Monday & Tuesday: Mission to Mars & Making Predictions

This week has been exhausting for me personally! I'm in the middle of writing substitute teacher lesson plans, lesson plans for the week after next, wedding party plans, and moving all at once!

My crazy personal life aside though, the class is doing great. Hilights this week included...

Monday: Mars Aerial Mission 

I found an interesting lesson online from a teacher's website which had an entire section devoted to job skills. The lesson that stood out the most to me was a lesson covering communication. The lesson required 2 students to work together as a team to build a complex paper airplane which was supposed to be an imaginary rocket to Mars. In the lesson the students were given one of two jobs, communication/directions and construction. Now, if you know anything about my current passion with Legos then you are probably thinking this lesson sounds very familiar, but there are some slight differences between this lesson and how I used Lego puzzles in the class. First: this particular lesson came with a specific script which the students had to read and follow; second: students traded roles half-way through the exercise. The objective was that students would learn to give slow and clear directions by using a very concise script, and likewise students would practice their listening skills by following along with their instructor.

To begin the lesson the class and I first outline two things: what it means to communicate and what are the best ways to explain something to another person. The class did a very good job of coming up with good ways to give directions including considerations like using good manners, physically showing a person what you want them to do, using a friendly tone, and going step by step. I was most impressed by the suggestion  to use good and friendly manners, this is something I think a lot of people can forget to do if they become frustrated when attempting to explain something.

After we outlined why communication was important it was time to move on to the paper plane construction part of it all which bombed. The paper plan turned out to be too difficult to construct for this class and only one group completed the plane completely on their own. This was not a failed mission though because none of the 4 groups ever gave up, and all groups asked for help when they felt stuck. To me, perseverance and asking for help are two extremely important qualities to have in the employment world and I try very hard as a teacher to encourage those behaviors in the classroom.

Tuesday: Making Predictions Using Context

Tuesday, after our outing to the Tecumseh Branch Library, the class devoted the afternoon to an exercise which asked the students to make predictions about what would happen next in each situation based on the context. Making predictions is a valuable skill because it helps students look ahead to the consequences and rewards of their actions. Being able to predict what will happen next also helps students to understand the world around them.

To teach this unit I found worksheets online which included pictures of someone or something performing a certain act, next to the picture was a space to draw what the students thought would happen next as well as blank lines to write out their answers. The pictures varied, one picture included a man holding a coffee cup tripping over an unseen object, another was of a small boy walking and carrying a fishing pole, and my last example I'll share was of an elephant wearing a dress and fishing. The pictures were a hit with the class and I did my best to encourage them to consider all possibilities by pointing out each detain in the picture; for example the man tripping was holding a coffee cup, several papers, and he was wearing glasses. Using the picture of the man tripping and the details students were able to guess that he would fall forward, the man's glasses might break, the coffee cup would break, the coffee would spill on the ground, papers would fall on the group, the coffee would get on the papers, the man might break a bone, and the man's boss will be angry that he ruined the papers. All of that from one little picture.

After students finished making predictions based off of pictures I gave them a harder challenge by presenting them with short stories that asked the reader to predict what would happen next. One short story I used had 2 characters, the characters were 2 young boys who were boy scouts. According to the story the boy scouts were walking home one day when they found a wallet, they realized they should turn the wallet in to the police but they each also couldn't help but think of something specific they would like to buy with the money they found. The story cut off after mentioning the boys' selfish desires and asked the readers to guess what would happen next. Some students were able to form a prediction on their own, while others needed help breaking the text down. To break the text down I pointed out the reputation of the boy scouts as a well known organization which works to promote personal, professional, and survival skills in young boys and young adults. I then pointed out that small children sometimes have trouble making altruistic decisions. In the end there was not right or wrong answer as long as the students were able to explain why they chose the answer they did.

Wednesday & Thursday: Fine Motor Activity and Spelling

I did some reading lately about how to help people who struggle with their handwriting. The reading suggested providing opportunities to practice hand-eye coordination with activities as common as cutting out patterns with scissors. I took this suggestion and used it to help the class create a useful spelling tool: paper Scrabble tiles.

As I've said in a few posts before the class is working hard to improve their spelling skills so that in the future they will feel more confident in jobs which require reading and writing. The current Arc staff member in the classroom introduced the idea of manipulatives to me around 2 weeks ago and after seeing the success it had with two students, I was ready to introduce the technique to the entire class. To help create manipulatives I used a free print out I found online of scrabble letters, the class was asked to cut the squares out along the lines to the best of their ability, and then glue the squares to construction paper to make the squares even stronger. 

