 Do you guys ever feel like the birds are laughing at you because I do oh That's cold. Mm-hmm. No I guess Good morning, everyone. Welcome back to another apples and tears vlog. Let's get this thing started Fly like stuck in my driver's side window because I'm hearing that like frantic buzzing sound and I don't usually hear that what I'm driving Oh Happy Monday, you guys. So today is April 10th. Yesterday was Easter. We had a great Easter We ended up hanging out with our neighbors, we were supposed to go out of town but then my husband surprised me with a couple of days off and So we decided to just stay in town. We went to his mom's For Saturday and we spent the day with his whole family and that was really fun So amazing cash got to spend time with his cousins and he very rarely gets to do that Because they live quite a bit away Um, and then yesterday we hung out with our very best friends and next to our neighbors I think you guys have met them before or at least maybe seen them like their faces on my vlog But cash and Ronan are like best best buddies and they absolutely love getting to spend time together and play So we did that and then we just came home like kind of early and hung out and It was a good time. So Monday we're back. I think this is week three of quarter four Which means I believe I have six weeks left Until summer vacation It's not like I'm counting down the days or anything, you know, just Just excited I'm ready for a good break And we have a lot of really fun summer plans Coming up. So I'm gonna get inside Show you what I'm doing today and give you kind of like the lowdown of how This quarter is about to be completely different than any quarter. I've ever experienced All right, so fourth quarter as every teacher veteran teacher knows is probably like one of the hardest quarters to teach through because we have state testing in quarter four It's the end of the year. The kids are starting to kind of check out and There's all kinds of events going on. We've got like spring carnivals going on We've got like award ceremonies. A lot of people do field trips in the fourth fourth Quarter so the fourth quarter is always weird no matter what and teachers are at this point where we're burnout We're done dealing a lot of people Have finished covering their standards and a lot of people think that just because testing is over that They're done teaching and let's be quite honest. There's a lot of people that think that way I personally have never been one of those people I've never been able to like Process the thought of okay. Well, they've tested so I'm done I know a lot of teachers that think that way and unfortunately for them when you stop having structure and and Order in your classroom, which includes not teaching anymore Behaviors tend to get a little bit worse in my opinion So anyway, the main point of that was fourth quarter can get a little bit weird in general already Fourth quarter for me is going to be a little bit different than I've ever really experienced before and that is because this year I have a student teacher. So I have had the privilege to be a mentor teacher to a few Intern teachers so the difference between a student teacher and an intern teacher is an intern is typically here like one or two Days a week and their main goal is to make observations And then they have a couple of assignments that they might need to use student data for so they might do You know little lessons here and there they might pull small groups they might conduct like a research project with a couple of the students and So that is an intern a student teacher is here a little bit more full-time and their main purpose is to Completely take over a classroom and learn how to manage a classroom and start actually practicing their teaching The mentor teacher myself is responsible for providing feedback Giving model opportunities so like modeling what it should look like and then giving the student teacher an opportunity to Apply what has been observed So I am a mentor teacher to a student teacher this year. She's from ASU. Her name is Jessica I will introduce you to her at some point. She said it's okay. She wants she's totally cool of being introduced on the vlog and She is in her so this is the last quarter of her first semester as a student teacher She has one more semester left. So she graduates in December We have decided that at this point She is going to go ahead and do some full takeover because I Find that in my experience the more you do the better you're prepared. So last quarter She Did one class takeover so she would watch me teach two classes and then she would teach the third class Sometimes if I wasn't here, she would teach the whole day. Sometimes She would do two classes. It just kind of depending on what we're doing and how comfortable she felt Teaching that lesson. So this semester or this quarter. Sorry. She's in full takeover So jessek is only here three days a week. She's here Wednesday, thursday, friday I think I mentioned this in a previous vlog, but it is like official now She um is going to be taking over science completely We have One and a half units left. We have our full energy unit And then we have our little life site life science unit, which is only one standard. So We might just tuck that in at the end Luckily fourth grade science is not a tested subject So there isn't going to be like a major state test on these standards not until fifth grade anyway But there is a benchmark test that I will be giving Just because district has us do that So with that being said, I'm only going to be teaching my class and running my class on mondays and tuesdays So we've decided that while I'm teaching I will cover social studies and while she's teaching she will cover science So that gives two days of social studies a week So I just have to be really like Purposeful about what I do on those social studies days. So I'm gonna show you guys what I'm doing today before we do that I want to take a quick commercial break to talk about my glasses You guys have no idea how many people message me on instagram on tiktok on youtube Where do you get your glasses from? They're so cute. You always have a different pair. I love them And I always say the same thing. They're from zinf optical. So zinf optical is a virtual Optical website place where you can order glasses online Basically, you just get your prescription from your doctor And then you order the glasses online with your prescription. You can add different things like anti glare