A little something before winter break

Things I have learned from my time at FC Joyce:

- When first introduced to silly bandz I thought they were simply ridiculous, but have since learned they are a fantastic bargaining chip

- Second grade girls LOVE to play ring-around-the-rosey

- If you pull out a camera to take a picture, kids will stand as close to the lens as possible

- Always be ready for a sneak-attack hug… or just a sneak-attack attack

- 6^th grade girls are the keepers of all the gossip (according to them, Brett and I were boyfriend and girlfriend)

- According to students, your name for the first week or so is “AmeriCorps”

- There are so many rules to the game of four square

- Kids are smarter and hear more than you think they do, of course it’s always concerning things they don’t need to know

- The more outrageously bizarre your behavior, the more awesome they think you are

- You can do so many things well, but what will stick out the most is your ability to color inside the lines on a coloring book page

- There will always be a pencil that needs to be sharpened (and sometimes it’s broken on purpose)

- … or a mistake that needs an eraser

- … or a math problem that needs explaining

- If a student can reach into your pocket, they will and sometimes leave things for you to find, or take things for you to realize it’s missing much later in the day (like a cell phone)

- There’s no need to take it easy when playing tetherball with an 8 year-old, they will beat you no matter how hard you try

- You will leave school with about 500 new best friends!

- I have a lot of 8 year-old pen pals, thirty to be exact

- Our celebration video is up on Youtube thanks to Catherine!

my 4th grade friend Esly

Some of my playground crew

Taylor's and my afterschool tutoring group (you can almost see Taylor under all the kids on the left)

My buddy Ezra

My bestie Little Dominique

It was fantastic to have my pod 7 friends back, if only for a couple days. I’d forgotten how much I laugh when I’m around them. I’ve missed them so much! But no matter, I’ll be seeing Ashley at some point over the break and I get to meet her family! And I’ll get to see my family! Even more of a yay!

On Wednesday night we had brisket. Real, honest to god, Texas brisket from Rudy’s! Mom and Dad (in their infinite awesome-ness) air-shipped it to me! The teammates did it all up while I was in meetings and surprised me with a table full of balloons, a huge singing birthday card, cupcakes and presents! A Justin Bieber calendar, my own jar of Nutella, window gel stickers, and a confused panda puzzle! J.Biebs is totally going on spike with us for the next round! I had to teach my teammates how to build a brisket sandwich with WHITE bread, dill pickles, and bbq sauce with a side of potato salad. YUMM! G2 thanks you, Mom and Dad!

The last day at school was so hard. My kids surprised me with thank you letters and one of the girls got me a little desk jar with a sunflower on the front. She told me it was for pens AND pencils! Oooh, multi-tasker! They told me after school they had been planning on it for 5 days! 5 days! That’s an eternity for 8 year olds! I’m going to miss my babies so much but they’re right down the street. Hopefully we can go visit them every now and then during transitions.

a little bit of reflection..

The end of round 1 is in sight and none of us are looking forward to it. In all the paperwork we've filled out there is a column for "pluses" and "even better ifs", all our EBIs are- we want more time! 6 weeks of school and only 21 days in the classroom because of holidays and parent-teacher conferences. Even in that short amount of time we've bonded so closely with the kids. There's not a kid I don't look forward to seeing each day... but I know I have my favorites, as I'm sure every teacher does, who will stick with me.

I think the most frustrating thing to see in this project was how the school system is set up. In pre-k they're learning their letters and sounds. In kindergarten they should be able to read some simple words and by 1st, reading little reader books. But most of the kids don't go to preschool so they're already starting out a year behind. By the time they get to 2nd grade they're so ticked off and annoyed about being behind and the teachers singling them out that they turn away from education. They've been told so many times that they're not meeting the expectations and then they give up. So many of these kids are so smart and can do the work when I'm standing next to them. They can show me how to do everything and explain it to me, but as soon as I walk away they get the road block up. I understand that when they act out they’re just seeking attention in any form because they’re parental relationship leaves something to be desired. That is why I’m so glad that for some time, no matter how short it was, we were there to provide stability for them. Keep them responsible for their learning, homework and behavior. And give them a new friendly face to go to school for every day.

