of stuffed animals/puppets…(I’ve been slowly adding to this collection but in order for a stuffed animal/puppet to make it in it has to be really cute, able to move in an artful way, clean looking, and cheap… so my collection is still small. However, I think I’ve finally figured out what to do with my giant and guilt-filled Beanie Baby Collection…)

So I’m looking and looking, bear, lion, hummingbird, bear again, crab…

No pigs.

But… I did have a Rhino and a Butterfly.

Alex promptly said to me, “But… why would a Rhino and a Butterfly be together?”

And I said, “Animals don’t really talk. So I think we can continue to suspend our disbelief and pretend that the talking animals-Rhino and Butterfly- exist in a world where they interact.”

So the chant became this:

1: Where did you go Rhino, Rhino?

2: Out in the garden to stomp real slow.

1: Out in the garden to stomp real slow? Shame on you Rhino, Rhino!

2: Sorry Ma’am but I’m only a rhino, and all I can do is stomp real slow.

And what I learned after the first time I did this with preschoolers was that this chant opened up a whole variety of new things to talk about. First I could perform the chant for them and ask them what happened in the story-testing their listening and comprehension. And to take it even further, there is an emotional element involved that I never even considered! The Rhino is stomping on the flowers which the Butterfly needs to survive! So suddenly all the kiddos were like, “Jigga Whaaa! BAD RHINO NO NO NO!!”

AND THEN, I had one class come in who pointed at the butterfly on my finger and screamed in unison, “THAT’S A MONARCH BUTTERFLY!!!!!” and then spent the next 5 minutes shouting facts about, and experiences they’d had with, monarch butterflies-simultaneously while I sat on my carpet square cracking up and shouting back at their little faces, “THAT IS SO COOL!”

So… The moral of this blog post is:

I’m not going to be perfect at each lesson, I’m likely not going to have exactly the right materials, or maybe it’s a little too easy, or a little too hard for my students… but I will make it work in that moment to make sure that we can take away at least a tiny valuable moment. AND- it’s possible that by “making it work,” for my situation, the result will be even better than if things had been laid out perfectly to begin with.

Ohhh Yeahh.

I’ma go out in the garden to stomp real slow now.

xoxox

Karlie

PS: This was the first week that every single Kindergartener got up and danced alone during our greeting. And for some reason, every single girl thinks that dancing is actually going into the middle of the circle and doing a backbend. Fair enough.

Hawk and Salmon Festivals

One of the things I love about AmeriCorps so far is that any volunteering we do on the weekends, or outside of our main service sites can count towards our total hours we need by the end of our service term.  The past two weekends I have volunteered at two different festivals.

First I volunteered at the town museum while a Hawk Festival was going on in Pateros. For this festival, different groups such as the Audobon society and other fish and wildlife specialists brought hawks and other raptors to town for people to come see in the park. A surprising amount of people are really into birds, so it seemed like they got a lot of people! Tracy, the other AmeriCorps member in Pateros, and I kept the museum open so people could come visit while the festival was going on. But we also took some time to look at the birds!

Whatchu lookin' at?

This past weekend, I continued the trend of nontraditional fall festivals and went to a Salmon Festival at Leavenworth Fish Hatchery. This was a free event for families to come and learn all sorts of things about fish! And eat food, And play games. And kayak. And rock climb. Everything a kid would want to do was there. But also fish related. It was great.

I was at the Gyotaku station for the day, which is Japanese fish printing. Fishermen originally made these prints to record their fish of the day, but now it is more of an art form. And the prints are now made with rubber fish. It was a fun activity, and so many kids wanted to do it that it made the day go by quickly. 

1. Paint fish

2. Put paper over fish

3. Rub fish

4. Ta-Da!

My beautiful creation

There are so many different volunteer opportunities in this area, and I am going to take advantage of as many as possible this year. I always felt like I was too busy during college to take advantage of things like this in Vermont, which was really a terrible excuse, but I am glad I finally am! Might as well take advantage of the short time that I will have here.

And I'll leave you with one final picture. A little piece of cuteness. An Amerikitten.

11 Days: Benchmarks and Tallies

With 12 days of teaching experience under my belt, my official teaching license signed by my middle school principal and former a capella mate, and a dented immune system… this life is starting to seem more real. This shall be a post of Benchmarks and Tallies.

Benchmarks and Tallies

• 15 Days: Is how far into the school year I made it before I got sick. As I sat on my darling little carpet square, next to my darling little Kindergartner, she proceeded to sneeze 25 times throughout the class. The look on her face said, "Dear Teacher, I have no idea what is happening to me right now and I'm sorry that you will undoubtedly be sick at the end of these 45 minutes, but I will now put my hands in my mouth, then onto that drum. Good thing I'm so cute."