anti scratch blue light blocking things like that And then in a couple weeks your glasses come to you in the mail. So the process is a smidge Longer than you would like then would take it like your doctor's office Um, but I think it's worth it because each pair of glasses depending on your prescription is like Well below a hundred dollars like these glasses were 40 dollars with My lenses and I have like tons of pairs of glasses from zinf my big brown ones that you guys love I get comments on those every day Um, love those. They're huge brown glasses my big white ones. I used to wear those were from zinf I actually got a new prescription So I did have to kind of like toss a couple of my pairs of glasses because they weren't working for me anymore Um, and so i'm in the process of like reordering all the cute pairs I just ordered a really really colorful pair of pink and yellow glasses from zinf and a pair of sunglasses from zinf So the pink ones are they're here. Um, and then the the sunglasses are in the mail But I wanted to show you guys these because I do have a discount code. It's linked right below in the description box It's like the top thing like right under my little. Hi. How are you? It's like right underneath that And I believe it is about 40 50 60 off Um any frame that you click on and then um these actual glasses will be linked right there too If you're interested in getting this pair, but I highly highly recommend zinf I've used many many glasses companies in the past zinf has really really cute styles very unique Um, they have the kind with like the glitter outside and like the sparkle and like the diamond Everything about that is like screaming my name now my prescriptions a little too powerful for frames like those but Seriously, they're adorable. So anyway back to our regularly scheduled programming. All right, so we got a new um IEP last week one of our lovely students was finally Evaluated and they are going to begin receiving services starting today Which is actually I think they started receiving services a while ago But the official IEP meeting was just held on friday. So um, I just like to Um have all their accommodations like ready and I used to actually have a document That had um like a spreadsheet of all of the students that are on an IEP or 504 And a list of their basic accommodations And then I had it printed and it was like right next to my teaching space But at this point in my teaching career Most of the accommodations for our sped students are the same or very similar And so I kind of just use those accommodations already Um, just in general for the majority of my students the ones that I feel need them These are things like teacher proximity. So they have to sit close to me Um, which doesn't really help them because I don't really teach from one place I'm kind of all over the place. So um, and then the other one is like giving longer Like more time to complete assignments modifying assignments reading aloud to them I do a lot of these things already because they're good practice For your struggling students. Um, and because I teach science social studies, they don't actually need to Read, um, that's not really part of their Like I'm not assessing their ability to read. So it's nice for me because I can really accommodate in that area Um, but anyways that is that we have an award ceremony coming up next week this week I'd have Two days of tutoring and another red meeting which is a review of existing data. We're gonna We're trying to evaluate another one. Um, and so there's that Let's see. Oh, what am I doing today? I feel like this is gonna be a one day in the life vlog because I'm talking a lot So before winter break or sorry before spring break We started studying the Mayan um civilization we are going to be studying the Aztec civilization and We'll probably touch European exploration the last couple of weeks of school So what we're gonna do today Is we're going to be reading a text about Mayan society and this is all about the social classes Um, so it breaks each social class into different sections It talks about what the people in those social classes would have maybe done in their day What they were responsible for how they were treated just kind of a gist of their life Like a snapshot of their life So what I'm gonna do is we're gonna spend a little bit of time today reading about the social classes And then I'm going to assign my students a narrative assignment Basically, they're going to be writing a journal entry a day in the life as a Mayan citizen And they're not just going to be picking any old citizen They're going to be choosing who they are out of a hat So they could be a king or queen. They could be a noble. They could be a slave. They could be a merchant They could be an artisan. They could be um a farmer. So they're going to be choosing this um Roll out of a box or a hat or a bucket or whatever I decided to do I have to sort that out And then they're going to be writing a narrative as that person So um a couple things I'm going to make sure to do this is probably going to take us a while to read And I do need to go make a couple physical copies because I have some friends that can't handle reading on the computer And that's fine. That's an accommodation So I'm going to go make some copies of that and then we are going to talk about the elements of a narrative So our district's curriculum does not really lend itself very well to writing instruction So I know that my students have not had a lot of writing instruction in the past So today I'm going to give them a little mini lesson about the elements of a narrative Um what should be included how long it should be things like that And then they can start writing their rough draft today if there's time if there isn't then tomorrow They will spend the whole block working on their narrative writing Now I am going to allow them time and the opportunity to research more information about their role So we've got some epic books that I've sent them I have got a few websites that I've sent them to like kiddle.co um Ducksters is a good one. And I've also found this really cool one called DK DK find out And this one's really cool because it actually has a whole page on society rules or society roles I'm sorry. Mayan beliefs arts and crafts books like all kinds of stuff. I'm kind of like peeking at it right now um These are like their arts and crafts and it goes in and describes each kind of thing We have the different cities. It kind of describes the cities