This week I stood on my own in the classroom. We had a sub who was basically a babysitter with a sheet of lesson plans. She just passed out papers to a math section the class hadn’t learned yet and then sat down at the desk while the class went crazy with complaints. So I had to take charge and teach. I taught my kids how to estimate measurement and then how to actually take measurements. I taught them how to do paragraph editing and refresh them on their letter writing skills. We read aloud, played word games and reviewed spelling words. We did art crafts and journal writing. And after all that, I went out to recess and ran around the black top with them. I love the way a kid’s mind works when playing. We were on the playscape and they all decided that I was It. So I had 4 girls on each arm pulling me around and around because, obviously, we were in a tornado. It had sucked me up and when I was done spinning in the middle of the storm, it spat me out and I was the “un-dead person” and they all had to run away from me screaming. My little girls love to balance along the edge of the playground box or play ring-around-the-rosey. I still don’t understand the fun of that game, but I think I have run around in a circle about 500 times because of it. All my boys like to play basketball or pretend they are panthers and chase the girls around growling at them.

I can’t believe it’s already time for us to leave the school. It seems like we just walked in the door for the first time to chants of “hey, AmeriCorps! Hi, AmeriCorps!” like it was our name. I feel like we’ve had a successful first round. We left our mark on the campus and on kids. Hopefully they’ll grow up and remember their AmeriCorps helpers from grade school and be better people because of it.

Round 2 announced

This was our first full week at school and I think it went by faster than the previous 3 day weeks had. But I did get some great pictures of the kids! Plus it was Catherine's birthday week so we had to do something special.

So anyways- on to finding out round 2. Thursday night after dinner, Abby told us to clear the table because we needed to solve something. She placed a huge sheet of butcher paper on the table with a word scramble on it. Clues about AmeriTools we had learned about (McLeod, loppers, chainsaw, etc) and some of the letter spaces were circled. We had to fill in the blanks and then unscramble to letters to figure out our project. Turns out we are going to be in the county of San Diego. As far as I know, the place we're staying in is Agua Caliente, just outside of Julian, CA. There are natural (supposedly mystical healing powered) hot springs we can use.  We will be working on historical restoration, trail maintenance and camp site enhancement. We will be living in a one room house that sleeps 10... and we have a team of 12. So we'll be taking tents with us too, just in case. Agua Caliente is apparently right on the edge of the desert so the days are fantastic work conditions now (because it's "winter") and the nights can be in the 30s. Because of our location we will not have cell phone reception but there will be access to wi-fi. Hope to find out more soon.

For right now, we're scrambling to get everything done for the end of round 1. Trying to finish team position tasks, compile our portfolio, plan for winter break, get some ISPs done, and just in general do our regular work is a lot to do. Tomorrow is my first ISP! I've signed up for 3 before and they've all been cancelled due to rain. And, even though it's raining right now and supposed to all tomorrow, the event will still happen. It's the California International Marathon and apparently it's a big deal. I guess I'll find out tomorrow.

And now, some pictures of my kids--

Today I felt accomplished

So I teach 2nd grade but I spend an hour in the RSP classroom (found out it stands for resource specialist program... basically a trsting center- a quite room away from the busy classrooms to give more one-on-one time for the kids to learn better). I've been assigned to 4th grader Brian to help better his reading skills. He comes in from recess and I read a book to him while he follows along and then he reads the book to me while I follow along. We go through the 100 high frequency word flash cards with words like "was, as, their, were, this, said, which". When we first started 3 weeks ago Brian only knew 47 words, didn't know too many of his letter sounds, and was iffy on his vowels. Now there are only 2 words he has problems with and that's only because he says what he thinks it should be instead of seeing the letters in front of him. I got tricky on him yesterday and changed the order of the flash cards because I realized he has memorized them.

I tell him he can take as long as he wants and he can sound the words outloud because it's just him and me. When he struggles and gets frustrated, I've taught him how to break words like "together" down into more manageable words or how to sound them out. I find myself saying a lot of the things I remember my mom saying to me when I was in elementary school- "when two vowels go walking, the first one does the talking" or the rule about the silent E and how it reaches around to poke the first vowel so it can talk and say its name (see mom! I was listening!).

