September Student Teaching

I've already been Student Teaching for six weeks now! Time is flying by. I had a reality check yesterday with how close I am to graduating. My Mom called me to ask me about graduation announcements after I had sat down my cooperating teacher and outlined my plans for the next two months. A little stressed and a little overwhelmed. BUT!

I'm still very happy and I have learned so much. It's amazing how many ideas and resources I feel like I have already came across. Pinterest has been my best friend while planning my lessons. I don't know what I'd do without it!

I've been teaching a lot of Grammar Skills with the third graders. I started by teaching them to identify sentences as a statement, a question, a command, or an exclamation. For this activity, the students made an inner circle and outer circle. The inner circle students had different example sentences and the outer circle had their whiteboard and dry erase marker. The students worked with partners to identify the different sentences as fast as they could.

I also taught the students to identify and create a sentence with a simple subject and simple predicate. I found an idea on Pinterest to make a Grammar Flipbook/Foldable. I shared the idea with my cooperating teacher and now all three of the third grade classes are going to try it. One thing that is amazing at the school is the teachers collaborate together on everything! They work really well together. I can only hope to get into a situation like that my first few years! Hopefully the foldables help the kids learn and understand the skill! 

I made all of the teachers an example one.

Sorted the labels and definitions.

The students wrote their own sentence, underlined the subject and circled the predicate. I remember practicing this is third grade!

They also placed an X under the simple subject and simple predicate. We had them write their answer on a whiteboard before copying it to the grammar flipbook. We use our whiteboards for everything! So useful.

I'm in the midst of planning my unit which will cover solving subtraction problems with four digit numbers with and without regrouping. I feel like I'll be learning with the kids, what I have to do a lot of the time! They learn Math a completely different way than I had learned it growing up. It would have been so much more beneficial for students to learn the conceptual way. I'm collaborating with another Student Teacher for my unit which is perfect, we already have some great ideas.

Halloween is right around the corner and we started decorating! I'm teaching two Art lessons this week and today we made witches and spiders to hang up in our room. They added a lot to the room, too cute! The kids loved it too.

Some of our spiders.

Our witches.

Definitely going to do this when I get my own classroom.

We hung them up all through the classroom. It was quite the process but two hours later, they were all up! All three of the third grade classrooms have them up successfully :)

September has been a great month. I can't wait for October with my kiddos.

Student Teaching

First Two Weeks of Student Teaching

These past three weeks have been very busy and exciting! I started Student Teaching in Mrs. Ekart's Third Grade class at Lee Elementary. I am so lucky to have Mrs. Ekart as a cooperative teacher. She is a great role model and very supportive. Everyone has been so friendly and helpful at Lee and I'm really looking forward to this semester.
These first two weeks have been busy. We are getting to know the students and going over rules of the classroom and school. A teacher that Mrs. Ekart collaborates with went to a workshop over Kagan Cooperative Learning and has been introducing us to it. Kagan activities are all about engagement and key into teambuilding. I plan on using these resources in my future classroom! 

The students drew a self portrait and wrote about themselves. It was a great first sample of their writing and it was great to be able to put their work up in our classroom.

This is the front of a folded piece of paper. The students answered questions about themselves and when you lifted it up, there was a picture of them. Fun way to find out the students interests.

The room looks amazing with all of the students' work hanging up.

She is so artistic.

This is the students' "Look Back At Summer." They wrote about something fun they did this summer and illustrated them in inside the sunglasses.

We did a lot with Arthur the second week of school. The students were able to learn how to draw him. They were really good!

This was one of the Kagan teambuilding activities. The students are in groups of four. Two students get a glue stick and two students get a crayon. Every student two pieces of paper of their color. The students make a clown without touching any materials but their own. They also can't use scissors. They work together to come up with a plan then work together to make a clown.

Our "Guess Who" bulletin board outside of the classroom.

Our "Math About Me" activities showing that math is all around them every day.

The finished clowns. The groups got to name their clown. The students were really creative and had a lot of fun!

