Field Trip!!!

Today in the 7th grade we had a field trip! We were scheduled to go to Real Art Ways in Hartford to watch a documentary on the Children's March.  It was the first field trip that I have ever coordinated myself with no much help from other teachers.  It was a mad house in my Crew this morning with 4 other Crew teachers being absent sent over 20 extra students into my classroom alone!  Once the time came to board the bus it was crazy because the place only sent one bus and my students were not very happy that they had to sit 3 to a seat! Once we got there the film was great and the students really paid attention to it and had a pretty good conversation about what they learned.  Over all I think the field trip went very well.  With a few minor bumps along the way.

What I learned from this experience was that my school needs an explicit directions or packet about field trips. Especially for the first year teachers! But overall it was a learning experience that every teacher should get to have.

Back from Vacation!

SBAC testing is underway for the second week at my school.  So far it is going well, except for a few bumps along the road.  Our students have been very open to taking them with an open mind with an exception of a few.  I'm really excited to be able to start my new unit on Geometry for my 7th grade class.  We have some really cool projects ahead of us like creating our own cereal box and so on! In my 8th grade class we will be starting to look at graphing equations from tables and making best fit line for the data.  From there we will be creating our own month budgets and then creating graphs and equations from there! There is a lot of work to be done from now until the end of the year! Oh yeah, and I'm the new softball coach for my school! :)

Pi Day!!! 3.14

I'm a little late with this post, but on Friday, March 14, I celebrated Pi day with my students in my classroom.  It was great to take a day off from the regular schedule that we normally have in the classroom.  I brought in pie for all my students to enjoy! We did a activity where we discovered how pi was created! Students colored Pi symbols to hang in the room, complete word searches and did a online scavenger hunt on questions that were all related to Pi! I had made a special T-shirt to wear on Pi day and had all of my students sign the back of it!  Students thought that was so cool! They kept asking me if they I was planning on doing this every year and to save them!  Students really enjoyed the day and learned new things at the same time! Remember to celebrate the small things too!

Why Do You Do This?

In one of my classes today, students came in very disruptive and disrespectful to others in the class.  Once I finally got them to settle down in their seats and some of them started working, I still had some students that were feeling around not doing what they were suppose to and distracting others around them.  I finally had one student ask them to be quiet, and they all stopped and looked at her.  (Remind yourself this student is the 7th grade class president) She then asked each and every one of them what they wanted to do when they get older.  They all just looked at her and they answered one by one.  The next words out of this girls mouth was, well how are you going to get there? They all just looked like they seen a ghost.  Another student asked, well what do you mean?  This student goes on to tell them that they are not going to become that if they are fooling around and not doing what they are suppose to do, you are not going to be able to be that.  You need to be focused and willing to challenge yourself to complete tasks.  This is how you will grow as a learner and person inside/outside of school.  I was shocked, but tried not to show it.

Every student after she spoke, quickly got to work and completed the assignment at hand.  Then suddenly one of the students raised their hand and asked, Ms. Polzella why do you come to work everyday?  The thought that came through my head, "YES! I love this question!".  My response:

What a great question! Why do you think I come to school everyday? (Interested in what they would say) One girl shouts out; well isn't obvious, she loves us!  I look at them and say: Yes, that is definitely true!  I love each and everyone of my students!  I am here everyday because I impact your life in some way or another, even if you don't know it.  I could not picture myself doing anything else but teaching. Knowing that I can help others learn, fills me with joy.  I know that if I am not here, who would be? Since, I'm here I know that I am providing you with the best education I can and giving you an opportunity to learn and excel like you never thought you could!  Thats why I continue my learning at the graduate level, so that I can become even a better educator for my students.  

Ms. Polzella don't some of these students drive you crazy, tho?

Everyday when I am here I feel like I am going crazy.  But its a good crazy.  I could stand up here and do the same thing everyday, that would be boring. Sometimes during class I stop and look around and say to myself, "If anyone walks in this door, they are going to think its a mad house in here, but this is how I roll: organized chaos!"   I'm here because I care about your education.  I have been in your shoes before, I know what it feels like, I want to be able to tell you its going to be okay, trust me! And that we can learn together!  

Mathematicians In the Classroom

This topic for my blog came to me during a three day professional development in mathematics.  How do we get students to be Mathematicians?  Its simple! Its about getting students to invent strategies that they have discovered while solving a series of problems.  But how do we get students to invent these strategies?  For a long time now, the way we tell students to multiply fractions together is straight across the top and straight across the bottom.  But WHY does this work? Many students do not know the answer to this question.  If we are not letting students explore and discover these strategies to solve problems are they really learning math or are they just applying what they were told.  

If you want your students to learn about area, perimeter, and volume, how would we do this?  Give them the formulas of each and let them solve problems on paper? But what happens when they ask where did the formula come from.  Why not give them a problem with numbers and tell them that we want to find the area, perimeter or volume and let them explore inventing the formula for each. This would give them more ownership over using the formulas in the future and have an understanding of why the formulas work the way that they do.  Students should be able to answer the question why in mathematics! 

Welcome to MELS!!!

For my grad course this week we were to play with iMovie or another movie maker program. I chose to use iMovie and created a short movie about my school. Its short and sweat but I like it!  For my first time using iMovie I think it went well and is a really easy program to use! Hope you enjoy

Stop. Shut Down. Think & Explore!

In my most recent grad course, my professor mentioned that sometimes you just need to unplug from the world for a day! The next day during my professional development we were reading samples essays to an argumentative writing prompt, where the topic was if their school should participate in the national "Shut Down Your Screen" week. This got me thinking! Have you ever bin in a public place and just looked around?  I have, what I notice is people are more engaged in their devices then the conversation they could have with the person/people they are with.  I believe that it is important to teach students that you do not need to be 'plugged in' every minute of the day.  In the article "Attached to Technology and Paying a Price" written by Matt Richtel it states, "Scientists say juggling e-mail, phone calls and other incoming information can change how people think and behave. They say our ability to focus is being undermined by bursts of information." Take a second and think about this.  The ability to focus had a large impact on our lives.  It is one of the most important skills that we depend on everyday.  If we lose focus while performing an important task such as operating machinery, or driving motor vehicles, we could harm others or ourselves.  If we do no teach students now how to think critically and focus, the future will be much different.

"New technology is common, new thinking is rare." -Sir Peter Blake 

My Students Surprise me Everyday!!!

For my fist blog post I thought I would share with you an experience I had with my students on Friday.  I opened my door to let my class go, and the next one in.  As I open the door my first thought, "Why are there so many kids by my door?". Second thought, "Is someone going to fight? Oh no I got to get out there". As I exit my room trying to figure out whats going on, one of my students standing in front of me says, Ms. Polzella I need to ask you a really important question.  With a confused look on my face, he gets down on one knee and reads a speech that he prepared.  I can't remember exactly what he said, but he asked if I would be the other half to his whole. And he even had a ring made out the those colored elastic bands.  I was flattered but I had to say no!  I gave him mad props for adding in that math joke, 'the other half to his whole'.  At least I know he knows his fractions! This student did it as a joke, but never in a million years, did I think this would happen in the 7th grade.  I mean when I worked with preschools this would happen every other day. It was cute! My students surprise me everyday of the week.  Just another day in the classroom.