But I think the best thing was when the two RSP teachers who usually work with him came up to me this afternoon and told me how great he was doing. He shows up on time for our little lessons. He pays attention (which apparently he talks back a lot, gets up and walks around, or gets off task easily... I've never had that problem with him) and they actually notice an improvement!

I wish we had more time with the kids. Our last day is December 14 but their last day of school is the 17. I see a lot of random visits for those last 3 days.

Happy Turkey Day! I now give you permission to listen to Christmas music!

You can definitely tell the holidays are upon us. It's like suddenly California got the memo that, to most people, cold weather goes hand-in-hand with Thanksgiving and Christmas. Since Sunday it's been overcast and cold. And I mean COLD. Wind that cuts right through you no matter how many layers you're wearing and just in case that wasn't enough, a rainstorm to soak through your clothes. When packing to come here I didn't bring a lot of long sleeved things because I figured I'd have no need for them. Well I have since learned there is a BIG difference between northern California and the rest of California.

School was out of session all this week for the kids' Thanksgiving holiday so we had to find other places to fulfill our workday hours. We went with Silver 2 (which is our step team because our TL Abby is dating their TL Josh) to the American River to remove red sesbania.

This is an invasive plant species that grows its seeds in pods. There are 7 seeds per pod (little nod to pod 7!) and at least 20 pods per plant. So we pulled the plants and bagged the pods to be completely removed from the waterfront to make sure they wouldn't take root.

We learned what a real day's work in AmeriCorps really felt like- not to say that keeping thirty 2nd-graders in line isn't work... but the repetition of bending down to pull a plant up by the root and all the muscle action that goes along with it- let's just say we all slept very well that night and actually got to be outside for a work day!

For the ones that had really deep roots we used that bright orange tool in Baby Brett's hand

Green 2 and Silver 2 on lunch break

Tuesday was probably the best day. My team has been very lucky and it makes me very nervous to think what will happen when this luck runs out. We didn't have to work in the rain at Mendo and instead got to help set up a haunted house. We got Abby as a TL. Our team gets along very well... which most other teams don't. We got an amazing first project. And Tuesday our work day back at the riverbed was cancelled due to rain- they were calling for flash flooding. So we started the day in the 947 (my dorm building) lounge watching Finding Nemo with Silver 2 while the TLs tried to find something for us to do. All the other projects we could potentially do would have only taken like 30 mins for 24 people so that was out. Instead we went to 923 (the Big room) to make hand Turkeys:

Crafting!

And watch Crash for a diversity building day.
If you're wondering what that symbol in the middle of my hand turkey is, it's the official Green 2 logo:

After the movie and some discussion we went over to the supply depot building to help Handy Andy and AmeriMurph get everything counted and organized. Maya and I cleaned off rain boots and then were assigned to sleeping bags. We had to unroll all of them, check the zippers, check for rips and then roll them back up and categorize them as good, minor problems, or donate. 90 sleeping bags later and I never want to roll up another sleeping bag again!

Wednesday was another lucky day. We went to a California Park reserve to clear more invasive species- weeds and thistles- along a hike and bike trail. It was a cold day but we finally got to work together as just a team. We're usually separated in different classrooms so we were so excited to be on a job site just the 12 of us. We played games to make the time pass and when it came time for a bathroom break we had to pile in the van to drive to the other end of the park, where there was a playscape! So we got to play on the slides and swing sets.

So much fun! And as an added bonus, StepTL Josh brought us cookies and coffee on our lunch break!

During one of our breaks we played Ha-Ha

Thursday, of course, was Thanksgiving. I felt so accomplished for it being a day off. I woke up, showered, watched some morning TV and had breakfast all by 8 a.m. on my own! Marybeth and I headed over to the kitchens in 943 to help prep for the big meal. I was in charge of the turkeys- we named them Tom (~25 lbs), Theresa (~23 lbs), and baby Tony(~17 lbs). 3 turkeys for what turned out to be 70 people. I also helped make the mashed potatoes, mac and cheese, and oversaw the making of the gravy and stuffing. We had quite a spread (but sadly no rutabagas)- cooking Thanksgiving dinner in 11 different kitchens certainly makes things a lot easier!

