F I E L D T R I P !!

What a week.  This past week I had my very first parent teacher conferences.  I ended the school day with my kids at 2:30pm.  I was then meeting with parents until 9:30pm.  Longest day of my teaching experience thus far.  It was great to meet with the parents of my students, but it made for a very tiring night.  Luckily, the next day the fourth grade team got to go on a field trip! 

The bus ride to and from the field trip was some of the best moments! I got to just hang with my students and talk to them about life.  I talked to the boys about the cutest girls in the class they were crushing on and I talked to the girls about the cutest boys.  I had one little boy say, Eww we don't like any girls Miss Stransky.  Oh, you just wait my friend, one day you will like girls! :)

 

The view driving up the canyon was so beautiful!

For our field trip, we went up Diamond Fork Canyon Campground in Spanish Fork, Utah.  This field trip was full of so many things from our science core curriculum that we have to teach in Utah. I probably learn just as much, if not more, than my students do about Utah during experiences like this.   At the campground we had different stations we got to attend.  The first station was a water station.  We all got to put on these boots that had pants connected to them and go in the water to collect bugs and fish.  My students were doing the catching and I was just monitoring them in the water.  I felt like a mother of 27 children hoping and wishing none of them would go floating down the river!  At this station we also got to test the PH level of the water in the river.  This by far was one of the best stations that my students loved.  Here are some pictures!

Another station that we got to go to was an animal station.  There was a guide teaching about different animals that we have here in Utah.  He had footprints the students had to identify which animal it belonged to.  He also had different beaks, antlers and horns, fur samples, and "droppings" of the different animals! So entertaining to watch the students determine which animals live in Utah and what characteristics they have.  Pictures from this station! 

The next station we went to was a plant station.  Here we learned about common plants in Utah.  We mostly worked with leaves from different types of trees.  In science we learn about deciduous and coniferous trees (both of which are very difficult for a fourth grader to even pronounce! :) but it is so fun hearing them try so hard!) We got clues telling us what kind of tree we were looking for, then in groups, we had to go find the actual leaf in the campground.  Once we found the leaf we brought it back to our guide and he told us the trees name.  We documented all our information in a chart we got to bring back home. A few from this station!

The last station we went to was a nature walk! We loved this station! We got to take binoculars and go around the campground looking for birds and different animals.  Funny thing was we didn't see one bird the whole time.  But my kids still loved looking through the binoculars to find things.  We got to explore and that was so fun! This was the only time I heard the words, "Miss Stransky, _______ just tripped and got hurt!" This caused me to panic for just a moment but when I saw no sign of blood, I figured we would be ok.  The tears quickly dried up!  Thank goodness! On our walk we found a tepee and some tunnels made out of branches! The kids loved walking through them and then finding another way out to get back on the trail!

 Also on our hike we got some good class pictures!!

These are the greatest kids I know. Love them. 

After our walk, everyone was so thirsty they thought they were going to die.  I think they were begging for water more than I have ever heard them beg for anything. 

This was the only source of water we found at the campground.  It was a faucet.  Everyone stood in line and took their turns.  I luckily had a water bottle I could fill up and then drink from.  My students were just going for it and getting all the water they could during their time at the faucet.  It came out so fast they had to have someone turn the faucet so water didn't go everywhere.  Well, when I saw one of my students that I just adore up at the faucet, I knew it was time for me to turn the water on for him.  A* and I are always joking around inside in the classroom and out at recess.  (side story: everyday after school he comes to me and says, "Miss Stransky, I am starving, can I please have a lollipop?" With the most adorable smirk ever of course. And I can't help but give him a lollipop almost everyday!)  Anyways... A* and I have a good time messing around turning free time, so I walk up to the faucet and say, "Here A*, let me help you!" And I turn the faucet on full blast! It wasn't too bad but he did have to dry off in the sun for a few minutes! :) He laughed and told me it was my turn to get a drink straight from the faucet.  I reminded him I brought the water bottle! 

Here I am caught in the act.

Such a great day! I love being in fourth grade again!!

This next picture wasn't on the field trip but aren't they just cute? 

three weeks down...a lot to go!

Well, I have made it through my first two weeks of teaching 4th grade! I don't know how else to explain it other than, WOW! It truly has been such a great experience.  Even in this short time, I have learned so many things.  Things about myself, my students, Utah (I teach Utah History in 4th grade), and even things about the life of a teaching, how important it is to plan and be prepared, that it is ok to adjust things as I go through out the day, that recess is still one of my favorite parts of the day, and that every day is an adventure, the best adventure I could every ask for.  