• First Entirely Silent Class: Now, before you say, "Oopsa Karlie, you're teaching music so if the students are silent you're probably doing it wrong. Good try but let's go ahead and rescind that license," let me explain what this really means. As my 23 third and fourth grade students entered my classroom I stood in the doorway holding an index card that said, "Hi! Please enter silently." If I heard them speak, I beckoned them back to the door, and they entered again until they got it. I think a key element of this whole class was making sure to keep my attitude playful to make sure that students understood that silence wasn't a punishment, it was just a particular kind of class we were going to have. If a student spoke, I reacted as, "Oh no! You forgot!" I only had to have this reaction four times during class, and never to the same student. 

          As we moved through warm ups I gestured to all of them and pointed to my ears, then I

          sang the exercise, and gestured for them to repeat. It was the first class where I had full 

          singing participation, and we were all generally singing in the same key. To be honest, I 

          did bring in sound when I made a noise for "No" and a noise for "Yes." When I wanted  

          students to make an improvement I would demonstrate what I didn't want, and make a  

          weird "No" sound, then demonstrate what I did want and make some strange yippee-

          hands-in-the-air-dance thing. I was absolutely floored by how well students responded to

          this.

• 25 Middle Schoolers: Showed up to our first optional chorus rehearsal. Now, I told them to come and try it out with no obligation to return next week so it's possible that I'll lose some before the next rehearsal. But what I actually feel was the success here was that 25 students were curious about what chorus would be like.

• 4 Classes: Of middle school students back to back where we worked in groups to create our own lyrics to "I Wish I Was a Mole in the Ground." This gets tallied because in all four classes every student participated (some very minimally, but still,) every group had a verse by the end of class, and there was an air of excitement about the project and the continuation of it next week. Here is my favorite verse created by a group of 7th graders:

I wish I was a flyin' stump in the sea

I wish I was a flyin' stump in the sea

If I'm a flying stump in the sea, I'd land right on a whale,

and I wish I was a flyin' stump in the sea.

So, it doesn't make sense and it doesn't rhyme. But- it's packed full of imagery AND it's not inappropriate, so it gets tallied as a success for the middle school.

• 3 Classes: Have made it onto the map for our "Can We Make It Around the Entire World Through Music?" challenge. Granted, the Kindergarten and 1st/2nd Grade class are up there because of the music I taught them-so they didn't have a choice in the matter. But the 6th grade also made it up because one student brought me a list of 7 songs from around the world. From his list I chose an electronic music piece from Finland to play for the class. Go sixth grade. Here's the piece for your enjoyment, or not! Either is okay.

This second week of teaching has been filled with even more mistakes than the first, but they've been new mistakes-and I've mostly fixed the other stuff. Oh, and you should also know that I again had a frog in my class, but this time I couldn't get him out and he stayed there through the entire day... and unbelievably, he didn't hop out until I came back at night, at which point I caught him and delivered him into dewey grass. 

I bid you adieu Internet world, I'm going to try to use the 5lbs of carrots Alex and I just picked to make a carrot cake. Most of you can predict that this will not go well for me. But hey... why not?

Teaching Migrant Students

Last Monday and Tuesday were our last two days of AmeriCorps orientation. On Monday afternoon, we had a guest speaker come and talk to us about issues affecting migrant students in North Central Washington. As a little background knowledge, this part of Washington state is APPLE COUNTRY! Literally, looking out my window right now I can see multiple apple orchards. And if I looked out another window, I would see more. Workers and their families will come from all around, especially Mexico, to work at these apple orchards. We learned about seven areas of concern when it comes to migrant students, and discussed ways in which to help these students succeed in school.

What made the most sense to me though, and what had the most impact on me at the end of the day, was a game we played called Barnga (I am still unclear on why it was called this, if anyone has any insights, you can help a girl out in the comments section below).

***Spoiler alert!! The description of this game will probably ruin it for you if you are ever asked to play it in the future. So if you think you might....not that you have a way of knowing...maybe you should not read this. Yeah...anyway...just wanted to get that out there. Spoiler Alert!!!***

To begin the game, we were split up into seven groups, and each given the directions to a card game named Barnga or Tricks. In our groups of 4 or 5, we learned how to play the game. After practicing it for a while and once we got the hang of the game, we were told that we could no longer talk while playing the game. We would play in our groups for a while, and then when the speaker told us the round was over, we would figure out who had won the most rounds of the game, and that person would move up a table. The loser at the table would move down a table. Out of pure luck, I was the winner of the first round, so I moved to a new table. And this is when things got interesting!