Cutting along straight lines presented a challenge for some students who initially were leery of the project until I assured them I only wanted their best effort instead of perfection. I inspected each student's Scrabble tiles in order to give myself an idea of each student's skill regarding hand-eye coordination. Four out of the seven people were able to cut along the straight lines with little error, one student chose not to participate, and 2 others' tiles indicated they will need more practice. 

The Scrabble tiles themselves have proved to be very valuable and I used them in one lesson on Wednesday and another today. The lesson I used yesterday was my version of "Go Fish" which asked the students to draw tiles at random and attempt to create their spelling words as they drew. I liked the activity because it asked the students to "build" their spelling words through a systematic process, and it provided a good chance to "play" in a group. Today's activity was less recreation and required students to practice spelling out their words using the tiles. 

The Scrabble tiles work because it helps to take the letters out of the trainees heads, place the letters in from of them to see with their eyes, and then touch and manipulate the letters as needed. One student relied heavily on the manipulatives to pass his spelling test. The strategy used by the one student was to listen to the word, spell it, and if he doubted himself he would arrange the letters in front of him so that he could sound the word out. This particular student really benefited from the letters because he struggles with writing, so having the tiles printed helped eliminate a hurdle.

Monday & Tuesday: Math & Abbreviations

It is amazing how time seems to fly by when I start working. When I started working my little clock in the corner of my computer screen said 9:00, now it's 10:25. Sometimes I'm convinced that I'm not actually lesson planning. I think I am actually being hypnotized into some kind of a trance that lasts hours at a time and when I wake up my cat Pumpkin has mysteriously materialized in my lap and my lesson plan for the next week has been hacked up and revised. As a new teacher I find that is something I do a lot: create a week's worth of lesson plans that seemed perfect at first, and then end up revising it again.

That's enough about lesson planning though...

Monday

Monday was a big day for math. A few trainee in the class have hit a wall which is requiring a considerable amount of patience to overcome on their part. I am very proud of the fact that one trainee in the class started out memorizing the multiplication table and is now onto long division. This one trainee has been stuck on dividing 5/6 digit numbers by 2 digit numbers for a few weeks now but he has yet to say, "I quit, I want to go back tot he stuff I already know how to do, and I don't want to learn anything else new." Other trainees have gotten even farther including one student who started in multiplication, mastered multiplication, went into division, mastered division, and is not into fractions.

As well as improving each trainees' math computation skills we also spent a large portion of Monday choosing and practicing spelling words. I continue to allow the trainees to choose their own spelling words, but I spend more individualized time helping each one pick out their words. What I have found in the past is that trainees sometimes pick words they already know, which doesn't help them to expand their abilities. The trainees are expected not only to select challenging spelling words, but to define the words they choose as well. The vocabulary portion of our spelling practices has led to some interesting learning opportunities before. One example I can think of when spelling and vocabulary fostered a new learning opportunity was when student had chosen "chloroplast" as a spelling words. As the trainee and I began breaking down the meaning of the word "chloroplast" our conversation turned towards how plants get food vs. how animals get food, what Oxygen and Carbon Dioxide are, and what is the process called photosynthesis.

Tuesday

Today's favorite lesson among the students was abbreviations and how to write with them.

I have been focusing on punctuation for the last few weeks in this class by identifying types of sentences, which punctuation goes with each type of sentence, and writing their own sentences with the correct punctuation. At least half of the class can identify a given sentence's type as well as how to punctuate, however most of the class still requires reminders to use punctuation in their own writing. I will need to continue to give the class opportunities to write so that they can continue to practice with punctuation.

To add on to writing I added using abbreviations in writing today. I focused on four common abbreviation types: days of the week, months of the year, people's titles, and addresses. To teach this lesson I started out by passing out blanks with the abbreviation next to a blank, the students were asked to write the full word next to any abbreviation they thought they knew. I was very impressed by how the students naturally reached out to each other for help and offered aid when they saw a need.

After going over the common abbreviations I played a memory game using Bingo cards. The rules of this particular Bingo game were that I would say the full word out loud and the students had to find its abbreviated version on the card. The class really enjoyed the game, I played until everyone got the chance to win at least once. One poor person in the class had a "cursed" Bingo card and at least three other trainees in the class had earned a Bingo over 3 times before she even got a Bingo once!

Lastly, after ensuring everyone had practiced their abbreviations I finished the lesson with a few pages which required matching, editing, and writing abbreviations.

Wednesday & Thursday: Job Skills and Safety

Wednesday

I'm a little behind here on updates, as you can see from the date...

Wednesday was a day we focused on alphabetizing and categorizing.

Alphabetizing is very useful for jobs that involve sorting and organizing. The class has been practicing alphabetizing their chosen spelling words for the last few weeks, but I wanted to provide a real world example of when it is helpful to know how to alphabetize. I chose to use sortintg DVD's as an example of when a person would need to know how to alphabetize. In order to sort the DVD's alphabetically the class first had to categorize the DVD's. The class came up with a very healthy list of movie categories which they wrote on sheets of paper and then laid out on the floor. After the categories were decided on and laid out I passed out my entire personal DVD collection that I brought in from home. The class sorted the DVD's by category and then the alphabetized the collection in each category.

