This is a MUST read!

I have struggled this semester with a lot of stress. I feel like I am juggling too many things at once. I have four kids and a husband that I don't spend nearly enough time with. I am trying to balance my UAM classes with preparing for the classes I am teaching. And I just can't keep up with the laundry and dishes!

So my recommended reading to you is what I keep falling back on to keep my sanity: The Bible. Sometimes I only get the "verse of the day" in my inbox. But I hold on to that truth all day long and when I am hanging by a thread, reading passages from Psalms lifts me back up. I also started a Bible study by Beth Moore. It is called Esther and I am slowly getting through it but it is very good! I highly recommend it to any woman, especially my fellow teachers who are stressed to the max!

Lab!

Last week we worked on genetics. It is my favorite topic in general biology. The kids get so excited about figuring out what kind of person they will have to marry in order to get blue-eyed babies! They love to figure out that it is okay that they have O blood when both mom and dad have A blood. And so far, I haven't caused anyone to figure out that they are adopted! Now, we just have to get them through to finals!

Hands-on learning :)

During my facilities inspection, which is part of my duty as Chemical Hygiene Officer, I found this cabinet being used as an acid storage cabinet. I was able to show my students how acid fumes will corrode metal over time. The cabinet had to be removed and destroyed and now a new acid cabinet sits in its place. Real life learning gives them examples they can remember!

Mentoring Day

This is a great picture of some second grade students working on turkey calls. They came to our school for a field trip. My students taught them in four areas: the lab (where they analyzed pond water), the classroom (where they learned about wild turkeys and made the cool turkey call), the field area (where they played a came from PROJECT WILD), and the outdoor classroom (where they learned about Arkansas's plants and animals). It was such a fun day and my students learned as much as the second graders!

I love my ELMO!

In the fall, I received a grant from Donor's Choose.org that funded the purchase of ELMO. I absolutely love it! I use it on a daily basis. My student's love it as well. Here is a photo of one of my students working on a class graph from a photosynthesis lab that we did. This helps capture the interest of the students. I would highly recommend this technology for every classroom.

Outdoor Club!

Here is a great picture of some of the students who are members of my outdoor club. This is my second year to sponsor outdoor club and it is a lot of fun. The students help maintain the outdoor classroom, participate in mentoring projects with elementary and middle school students and spend time enjoying and learning more about the great outdoors. This weekend, my husband and I completed several major projects in the outdoor classroom. We will have a grand opening when we return from Thanksgiving break. Last year, several students had an idea to build a dock on one of our ponds. I applied for and was awarded a $5000 grant from Lowe's. We used the grant money to build the dock, a bridge across a ravine, a raised walkway through a wetland area, a new path through the butterfly meadow and to install signs in the outdoor classroom. It is a project that has involved many students and community members. It has also consumed every spare minute and been delayed by the wettest year on record! It is finally finished!

Four Days to Go!

Only four school days left until my 10 DAY Thanksgiving Break! I can't wait because I could really use a little time off. This four day school week has been very stressful. I feel like I am weeks behind in my curriculum and falling further behind with every Monday off. Our school is in fiscal distress and our superintendent was recently 'suspended indefinitely' and an interim was brought in. There are rumors of another RIF this year and everyone is concerned. If only we could just teach and not worry about all of this...

On a positive note, I received notice yesterday that I have received another grant! This time it is for electrophoresis equipment. I am very excited!

This week we are going to complete a few labs and start on genetics. Gobble, gobble! The end of the semester will be here before I know it!

MSDSMSDSMSDSMSDSMSDS

Since I was named Chemical Hygiene Officer, I have been up to my eyeballs in MSDS (material safety data sheets), trying to update them across the district and get them in the right places. I now know how many closets are at each school in the district, where they are and what is stored there. I know things I wish I didn't know.
And today, I was able to teach my students why it is important to have MSDS handy. My 2nd hour lab went great. 5th hour, I had eight students splash chemicals in their faces because they weren't following directions or out of simple mistakes. Luckily it wasn't anything toxic or harmful. The kids had to endure 15 minutes of flushing with water and I got to talk to the nice gentleman at poison control (who probably knows me well as many times as my twins have gotten into things) and I filled out eight incident reports, talked to my principal, the nurse and 8 parents. In the end, we were all able to laugh it off and I hope the students learned a valuable lesson. I learned that I will never do that lab again!
Dr. Level would have been so proud today. I used anticipation guides in two of my classes. It went okay, and I think it will be great once students get the hang of it! I am thankful for the weekend!