As soon as I got to the new table, I realized that they were playing a different game. The format of the game was the same, but it was clear that the rules were different somehow. BUT WE STILL COULDN'T TALK! So I had no way of telling the girls in the group that I didn't know how to play, and that they were not playing by my rules. Anyone realize the point of this game yet? Well, I had at that point. I was now the migrant student that did not understand the language at her new school, and had no way of telling her new classmates that she didn't understand what was going on (besides confused facial expressions and hand gestures). At this point, I did what an ELL student might do in the classroom, and gave up on the game. I didn't know what I was doing, so what was the point? (I also was not feeling very competitive, and got the point of the activity, so it didn't seem worth it to try to enforce my rules.) This continued UNTIL someone from my original table came to my new table! I was saved! There was finally someone that spoke the same language as me. So we took over that table and were able to play the game with our original rules.

A Few Things I Learned About Migrant or ELL Students From This Game:

1. It is easy for them to just give up, so they need that extra attention in a classroom to make sure this doesn't happen.

2. Likely, they are going to feel confused and helpless in the classroom depending on their language ability, so this is another reason to give them extra support and the tools they need to succeed in the classroom.

3. Right when students get used to the classroom and start to succeed, they could very likely just get pulled away and have to move somewhere else with their family, just like we would get pulled away from our card game and have to learn a whole new game at a new table. Although the student may know the language better at a new school, it is a whole new environment and culture to get used to.

4. Students will feel more comfortable when someone that can speak their native language is able to help them whether this be another student or a teacher. Luckily, at the school I am serving at, since most of the migrant students are native Spanish speakers, we have a teacher that can interpret things into Spanish for them. This is helpful for the students as well as the parents. In many cases, the students have learned English, but their parents still struggle at home, especially with newsletters or informative letters that can have a lot of school jargon in them. This is where an interpreter like this becomes very helpful.

After the game, we debriefed as a group, and learned that this game is always played at orientation. The returning members played along with the game, but did not reveal the secret to the new members. People that had played it before, and the AmeriCorps staff members, said this was one of the calmest groups they had seen play this game. In the past, people had been so competitive that they have run of the room crying. This same amount of frustration could be present in an ELL student that is having a difficult time in a new school, not understanding the rules or language.

And that's Barnga! Now that we are done with AmeriCorps orientation, we still have weekly trainings and meetings until November. I am excited to get into more of a routine at my school, since from now on, most of our meetings are on Fridays. Tomorrow will be my first day in an elementary school band class! Oh boy! I better read Karlie's blog so I can learn how to teach music.

Karlie Makes Mistake Soup. Week 1.

            I have been vigorously hunting flies for the past week. Everywhere. The bathroom. At the piano. In bed. In my car. Everywhere. Slaying has climbed its way to the top of my priority list when I find myself with free time; above instant Netflix, (have to wait for Season 2 of “Orange is the New Black” anyway,) above re-alphabetizing my books within stupid categories that only make sense to me, and above seeing what else I can layer into the new found love of my life, hummus sandwiches.

            There are so many flies in my classroom that on the first full day of school I walked in and found a brown toad the size of a softball sitting in the middle of my linoleum floor. I considered allowing him to live in the music room and take care of the buzzing balls, but eighteen variations of a scene where a student spots the toad played through my mind and I realized that I would never, ever teach any music if it was coexisting in my room. Lucky for me the janitor has made my transition into this school smoother than a toadstool top and he came in to usher the toad out the door.

            I think fly hunting has become an emotional release for me. I have taught seven days of preKindergarten through Eighth grade general music and chorus.  I have made over two hundred mistakes in those seven days. As I reread that sentence shame slides over my eyeballs like a brand new lid…but I have to then recount how I’ve noted those mistakes and made a solid effort to immediately correct my errors in the following class.

           

     I love lists. Here’s the first one of this blog. Former teachers and professors, current mentors, and friends please feel free to roll your eyes, face palm, scoff, revoke your letters of recommendation… whatever you need to do after reading this list.

Pitiful Mistakes Karlie Made In Her First Week

• Projected the lyrics to “Somos El Barco” on the board in the 1^st and 2^nd grade chorus and expected them to read it through with me after limited rote teaching. And as I’m sure you all realize, most of those 7 and 8 year olds were not ready to be reading in Spanish. Shocker.

