Mr Hammerlund

At the end of last year I was scheduled to teach poetry. I was excited to see what my students would do because we had been doing some interpretative dance videos, and they did much better than I had ever expected. Here's what I remember doing (it was two long months ago that I did this) I started out by reading some poetry to them. I then put up a keyword to brainstorm around; plants. I then had them brainstorm words associated with that term. I then went through a standard quatrain style, and told them to use it as a framework for their poem. There was a boy in my class last year who I know has the ability to perform better than he has, but for the past few years has not. When I passed by his desk to see how he was doing, I was not expecting much. When I saw his poem however, I was shocked. It was an awesome poem. When I read it, I could hear a song coming out of it and it had great emotion to it. It was really cool. For that kid, poetry was where he was equal to hi...

Reading the web today, I came across a website that had all these exclamation marks on it. The site reminded me of a quote. Cut out all these exclamation points. An exclamation point is like laughing at your own joke. F. Scott Fitzgerald Two years ago I had a class of third-grade girls, and they loved using exclamation points in their writing. Their emails were full of emoticons. It was cute. Next year I will have a new opportunity with a new grade level. It won't be the same, but there should be some good stories throughout the year.

Lately I have been thinking about time. I never feel like I have enough of it. I am feeling behind a lot, and I feel pressure of work and school and life pushing me. I am wondering how I can get back to feeling the way I felt before the big earthquake here. More sleep? Is what I am feeling the effects of allergies that seem to get slightly worse every year? I am starting to consider changes I need to make for when I teach my class next year. The third graders in my class will be mostly boys - which I am looking forward to - but they are more rambunctious and do not always behave nicely and need more of a strong hand. I will also need to change the way I teach. I will need to revert back to the way I used to teach as I lost myself this year.

In the days before the end of the school year, when the students were antsy and their attention spans were as short as a Hobbit, I tried a fraction activity that I thought would be engaging, challenging, and fun. It didn't turn out that way. I guess I should have expected that they wouldn't be in the mood to sit. So with that, I changed my plans for the following day. I wanted to get them up, out of their seats and moving around. I also wanted them to continue our unit studies. So I decided to so something I called a Reading Relay . I had the students read a short, one-page article. I brought them outside and separated them into two teams. I made a finish line about 100 meters from the starting line and at about the 50 meter mark, I stood with another teacher. The students were to run to the teacher at the 50m mark, and the teacher would ask them a comprehension question. If they got it right, they could run to the finish line and the next person could come. If the...