Great Day!

Today was one of the four "mentoring" days I will be hosting this school year. A mentoring day is when the elementary kids come to the high school and are taught by the high school science kids. Today, we had 60 second graders for several hours. My high school kids took them through the outdoor classroom, teaching them about turkeys, deer, bear, why the leaves change color, habitats and camouflage. They also had a rotation in the science lab where they used microscopes to look at pond water. Then they completed a study on wild turkeys and made their own turkey call. It was awesome! I was so proud of my students. They really did a fantastic job! It was a great day! The second graders had a blast and the high school kids learned by teaching. And for just a few hours, I could forget about paperwork and grades, homework, meetings and committees and just enjoy watching kids learn and watching their smiling faces as they LOVED science! :)

Recommended reading...

With a hectic school schedule, sponsoring three clubs and being the chemical hygiene officer for the school, I have a lot of professional reading to do and things to prepare for. With my four children at home, I read a lot of Dr. Suess and children's books. As far as reading for pleasure, it is hard to find time in my schedule. I read the book "Gathering Blue" by Lois Lowry for my 2nd book talk and realized that it was the 2nd book of a trilogy. My OCD would not let me read the 2nd book without completing the series. The junior english teacher at our school had a classroom set of the first book, "The Giver." She was happy to let me borrow it and now I can't wait to read the third book in the series, which is supposed to tie everything together (The 3rd book is called "The Messenger"). I would highly recommend these books to anyone for a fast yet thought-provoking read. I would also recommend them for use in any science classroom or humanities classroom. They explore how humans interact with their environment and what can happen when society collapses and a few people restructure it in a way that they believe to be best. They are written for young adults but enjoyable for grown-ups, too.

Book Review: Teach Like Your Hair's On Fire

I recently read a "teacher book" written by Rafe Esquith who teaches 5th grade in Los Angeles. What he has accomplished in his classroom is nothing short of remarkable. I was fortunate enough to hear him speak last year and he was very encouraging. He runs a very rigid classroom and his students, who are all ESL, learn to play an instrument, memorize Shakespeare, go on trips to Washington and New York with him each year and are dedicated, eager to learn and highly successful. He has some really great ideas and I think that elementary school teachers would benefit greatly from his strategies. As a high school teacher with 150 students, I enjoyed his enthusiasm and ideas but would find some of these strategies hard to implement in my classroom. He is a teacher that is so consumed with his work that he once caught his hair on fire and did not realize it because he was engrossed in trying to teach a concept to a student. That reminds me of the quote: "Education is not the filling of a pail but the lighting of a fire." The book is a fast read and I think you would find it inspiring.

Some Days You are the Windshield....

Today I accomplished so much in my classroom. Granted, there were no students there. Today was one of our required Mondays to work (we are usually off every Monday) and I was busy cleaning the lab and working on the job I was recently given: Chemical Hygiene Officer. Sounds cool...in a very nerdy kind of way. This Friday will mark the end of our first quarter. We will have had 34 days of school at the end of the quarter. I missed 4 with H1N1, 3 with professional development and the first day is always a wash academically. That leaves 26 days that I was in class with my students. I feel like I am very behind. Today gave me a chance to take a deep breath and plan for the sprint that is ahead. I hope my students are well-rested and ready to run! (But I will drag them if I have to!)

Encouragement for First Year Teachers

This is my second year in the classroom. Pretty much anything that can happen good or bad in the classroom happened to me last year. I had the lowest of lows the Monday that I found out one of my students had committed suicide over the weekend. I had the highest of highs when I was named teacher of the month for the fourth time and when I received over $10,000 in grants for proposals I had written. I had days when I was furious such as when the football player threw something at me and did not receive punishment of any kind and when the student told me that he did not "feel like" he should have to serve detention. I had days where I laughed so hard I cried because my students are so funny. I had weird days when I wasn't sure how to react: I took my AP students to the outdoor classroom and we came upon a car parked on our pond bank where a couple was engaging in sexual activities. At least we were talking about meiosis. For the rest of the year, the term "nature trail" took on a whole new meaning. I had bittersweet days where a student felt comfortable talking to me then revealed she was a victim of abuse. I had hectic days when I was exhausted at the end. I had boring days when I though I would fall asleep before the bell rang. I had scary and stressful days such as when our superintendent told us we would expeience a RIF.
I experienced the full range of emotions but in the end: I love my job. I love that it is different every day and that I get to know some really cool kids. I love my principal, love my co-workers (even when they are hard to love), I love my mentor and I love my school. I can't imagine doing anything else.
You will survive this year and once you do, it gets ALOT easier! I promise!