• In an attempt to break up my lesson and get my Kindergartners up and moving around I said, “Okay, everyone move to a new mat!” This resulted in a brawl over a particular mat. Pulled hair, screaming, “YOU ARE A MEANIE,” and slapping. Nice work, Ms. Kauffeld.

• I handed thirteen 3^rd and 4^th graders each a small percussion instrument before giving the instruction, “When I hand this to you please place it on the floor in front of you.” It then took 5 full minutes to give that direction due to the jingle-jangling, booming, smacking, and thumping.

• I sat 1^st and 2^nd graders around a rug with a border of fringy–tassels. They could not keep their tiny hands off those tassels if their lives depended on it. Good bye rug.

• I allowed one Kindergartner to go get a drink. Suddenly we were all suffering from dehydration and simply couldn’t carry on without getting water.

• I placed paper name cards on the chairs of 5^th graders without instructing them not to ruin them. At the end of class I received a pile of paper shreds, undistinguishable origami, and cards with bite marks. Silly me for thinking once we were ten years old we stopped eating paper.

Now, I say all of these things with a bounty of love in my heart for my students. Every bizarre thing that occurred was in direct relation to the poor instruction I gave. Cause and effect.

The most important thing I can say about my first 7 days is that these kids, from age 3 to 14, are teaching me more than I’ve learned in my whole life.

Emily Drives Across the Country with her Parents

Hey there blog folks!!

My story starts a little differently than Karlie's. While she moved about 25 miles away from Burlington to South Hero, I moved about 2,800 miles away from Burlington to Pateros, Washington. We're both working in tiny towns in tiny schools, just many miles from each other. (Well...actually...I am SERVING at this school. More on that in post 2) We'll see how we do. We haven't been separated this much in a while.

ANYWAY!

This post will be a riveting description of my adventures across the country in a red VW Jetta with my parents. We learned early on that leg room was going to be a problem. But somehow, it was not as terrible as I envisioned. The key is stretch breaks, or just offering to drive as much as possible, because that hurts your legs less than being cramped in the back seat with your 6'3" father in the seat in front of you. I think the best way to organize this post is by states (13 in total), so here we go!

Vermont!

We were feeling ambitious this first day and left around 6:15. Here is what the car looked like:

We can attest to the power of the roof bag after this trip (more on that later).

New York!

We quickly got to New York, and realized that most of our day would be spent in this state. You don't really realize how big most of these states are until you're driving through them. New York was rather uneventful. I did see Utica, New York though, which was slightly exciting. Fans of The Office can understand. (P.S. There is also a town in Washington called Electric City! Scranton what? THE ELECTRIC CITY)

Pennsylvania!

We only drove through a little of Pennsylvania, right by Lake Erie. We saw lots of grape plants, and learned that this part of Pennsylvania is famous for its grapes/wine. Yep, that's all I have to say about our journey through Pennsylvania.

Ohio!

Ohio was our destination for day one as we had made a reservation at a hotel near Toledo, Ohio in a town called Maumee. I am embarrassed to say that we never actually learned how to say the name of this town. Mommy? Mow-mee? Meow-mee? It's probably that last one. Ohio...was not that attractive. BUT we did go to a Steak 'N Shake that first night. Shout out to my Varsity Pep Band folks!!

Indiana!

The only exciting thing about Indiana for me was driving through/close to South Bend, where I had my first Pep Band trip and made some incredible friends in the process. I looked at all of the lodging signs on the interstate trying to find the "Waterford" where we stayed, but had no luck. They are waaaaay too classy for road signs. Sidenote: I also researched the Waterford before leaving Vermont as a possible hotel for the first night, BUT they were too expensive. I guess you have to be traveling VIP to get into the Waterford. 

Illinois.

Illinios was kind of the worst, to be honest. I was driving at this time and driving through Chicago was miserable. It took us about 1 1/2 hours to just get through a few miles of Chicago. Oh, and we had to pay a ridiculous amount of tolls. Just for the record, all of the states from New York to Illinois (I think) have tolls on I-90. But then once you hit Wisconsin, you are home free! So thank you western states. Also, I haven't mentioned this yet, but we took mostly I-90 the whole way to Washginton with a few detours in South Dakota and Wyoming. So pull out your maps, folks! And you can see where we drove.  I have gotten sidetracked. Basically it was nice to see the skyline of Chicogo, but it took way too long to drive through the craziness, and it was only a Sunday afternoon. Enough of that ranting, onto the next state!

Wisconsin!