Sadly, that's sparkling cider... not chamagne 

Friday I finalized my Christmas plans. Originally I was going to stay here on base and maybe go explore wine country or possibly Canada with a couple of the girls on my team but they were bought surprise plane tickets home... which happen to be in the Chicago area (Naperville, Lincolnshire, and Elgin)- a place I haven't visited since last Christmas. So after a quick chat with the wonderful parental units, it was decided I would go to CHICAGO!!! I'm so excited to get to see the Illinoisey family again and see all my AmeriFriends who've been away on spikes, living in yurts and tents and whatnot. There's talk that we might knock out some ISP hours at a soup kitchen or a coat drive or something.

Today we took the 15-p into downtown Sacramento just to get off the base and return some library books. We wandered around the historic downtown area and then went to the Wesfield mall. It's a HUUGE open-air mall so we'd be walking through and all of a sudden it'd be raining and then dry and then raining again. But we did see something else that isn't too common in a mall:

I don't know if you can see all that well... but it's a fraking Hyundai dealership- in the mall! Across from the Verizon store and a Starbucks. Need a new car to go along with the caffee? California is a very interesting place.

Back to school on Monday. And hopefully I'll take lots of pictures now that we got the principle's approval to photograph the kids.

Oh and just as a little side note- look what I saw around the corner from Temple Cafe, Josh:

What did you do to end up on the Naughty list?!

Enjoy the pictures, there's a lot of them!

So once again, it only rains here on the weekend. But it's getting colder! Last night it was ~35!! But by the time the sun is up in the afternoon it's 70s. Fickle California.

So last night we went laser tagging!!!

We take this game seriously, so we were seriously prepared with face paint and our AmeriAlls to show what's up.

Real thugs don't look at the camera...

The Teams:

Blue: STL Lindsay, TL Abby, STL Murph, Maya, and Brett

Red: Me, Carly, Domo, Taylor, Allison, and Danny

Turns out the (S)TL plus Brett and Maya team beat us both times but it was so much fun!

This past work week just flew by. It was a short week again for the kiddos- school on Monday-Wednesday and off Thursday/Friday for parent-teacher conferences. We weren't off though, we had cleaning to do. We helped Robert the janitor clean the classrooms,

paint the tetherball poles,

 paint the playground benches,

clean the picknic tables, pick up trash,

 rake the playground mulch, clean restrooms, clean the cafeteria, remove graffitti, rake the courtyards,

 clean the area around where the dumpsters are kept, weed flower beds, clean up the parking lot,

polish the brass fixtures,

 and clean windows and mirrors. That last task got me into some trouble. I was cleaning windows and thought I'd go into the little girls' bathroom to clean the mirror. So I went in through the door on the right...

Got all the way into the bathroom and then discovered there was no mirror. So I went back to the door I had come in, but there was no handle on it and the actual exit door was locked. Luckily I had my phone and called Carly to come find me. That conversation was hilarious! "Carly... I'm trapped in the bathroom... could you come help me?" And because I didn't remember exactly which bathroom I had walked into she had to go around for a bit looking for me. Thanks, Teammate!

They told us in training that people would underestimate the amount of work an NCCC team could get done. We finished all our tasks in a day and a half. And that's only because it took us a while to rake up all the dang leaves. So Friday we had some free time to go see HARRY POTTER! So awesome! And I'm so glad it wasn't in 3-d... I think that would have been too intense.

As a joke one night, we borrowed Taylor's room key and got a poster at Target. We had originally been looking for a Hannah Montana poster to hang on Murph's door but found this instead. 

We signed each G2 girl's name to a girl but had one girl left over... so we signed Murph. Haha. When we showed it to him he just looked at the poster and said "yeah... so?" We told him to look further and when he noticed his name, in true Murph fashion, he just shrugged  and said "oh." Oh, AmeriMurph!

Friday night we loaded up the 15-p to get sushi! Yum! The STLs told us about Arigato's. Uh-maze-ing!

Got a caterpillar and spider roll and a glass of wine for $18 because we went during Sushi Happy Hour- all rolls 50%! After dinner the of-age girls decided we needed "grown-up drinks" because all we've had is beer from the local dive bar, Harvey's. So we were dropped off at the Streets of London Pub in Sac.