I'm Back!

Last week, after being out for an entire week with the flu then out for another three days for professional development, I went back into my classroom to be observed by my mentor and video taped. What a day! My kids were pretty good but of course they are a little crazy after not having class for two weeks. I used an activity from Project Wild and modified it a bit to fit my students and my class.

Project Wild (as well as Project Learning Tree, Project Wet and Project Wow) is a great resource for activities that incorportate several subject areas (can you say collaboration!) and includes hands-on indoor or outdoor activities. The usually require minimal supplies and are for students in K-12. You can get the books and training free by attending a training workshop. I highly recommend it.

My lab last week was a general microscopy lab and most of the kids loved looking at the slides. They are getting really good at focusing the microscopes. I had a new student and her lab partners gave her instructions and helped her learn how to use the microscope. I was so proud!

The rain finally stopped for long enough to take my environmental science class into the outdoor classroom. We worked on the bridge and removed some brush. We also did a listening and observation activity and the students learned the names of some birds.

We were out of school on Friday and of course no school on Monday. I am looking forward to Tuesday and I will be glad to finally get back into the swing of things.

Great Lab Photos

Here are some pictures of my students in lab. I found a great resource for biology teachers that I use to get ideas and even print outs for some of my labs. It is http://www.biologyjunction.com/ It is maintained by a teacher and has a lot of new ideas to keep things interesting! There are links to other science sites as well.

Build up momentum just to hit the brick wall...

This week has been one of the most frustrating weeks for me as a teacher. I have been trying hard to build momentum in my classes and things were going pretty well. Then, over the holiday weekend, I came down with the H1N1 virus. While I am sure it will make for great discussions during my biology classes, it kept me out of school for an entire week. I am afraid that I will be "starting over" so to speak after being away from my students for so long. I feel hopelessly behind and I am going to have to find a way to further "compress" our already "compressed" four day schedule and cover extra material to get back on schedule.

It could not be helped, though. One of the biggest lessons I learned last year is that you just have to teach what you can in the time you have. It will never feel like enough time to the teacher.

One positive thing from the week: I received another grant and will get a document camera (ELMO) to use in my classroom! I am very excited about this!

Almost Friday!

Friday is my favorite school day. I have most of my classes in the lab which they love (as do I). Tonight when I got home from work and checked my email, I was notified that I had been awarded a grant which will provide new microscope slides for my lab. I am so excited! I can't wait to get them in and show the kids. They love to look at things under a microscope and they are always amazed at all the details in the things you can't even see with the naked eye. Science rocks!!! (But I fully support all other subjects....)

Just Smile and Nod....

I had forgotten, momentarily, how dramatic social life can be for 10th graders. I had a lecture day today which isn't really fun for anyone but I feel like I am getting behind since I am losing a day every week. We got most of the notes out of the way and even had a couple of "get up and get involved" activities. I still had a lot of, "Mrs. Sadoski, my hand is falling off from writing notes!" comments. Oh well. Tomorrow I am giving the pre-test in the first of my target assessments. They will hate bubbles by the end of tomorrow. I am looking forward to Friday because Friday is lab day! Everyone loves to be in the lab.

It's Monday, I mean Tuesday Again!

This year our school is the only school in the state to have adopted a four day school week. That means we are off every Monday and our school hours are from 7:45 until 4:20 Tuesday through Friday. Do I like it? I love it on Mondays... It is too soon to tell about the rest of the week. I am exhausted by the time I get home. I am hoping everyone will get into a routine that will become easier for us...especially sixth and seventh period. Biology is kind of a hard sell as it is. At 4:00, it is almost impossible. The kids are great, though. Classroom control has been much easier this year than last. I read on someones post that they had hours of prep ahead of them. I remember that last year. I would get 2 or 3 hours of sleep at night trying to keep up. This year is SO much easier in that respect. It does get better. The light at the end of the tunnel isn't always a train.

This is Why I Teach

I was a little bummed over the summer when my test scores came back. The kids did not, as a group, perform as well as I thought they would. I was afraid that the year had been a little pointless. Today at church, a former student who is now a freshman in college came to me and said that she was so glad she had taken my class. Because of my class, biology is very easy for her and she is very confident in her abilities. Moments like this keep me going!