The class enjoyed the chance to rifle through my DVD collection and debating with each other to decide which category to place the DVD's in. I divided the class into two groups for this activity, one group was able to categorize and alphabetize the movies in less than 15 minutes, the second group took about 20-25 minutes with some aid. I found that about 90% of the movies were categorized accurately, but those movies were movies which tended to fall into 2-3 categories and depended on the person judging. I am happy to say there were not any errors when students alphabetized the movies, which shows me everyone understands alphabetizing well.

Thursday

Last week and this week the CLA portion of the class is focusing largely on safety and because my class also covers skills for work I wanted to spend some time in my class discussing safety also. I found an interesting way to combine science and fire safety on Thursday: homemade fire extinguishers.

I based me lesson based on a video by Champak SciQ. In the video Champak breaks down the 3 main needs of a fire: heat, fuiel, and Oxygen. I showed the video to the class first, after watching the video we reviewed what the 3 needed requirements of a fire were and then we discussed how the fire extinguisher can help to eliminate two out of the three parts of a fire. After the video we slowly got started working on our fire extinguishers. The fire extinguishers were made out of the following materials: a squirt water bottle, 1/4 cup water, 1/4 cup of vinegar, 1 tsp of baking soda, a 5 inch square of tissue paper, and a 9 inch piece of string. Directions ask that first you fill the water bottle up no more than half way with water and vinegar. After filling the water bottle you set the bottle aside and then you take the baking soda, spoon it into the center of the tissue paper square, next you roll up the tissue paper square into a small pouch, lastly you tie the piece of string around the pouch of baking soda.  After the pouch has been created and wrapped you slowly and carefully push the pouch into the water bottle without letting it drop into the bottle by holding onto the end of the string. Once the pouch is inside the bottle you screw the cap of the bottle on while securing the string.

The reason the fire extinguisher works on fire is because of the chemical reaction created when a water/vinegar solution come in contact with the baking soda. When the baking soda is mixed with the water/vinegar solution it creates a blast of Carbon Dioxide. Carbon Dioxide removes Oxygen from the fire, and the water lowers the temperature of the item on fire.

After creating our fire extinguishers we took one outside to test it out. As a class we established that while these fire extinguishers were interesting to make, they would not meet work safety standards because it takes too long for the tissue paper to dissolve and release the baking soda. Another student pointed out that the fire extinguishers themselves could be a workplace hazard due to the fact that they cannot be jostled too much or you risk setting the fire extinguisher off before it is needed. Overall I think the trainees showed an excellent understanding of safety based off of their evaluation of the fire extinguisher.

I found that 5 out of the 8 students needed or wanted help creating the fire extinguisher and others did a very good job following my verbal instructions. I felt at least 2 people in the room were capable of being more involved in the process, but they weren't interested in the project. In the future I will try to use more experiments that require more independent investigation so that the trainees can use less time following directions and more time working towards the solution themselves.  I do however think that it was good to use an experiment which required following directions because that is a valuable job skill which the class needs to practice with.

Tuesday: Community Harvest

No teacher, who works a traditional school year schedule, wants to hear this but I have some news: school starts up in less than a month. If you don't want to be reminded of this I suggest you stop hear and go watch Youtube videos of kittens chasing laser pointers.

As for anyone else...

Any teachers or parents of young children living in poverty can rest easy tonight knowing my class did its part on Tuesday to help fight hunger in the city of Fort Wayne. The Community Food Harvest is currently working on a program they call "Pack the Backpack." The "backpack" I am speaking of is actually a paper grocery bag, it contains exactly 10 pounds of groceries, the groceries are chosen to include foods from each food group, and the students receive a backpack every week they are in school.

The backpacks we packed included:

• 1 box of Mac'n'Cheese
• 2 bags of freeze-dried rice and beans
• 2 cans of fruit
• 2 cans of vegetables
• 4 containers of instant oatmeal
• 1 water bottle
• 2 cans of beans/canned meat
• 4 juice boxes

To make the packing process as efficient as possible each person in the group was held responsible for packing one of the categories listed above. We started out with an empty paper sack, one person placed their grocery item in the bag and then passed it to the next person until the bag was complete. The process worked great because it helped the trainees understand why it is imperative to pay close attention to what you are in doing. An example is in this case if someone hadn't paid attention they may have accidentally shorted a child's backpack of one of the items. The trainees C.L.A. training also came into play when we had to consider how many "backpacks" could be loaded onto a cart before it was considered unsafe. 