 It kind of reminded me of the Loophole. They had games behind the bar but no deck of cards. So we played waterfall with dominoes. It's difficult to remember the rules we agreed on and add the dots quickly. And it has a fireplace! Next time, we're going to shoot for a day when it's not raining so we can sit outside at the beer garden. After our drinks we called our favorite cab driver, Michael! He's so much fun- asks us trivia questions or tells us little knowledge nuggets during the ride, plus he gives us a flat rate and lets us know the cool spots to go to. Last time some of my team members went out, Michael dropped them at a club, told them to tell the door person he said hey and they were able to by-pass the line and the cover charge!

Yesterday and today have been lazy movie days, thanks to the rain. I have no idea what we'll be doing tomorrow for work. The kids are off all week and that means the school will be shut down so the NCCC admins are pairing our team with another local team so we don't fall behind on direct service hours. For Thanksgiving we're having a big potluck on base. Anyone staying behind who wants to eat has to volunteer to prep dishes, cook dishes, or clean up after the meal. And next weekend we might be planning a trip into San Fran. I just need to get paid. California is expensive and my stipend doesn't last very long. Especially with all our independent cultural enrichment activities lately.

The girls of G2!

I cleared my CTI pregnancy test but now have 30 kids

I've only been in the classroom for a total of 3 days and I am loving this long weekend! Monday I was dropped into my 2nd grade class and just told to be an aid to the teacher. So I spent most of the day grading homework, making copies, and walking the classroom to make sure the kids were paying attention. Tuesday the kids knew me a little more so I was able to interact more one-on-one with them during group work and help them understand the concepts better. I LOVE tutoring! I love finding the questions to help lead them to figuring out their own way to the answer. I love the light that happens behind their eyes when they figure out the answer. I love explaning things to them.

In my class we're learning how to regroup to help them learn to add. So if you have 13 and 9 you have 3+9 in the ones column and a 10 in the tens column. So 3+9 is more than 10 so you have to regroup. You group 10 of the ones together and "take it to the bank" to exchange for a ten-stick and now you have 2 tens and 2 ones. Making your answer 22. On Wednesday my teacher let me teach a section of the lesson using the SmartBoard. This is definitely the COOLEST bit of learning technology ever. It's a touch-screen overhead projector. You can highlight pictures and move them around, write on it using special markers, and then you can select to change your handwriting into text font. It's so hecka cool! I also got to do an art project on Wednesday with the kids. Earlier in the trimester they cut out autumn leaf shapes so I got to help them use temper paint and sponges to stamp-paint them. I was so proud of my kids. They got all the extra paint on their hands and the table and none of it on themselves or Miss Kate.
They call me Miss Kate- which I love. At first they just called me AmeriCorps and when the teacher addressed me by name, they all seemed confused and were very surprised to learn that AmeriCorps wasn't my name. So they learned to call me Miss Katie. But some of my problem children decided it was funny to call me Miss Cake but now it's settled into Miss Kate.

There's such a range of abilities in my class. It's kind of humbling to realize the diference between an elementary school here and back home. It makes me greatful for the schools I went to. When they say California schools are in trouble- they're not kidding. Within my class of 30 students, most of them have reading levels waaay below the lowest standards for their grade. Some of them don't even know the letter sounds. On Tuesday I lead a small reading group. We played a game of text twist. I gave them the letters- a,d,d,i,i,n,o,t on little cards and we used them to spell words like "add" "ant" "dad" "idiot" and worked all the way up to making the word "addition" which used all the letters. I did this to show them that big words are just made up of letters we know and you can break a word into more manageable bits by sounding it out. On top of being placed in a 2nd grade class, I was assigned to a specialty class- RSP. Basically it's the Learning Center to provide extra one-on-one time to those who really need it. I helped some 6th graders take a theme test by reading them the questions and answers and then reading the question again. On Monday I start work with a 6th grade boy who reads a little below a 2nd grade level.