Prior to the first day of school, I sent each of my students a postcard in the mail that I made in photoshop.  They were just a nice note to welcome them to fourth grade and to give them some important dates that were coming up like Open House, Back to School Night, and the First Day of School! After many trials creating these postcards this was the final product! 

On the first day of school we took pictures in an empty picture frame that said "first day - fourth grade".  My students LOVED it! They were able to grab a lollipop or a mustache and stick their face in the frame and smile! I sent these to each parent on the first day.  This is what the picture frame looked like:

Over the first couple of days, I let my students brainstorm what they wanted the rules of the classroom to be.  This was a democratic move that gave them some ownership of the rules and consequences in the classroom.  As we came up as a class different rules we wanted to follow, the white board was soon covered! 

Some of my favorite rules: 

* Don't feel bad if you did something wrong

*Let your attitude rise

*Be happy and don't worry

*Hippos are the best animal (my little girl H* is in LOVE with hippos!)

*No ruff housing (I have turned to this rule multiple times for my boys!)

*HAVE FUN! 

Also during these first couple weeks of school, I have added some more things to the classroom!

I got this Disk Drop Game from oriental trading to match my carnival theme.  My students beg me EVERYDAY to play it! They thing it is so fun! Right now we are using it as a class reward.  If the students ever do something perfectly without me reminding them, we get to play the Disk Drop Game and earn class points! (Right now we are working towards earning 100 class points to get a class pet! Don't get too excited, it will just be a class fish even though my students wanted a snake,  hamster,  guinea pig, dog, cat, and a hippo.  I sadly told them a fish was all I could handle! They can't wait to earn that fish.  They want to take it on field trips and home on the weekends so it can experience life outside our classroom... I don't know how that is all going to play out just yet.  Any way here is our treasured Disk Drop Game. 

Every morning, the students move their "lunch clip" to the meal that they want for lunch or if they brought a home lunch.  After everyone moves their clip, it also tells me who is absent for that day!  At the end of the day I have a class job that is the lunch helper where they get to move all the clips back to the start to be prepared for the next day!

This is my fast finisher wall.  When students finish an assignment, instead of getting up out of their seat, they are supposed to pick something on the wall and work on it until we move on as a class to the next activity. 

This is something that I actually haven't tried but it was shared with me the other day and I thought it was the greatest idea! So here is the deal, if any student says something out of turn without raising their hand I send them here to pick up a pink hand print.  Or if any student is out of their seat when they shouldn't be, I send them here to get a blue footprint.  They write their name and the date on the hand or footprint and place it in the turn in box.  When I go through the turn in box at the end of each day, I will grab all the hands and feet and put them in each students file.  When I am doing conferences with students and/or parents I will be able to show them how many times they are forgetting to raise their hand or stay in their seat.  Sounds like a good idea, so we will see!  

One of the many joys of teaching... after 45 minutes of math time, this is what is turned in to me.  "Miss Stransky, it was too hard." Oh, fourth grade is so tough! 

In science, we are learning about Utah Environments: Deserts, Forests, and Wetlands.  Students were about to make 3D Environments for their projects. All I gave them was paper and told them they got to be creative! I was so impressed with what they came up with.  This is a picture os a wetland with an alligator and some lily pads.  

A desert. 

This on we saw in a Bill Nye video that my students wanted to re create.  The middle white stuff are the mountains.  On the right side is the desert and on the left side is the wetland.  As the moist air comes in from the wetland, gets to the forest on the mountain and eventually gets over to the desert side, their isn't much moisture in the air! 

One of my favorites - an alligator in the swamp of a wetland!

A forest - with both deciduous and coniferous trees and animals. The black animal is tough to see but i think it was a bear. 

This is our fourth grade adventures wall.  Any time any students bring in pictures of themselves in Utah we get to post it on this back cabinet. 

I get so many drawings on my desk every day! Some of my more recent ones are these.  My little H* (mentioned in the rules above) LOVES Hippos.  She drew me this on graph paper! Too cute!

from ? :) my favorite! If only I really had those nice long eyelashes! 

One of my little boys S* was drawing his name like this and I walked by and told him how cool I thought it was so the next day, sure enough, I had my very own! 

Remember this book?? It was one of my favorites growing up and so I decided to read it to my students. We are almost finished with it but we have LOVED it! Every free moment they ask me if I can read out loud to them! I am almost losing my voice from talking so much!

I don't have favorite students... but some that are truly just a joy in the classroom brought in this lovely animal today from recess....

This student reminds me so much of my little brother.  I just look at him and smile because he is so sweet (with a little mischievous side).  When he came up to show me this he told me he caught it just for our class to keep as a class pet.  I quickly turned him right around and headed out the door.  

Good thing I LOVE my job!