the gods um And then it goes on to like Mayan writing temple inscriptions. What did they eat things like that? So it's chop full of information that they can use so i'm gonna allow them to spend time researching further what someone in their role would do throughout their day what they'd be responsible for And then they can write so the only parameters i'm giving them are it needs to have A beginning a middle and an end. What do you do in the morning? What do you do in the afternoon? What do you do in the evening? It should include information That came from here So it should at least reference this a couple of times like if it says in this story that the king um War an elaborate headdress and a cape then they should say I put on my headdress and my cape and walked out the door Like it should reference something from this that we read today at least And then they should have some other details in their writing like what they ate in that day And we're going to talk about like it needs to be realistic like you can't be like Oh, yeah, I stopped at Taco Bell and had lunch like no, what did they actually they ate tomatoes They ate corn they ate avocado like Tell me exactly what you did in a day And then what I was thinking was Possibly having them do a second narrative of their own day in a life like write a narrative in their shoes And then compare the two like look at the difference between what you did as a Mayan and what you do now as an american citizen in the 21st century so That is whatever we're going to be working on for the two days that I am teaching social studies And then just a couple come in and start We actually started a mystery lesson or a mystery unit last week. So she'll just kind of continue with that All right a couple things I need to do I need to go run like I think I'm gonna make like 20 copies of this Just for my kids that need to not read on the computer and then we do have a funky schedule today because We do still have a few grade levels testing So our special schedule is a little bit wonky So I need to write that on the board because lord knows if I don't write the schedule change on the board I'm gonna get five billion questions and I'm still gonna get five billion questions. When is specials when is lunch? It says it right on the board. Um, my new thing is like just I'm just gonna look at you Look at the board Look at you Look at the board and hopefully you figured out because I'm not gonna tell you okay That's what I'm gonna do. I have duty in like 30 minutes So I'm gonna try and hustle through these tasks and then hopefully catch up with you guys if I have time Hey, you guys so it is currently 1244. I am in my prep for the day and This day started out really good but took a very Quick turn Because of a major behavior that we had in the classroom next door my third block I hadn't had them yet. They were in, um, ELA at the time And it got to the point where Um, the teacher next door I had I gave her some relief. I was like, okay, trade me for 10 minutes I went in there. I talked to the class Calm them down. There was an altercation between two students that exited the room and um, anyway long story short I had to go in there and and step in And I don't like doing that because I feel like it takes the authority away from the other teacher But at this point like she needed a break. She needed relief So I stepped in um, and I ended up not being able to finish my lesson for my whole second block which really sucked And um It is what it is And then my third block has been broken up into three different sections section one Then lunch section two then specials section three and then we switch So basically my third block is like All kinds of messed up. They're not going to have as much time as the other groups So I almost want to like Make them read independently instead of reading to them and like maybe just take a small group of readers Because I'm to a point where like I'm running out of time and I'm frustrated um, the other thing Is one of the kids that left the room in there was like basically kicking the walls so hard that things were falling off of my wall And because admin is in IEPs today Or doing something else the kid just got sent back to class Um, luckily it was lunchtime and like they don't have to return to that teacher, but That child is getting sent back to class So we'll see how the rest of the day goes but I'm just so tired of dealing with this kind of stuff like I'm not a teacher anymore. Like I'm a behavior manager. I'm a babysitter. I'm a Like it's just all day. It's constant and like it doesn't matter how good of management you have like These kids are running this building and that's not okay I'm just Tired. I'm tired of dealing with it. I'm tired of They are right to an education and they're right to A learning environment that is calm and welcoming and conducive to learning They're not getting that they're not getting that environment because there's a handful of kids that ruin it for everyone and that are constantly disruptive And it's taking all of the time away from learning and it's really frustrating I don't know. I just feel like it isn't set enough At least here on youtube like I'm not really I don't know I don't want to be like a Debbie downer like don't get me wrong. I still love my job. I still enjoy coming here every day like I still love Doing what I do But I'll tell you right now like I'm not I'm not teaching the whole time like the amount of teaching and learning that's happening during the school day is like 50 percent maybe 60 The rest of my time is behavior management Um asking kids to stop making noises asking kids to stop commenting on everything asking kids to stop being disruptive Like it's just constant constant I wish I could get like a live Feed like I wish I could like do a live video and show you guys like in real time what it's like in here I wouldn't be able to film the kids, but like I'd be able to film myself And you would be shocked you would be like amazed at how many times I have to stop And like correct someone or stop and wait for someone to stop being disruptive like it's just It's just frustrating. So anyway, I have 10 minutes until no We have 12 minutes until I have to go get them And then try to teach for 50 minutes what I'm supposed to teach in 90 minutes I'm not gonna be able to do SEL today and that's fine. I'm just gonna skip it because That is what it is. Anyway Um, I have tutoring today For an hour after school And then I can go home and chill and relax