Wisconsin started to get prettier, but also started the corn fields. One thing I learned in Wisconsin is that you should never try to get gas in the Wisconsin Dells. The Wis Dells, as it is called by the elite, is a town/area/dell that reminded me a lot of the town of Niagara Falls. We didn't actually see the dells, but the town was full of water parks, resorts, and touristy shops. We got gas here so we would not get trapped in the middle of a corn field with no gas, and it was CRAY! But we made it out alive. The water slides did look pretty cool though. 

Minnesota!

We made it to Minnesota on the second day of our trip, and spent the night at a hotel in Albert Lea. Minnesota was a lot of corn fields and very pretty, but that's about it. I am sure it would have been more exciting if we had ventured further than I-90. The picture below is on a exit that we pulled off at only to realize that the gas sign on the highway was probably fooling us. Corn does not equal gas.

South Dakota!

The majority of our time being sightseeing tourists on this trip was spent in South Dakota. We first went  to the Corn Palace in Mitchell, South Dakota. Luckily, it was a free tourist destination. Not to rag on the Corn Palace or anything, but I would have not liked to have paid for it. They had just finished their Corn Palace Festival the day before we got there, so we missed that, but they still had it open for business! They change the murals on the outside of the palace each year, and the inside of the "palace" is now used as a stadium and sport's arena for different events. Everything on the outside of the building is made of corn, but the inside is basically a stadium. I guess the whole thing used to be made of corn, but then they realized that was a fire hazard. Fancy that?

After the corn palace, we drove to my dad's cousin's house in Huron, South Dakota. We didn't drive much this day, and spent the afternoon visiting with her. Then we had dinner with some other cousins as well. 

She also had a cat that I quite enjoyed.

A few things we learned from our relatives in South Dakota:

1. If anyone in South Dakota refers to "The Cities," they are talking about the Twin Cities in Minnesota of Saint Paul and Minneapolis.

2. People in other parts of South Dakota have negative feelings towards Sioux Falls. I guess they have too much stuff there, and they want them to share the wealth a bit.

3. That other crop in South Dakota besides corn is soy beans.

4. A quarter of land is equal to a square mile. And is much bigger than an acre. 

Our travels into South Dakota continued the next day. We went to the Badlands, Wall Drug, and Mount Rushmore. This day was HOT! And we continued to be thankful for our air conditioning in our small car. Of course we continued to have arguments over which level the air should be on. "MORE AIR" was something my mom and I heard a lot of from my dad. Speaking of, the other thing we heard a lot was "ROOF BAG CHECK." I don't think he stopped being paranoid about that roof bag (ROOFBAG.COM!!) until we got to Pateros. It made it though! 

Short Descriptions of Things on this Day:

Badlands

Not so bad, pretty amazing actually. Were only bad to those that were trying to cross through them before a super awesome road was built.

Wall Drug

Most ridiculous tourist trap ever. Signs started as soon as we entered South Dakota, and did not end until we got there. They advertise free ice water, 5 cent coffee, homemade doughnuts, and oh so much more! We just had to see it to believe it I guess. And get our pics on the giant jackalope. This establishment started off as a place for fatigued travelers to get some ice water for their parched throats, but has turned into something completely off the wall. Get it? Off the WALL???

Oh yeah, they also had a giant dinosaur that moved. Because...why not?

Mount Rushmore and the Black Hills

Saw the faces in the hills so that was pretty cool. I was also impressed with the drastic change of scenery from the prairies of eastern South Dakota to the rolling black hills in the western half of the state.

Wyoming!

We drove into Wyoming after the Black Hills, and then spent the night in Gillette, Wyoming. Not the best spot since it is the middle of coal country, USA, but we were sleepy.

Montana!

We did not stop much in Montana since we were determined to get close enough to our destination on this day so we wouldn't have to drive too much the next day. We did stop for a picnic, which was very nice. But then drove through a pretty bad storm.  Or maybe that was before the storm? I can't keep track.

Idaho!

We just drove drove drove this day, and ended up staying in Coeur D'Alene, Idaho. I think this may be my only photo in Idaho since it was dark for most of the time that we were driving. There's the beautiful entering Idaho sign. HA!

WASHINGTON!

And we made it! We got off I-90 in Spokane, and drove towards Pateros. Right when we were about 20 miles from Pateros we thought the Roof Bag might not make it the rest of the way. We heard a loud banging that seemed close enough to be coming from our car. We ended up pulling over, even though we were in the middle of another thunderstorm, and realized the sound was definitely not coming from our vehicle. We later learned that it may have been cannons that orchardists set off to scare birds away. Phew! By the way, North Central Washington is big on their apples. And here are some photos to end this terribly long and rambly blog post. 

The End!

...or The Beginning!