By far my favorite time of day is the after school program with the Boys and Girls Club. It's set up to have the Power Hour first up where the kids go into a classroom and do their homework for a whole hour and we walk around helping them if they ask for it. I've stationed myself in the 4th grade room helping with math. We're learning about points, lines, rays, parallel and intersecting lines, and angles. Like I said, I love tutoring those kids! After Power Hour it's free time. They can rotate between art projects like coloring pages or decorating seed planters, playing board games, and going outside to play basketball or tetherball.

I know all of us on the team look forward to the school day being over so we can go to BaGC. It's a more relaxed time to spend with our kids and get to make better connections with them. I think, really, this is the point of why we're here. Yeah, it's great to be in the classrooms and help the teachers, but being there to make those personal connections with the kids, I feel, helps with the attendence rate. If getting to BaGC is what gets me through my day, is it the same for those kids? Would they show up to school just to get to go to the after school program and hang out with us? I've learned all the names of the kids in my class and know at least one thing about them. I know maybe 20 kids at BaGC and it's my goal to know them all by name, if not all the kids in the school. There are 500 kids enrolled from pre-k all the way up to 7th grade and I have until December 14th.

Thursday was Veteran's Day so we were off and Friday was a staff development day. I know I've been sitting in trainings for the last month, but this was especially boring. I don't know how you did it all the time, Mom! It was weird to be back in a classroom sitting in those desks with the chair attached and I have a bruise on the side of my right leg because I kept forgetting about that dang side bar under the desk. But I did remember how awesome it was to crack your back by leaning back in the chair!

The first guy was fun- kind of reminded me of Will Forte from SNL. His lecture was about reminding us what a different level these kids think on because most teachers assume kids have the cognative function to interpret actions, facial expressions, and vocal clues the same as adults. He also talked about separating your opinions from fact. Just because you've been teaching for 20 years and had multiple children in your class who have been diagnosed as bipolar and now you have a child acting in similar ways to those past children who hasn't been diagnosed does not mean that child is bipolar. He kept it light and interesting. The second lecturer for the day could have learned from him. He was so dry and, for being someone to teach teachers to teach better- he could work on his instruction skills. Multiple times he wanted to work on a choral responses and wanted everyone to recite answers back, but then changed where he started reading and then chided us on our unability to follow directions.

The best part of that day was the lunch break. You could definitely see the age groupings when lunch was over. We ate in the cafeteria and the adults were content to sit and the tables (after we had spent the whole day so far sitting) talking while the AmeriCorps stood in a circle playing hackey sack, dancing, and of course- since my team is never content with silence- we sang our two Team Theme songs- Build me Up Buttercup (my most favoritest song ever!) and Waka Waka by Shakira.

I just know tomorrow is going to fly by, as the weekends always do, and we're going to be back at school. My teacher told me she'd let me do more teaching next week. It's a short week again because there are parent-teacher conference days on Thursday and Friday. So we'll be using that time to help out the janitorial staff (which has been reduced to one guy who comes in twice a week due to distric budget cuts) clean the campus and painting. The playground is not as bright anymore and a lot of kids have felt the need to write profanity on it and the bathroom walls. We were told we could paint whatever and where ever we want to. So yay! A couple days to wear our coveralls, aka- AmeriAlls

Rainy day

As far as I can tell, with the exception of Camp Mendocino, it only rains in California on the weekends. This morning was a wonderful, lazy, overcast, day light savings time day. We woke up at 10 and invaded the kitchen for an hour long breakfast where we decided we needed to take a trip into SacTown. So Brett drove the 15-p into downtown so we could go to the library and the cafe. I got a library card today! I felt so accomplished!

I love the Central Library! It's 4 floors and the whole 1st floor is kid's floor with a huge dinosaur, lots of little reading tables, and of course- this awesomely huge Willy Wonka chair! We got a lot of books about teaching, games, and autistic teaching techniques in preperation for our first day in the classrooms tomorrow. Then we walked across the downtown square to Temple Cafe to stay out of the rain, use their internet and be someplace other than base. I got Enlightenment tea- green tea with steamed milk and honey... it was the weirdest thing to order "hi, I'd like Englihtenment, please?"

Tomorrow is the first day in classrooms and I'm so excited. I just know how tired I'm going to be after we're done. I think the van ride home will be very quiet. Wish me luck!