Wednesday, April 28, 2010

Economics and Magic Trash

It's about time I added some record of teaching to this here blog. It's been a while!

Today my students and I had our "ecomonics day." First-grader style. First, we had a class lesson in changing money. Everyone was given a fake dollar, and then they had to change it into coins. By the end of the time frame, they needed to have 1 Quarter, 1 Dime, 1 Nickel, and 1 Penny, at least. Good example of something getting lost in translation: most students ended up with only 41 cents. If that. The "bankers" didn't really get the whole conservation of value thing either, but we definitely worked on pairing, cooperation, and communication skills. And some of them know how many dimes make up a dollar. Success! I'll take it!

After our money changing, I fixed the amounts so everyone had 3 quarters, a dime, two nickels, and 5 pennies. Then, later in the day, we had a lesson on supply and demand. I had brought in things like regular pencils, and super-sparkly pencils; glue sticks; craft kits (with popsicle sticks, pipe cleaners, etc); personal packs of tissues; a bag of jolly ranchers; pencil erasers, etc. Each student HAD to buy a glue stick ($2), 2 erasers ($1) and a pencil (plain, $1; sparkly, $2). Then, they had to plan out what they would spend the rest of their money on. Would they buy their own tissues? ($2) Which three people would get the packs of colored pencils? ($4). Each student had between 5-10 bucks to buy with. They had earned the money throughout the week for good behavior in the hallway, at the end of the day, etc.
I don't know how much they would have understood this graph:
But they certainly understood the unfairness of how there were only 3 boxes of colored pencils, and 10 people had enough money and desire to pay the EXPENSIVE $4 for it. We ended up having to do an elimination game (bubble-gum, bubble-gum, in a dish...) to figure out how to keep our classroom environment safe and positive.

Management-wise, it was a zoo. Kid-involvement was 100%: they even got to be store owners! And for several of these kids, they don't have their own glue stick at home, so this was a fun activity.


Okay, now for Magic Trash.




This is my absolute favorite teaching trick. Okay, close second is the magic number cards, but this one still tops it. At the end of the day, I tell the students that I have selected a magic piece of trash on the floor. The person who finds it will get the lolly-pop in my hand. I won't check your collection of trash until all pencils, papers, etc are off the floor.
"Line up....quietly, please. Ah, good try. Nope. Nope. No----Wow! You found it! (Point to a student in need of positive reinforcement. Select something random from the trash they found.) Good job!"
This requires very little work on your part, and it is a fun way to encourage the students to clean up. Plus, last year, not even my fourth-graders got the hint that I really hadn't pre-selected the trash on the floor---just the kid.
Shhh... Don't tell any kids. If I lose that trick, I don't know how I'll teach school.
;-)

Saturday, April 17, 2010

Spring Break and NJ/NYC







For Spring Break this year, we went to the Baltimore Aquarium and then drove a few hours further north to visit the Johnsons in NJ!

Our second day there, Mom and we kids went to the City to try and get lottery tickets.

I don't think Trina was very happy to be waiting in line, even if it was for Wicked. Well, she was right--we waited to no avail. The other 200+ people in line were not so lucky either. Only 13 lucky pairs were selected. During our wait we kept trying to calculate the odds of getting a ticket. I don't know how, but we kept coming up with a 33 percent chance. Just shows...tired Cummings waiting in line can sing, can probably read books and write a few good essays, even list historical facts and scientific concepts, but none of us were in any kind of state to do high-level mathematics. (For that matter, I don't know if I could have wanted to solve the problem even if I were well-rested.)


We went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, navigated the subway, and then made it home for delicious bbq sandwiches with the Johnsons.

Dad joined us the next day, and we spent the day walking Times Square, seeing the Museum of Natural History, and we stopped by the Manhattan Temple and the American Folk Art Museum. Later that night, we tried for tickets again.

No luck with Wicked...but next door, Heather and I were lucky and got ourselves some tickets for The Miracle Worker, at the next-door theater "Circle in the Square."
The family went off to have dinner and see the Ferris Wheel in the ToysRUs, and Heather and I watched the well-acted and intense drama about Helen Keller and her Teacher.

We got home late that night, and went to sleep. (What is it about our vacations that make us more tired than rested? ;-) )

The next day, we had a nice breakfast and then went and picnicked in the beautiful weather. The Johnsons came along and went with us to Washington's Crossing.

We went to the visitor's center, watched a film about the important ten days that turned the tides of the Revolution, and had a great picnic lunch. Well-loved was the dessert, which was a huge Reese's PB Cup we got at Time's Square.

Thanks, Jenny, Nathan, Lily, and Isaac, for a great week! (And thanks, Heather, for that CUTE haircut!)

The White Envelope Came!

On Friday, March 26th, I came home from work and saw this in the mailbox.

At 9pm, we conferenced with the Aaron and Katy, with the Utah kids, and with Nathan J.

The Wrides and Jenny+Kids were already here.




I have been called to serve in the Colorado Denver North Mission, Spanish Speaking!





I know...it's been forever!

First things first. Heather cut my hair, and she did a great job!

Before



afterThanks, Heath!