We got the classroom ready for Parent Teacher conferences by tracing all of the students and letting them color them like themselves. We taped them to their seats with a ruler. This was very time consuming but turned out really cute. It was fun seeing the parents try to find their kids based on how they colored themselves.

Stuffed Buffalo Chicken Breast

Stuffed Buffalo Chicken Breast
   I found this recipe while exploring Skinny Taste. We changed it a little bit because of some ingredients we already had at home. The recipe calls for chicken cutlets also but we had chicken breast, we had to stuff them differently. This recipe is very quick and simple.

Ingredients:
Chicken breast
Mozzarella cheese
Carrots
Celery
Onion
Laughing Cow Garden Vegetable Cheese
Mayonaise
Franks hot sauce
Lemon juice
Ritz crackers

Mix the cheese, Laughing Cow cream cheese, carrots, celery, onion, salt and pepper. I finally learned how to use my food processor which makes cutting veggies SO much quicker!!

Dipping stations: Ritz and a combination of mayonaise (may be good to substitute Ranch) , hot sauce, and lemon juice.

Stuff the chicken breast.

Place them on a cooking rack after coating them in the mayonaise mix then dipping them in the Ritz crackers.

Bake them for 30 minutes on 400. I drizzled mine with extra hot sauce but Duane dipped his. Either way was good.

Yum!

Hawaiian Crock Pot Chicken

Crock Pot Hawaiian Chicken
  
   The Crock Pot is going to become my best friend in the next few months. I found this recipe at Six Sisters' Stuff. We both got off work around four and went fishing on Monday. We put the chicken breast in the Crock Pot before leaving then added the rest of the ingredients for an hour when we got back. We served it over rice with a side of broccoli and cauliflower. I really liked it and ate it a sandwich the next day. 

Ingredients:
Chicken broth
BBQ sauce (We went to Dillons so we chose a Hawaiian Marinade and Honey BBQ. I want to try the BBQ on the website from Target)
Chicken breast
Pineapple chunks
Rice

 
 

Baked Egg Muffins

Baked Egg Muffins

    Preparing healthy, filling breakfasts and freezing them has been a life saver for me. It will be so helpful for early mornings! Along with the English Muffins, I made these Egg Muffins. I made an assortment using Canadian Bacon, Turkey Sausage, and Bacon. Some I included diced peppers and onions. I figured they would take longer to get tired of if I tried different ingredients. I paired two different kinds together and wrapped them in aluminum foil before freezing them. Two is the perfect amount for breakfast!
   I have seen these recipes all over Pinterest. I love trying different ones!

I scrambled one whole egg with one egg white with salt and pepper for each muffin. I added the extra ingredients after.

I baked them at 375 degrees for about twenty minutes.

Label and put them in the freezer. This will give me something for a few weeks!

Chicken Pot Pie Recipe

Chicken Pot Pie

   This recipe is one of my new favorites. It was so quick and easy. My cousin shared this recipe with me awhile ago. She reminded me of it on vacation and Duane and I finally tried it. It was delicious! I'm already planning on making it next week. It warmed up really well for leftovers too. Perfect for next day lunch. 

   This is my cousin, Katie Wright's recipe:
   Ingredients

• 3 tablespoons butter, melted
• 1 (16 ounce) package frozen mixed vegetables
• 1 (5 ounce) can chicken chunks, drained (We used frozen diced chicken)
• 2 (10.75 ounce) cans condensed cream of chicken soup
• 1/2 cup milk
• salt and pepper to taste
• 1 (10 ounce) can refrigerated layered biscuits

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees F (220 degrees C). Lightly butter a 9 inch deep dish pie pan with melted butter; reserve some of the melted butter.

 2. In a saucepan over medium heat, combine mixed vegetables and chicken; cook until vegetables are tender. Fold in soup; mix well. Pour in milk and mix until smooth; mixture should not be runny. Add salt and pepper to taste. Bring to a boil.

3. Remove from heat and spread mixture into bottom of pie pan. Separate biscuits into layers and place gently on top of mixture. Drizzle remaining butter on top of biscuit layers.

4. Bake in preheated oven for 15 minutes, or until golden brown. Let stand for 15 minutes before serving.

   One of my favorite recipes.