The trainees overall enjoyed the the work and it meant a lot to them that kids living in poverty would benefit from the work they put in on Tuesday. On a personal note I think this job also meant a lot to the trainees because of few them could relate to the need to ration food for the sake of not running out before the next designated grocery day. All of this is a reminder for why this class can make such a difference for the trainees, learning the soft skills and functional literacy skills taught in this program can hopefully help some of the trainees obtain better employment opportunities.

Monday: Microsoft Word

I cannot say enough how proud I am of the fact that each person in the class's computer skills has improved by leaps and bounds.

For the last month now the class has slowly been working their way through a workbook created by the Saint Paul Community Literacy Consortorium (S.P.C.L.C.). This workbook is a complete curriculum of Microsoft Office's Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, and Excel. Currently the class is working on mastering Microsoft Word. Today's lesson was about creating tables. The exercise we used covered how to create a very brief weekly schedule using a table. I will expand this lesson on Wednesday and ask them to create a list of their choice using a table.

I could see while I was teaching that the class has become much more comfortable using Microsoft Word. Trainees still continue to ask questions about how to do something but my help has changed from showing how to do something to correcting how to do something. This change in aid shows that the trainees have a notion of how to do something in their minds, they are willing to attempt what is asked of them, and they see that if they make a mistake, the error can be fixed with the proper help.

As said, I am very proud of everyone in the class and I'm very excited to see how this skill we are trying to master will impact everyone's ability to apply for and potentially be hired for a job.

Wednesday and Thursday: Making Deductions with Clue & Spelling Words

As I continue to teach life skills in this class, I'm learning that I need to write my mom a "Thank You" card for playing those 20 million board games she played with me when I was a kid. It blows my mind to realize how many board-games out there can help to develop life skills. I've been trying to think lately about how to not only teach the habit of making deductions to find an answer, but also allow the trainees themselves to it out themselves. Then the board-game Clue came to mind. To my surprise the game had about a 75% success rate. Two people were not very interested in the game and chose to work independently on their typing skills, but the rest of the class really enjoyed the game. Near the end of the game 2 out of the 5 trainees playing understood the concept of how to choose the weapon, person, and location for their accusations based off of information they already knew. I will definitely play this game again.

A second activity which the class did on Wednesday and Thursday was that they created picture dictionaries for their chosen spelling words. Easter Seals Arc recently ordered tablets for the classes to use and I took the opportunity to test the tablets out and tie them in with a lesson. The trainees used the app. from dictionary.com to define their chosen spelling words, after defining the words the trainees were asked to draw a picture which went along with the word's definition. The activity was a huge hit because students learned the meaning behind the spelling words they chose, and the process of drawing a picture helped make the word "stick" in their minds. I'm happy to say 7/8 students in the class earned 100% on their spelling tests yesterday, and I think some of that success came from the hard work they put into their "pictionaries."

I'm very excited in the future to continue using the tablets. Most of the class was very excited to be working with tablets and appeared to understand the devices very well without much instruction. One trainee does require more help using the tablets. This particular trainee has never used a touch-screen device before and his hands shake if he consumes too much sugar, so I'm going to take some time next week to explain how to use the tablet to him and give him a stylus to make using the touch-screen easier.

Tuesday: Hobby Lobby

I would like to give a big shout-out to the staff at Fort Wayne's Hobby Lobby! 

The class went on a trip today to our local Hobby Lobby to evaluate the store's environment and help identify the jobs which the trainees could possibly expect to do if they worked in a store like Hobby Lobby. The class took a "Job Assessment" form which I found online to the store and they filled it out as they walked around. The form asked the students to do things like identify 8 jobs at the store, choose a job each individual person would enjoy doing, and decide if they would like to work in the store. The form really helped everyone focus on the purpose of the outing and it is surprisingly easy to identify 8 jobs. 

The staff at Hobby Lobby were incredibly helpful and took time to answer any questions the trainees asked about their jobs. Three of the trainees in the class went out of their way to find employees and then ask them about their jobs. I was so impressed by one employee who stopped what they were doing to explain how they do their job and the organizational system they operated under.

Monday: Spelling Words

Yesterday was the start of a new week and therefore the start of a brand new spelling list.

I have just recently began working in a spelling lesson into the class. The idea is, if people can spell more words on their own, their thought process will not be interrupted as often because they won't have to ask someone to spell a word. If the thought process is not interrupted people's thoughts will flow better and help make them better writers.

Last week I broke the class into two groups and assigned each group a list of spelling words. I found from my test results last week that this method needed some tweaking because some trainees found the words to be too easy or too hard. To try something different I allowed the trainees to choose their own words. I'll know by the end of this week if this method works better. I can say already that most of the class found the idea of choosing their own spelling words to be very exciting and they dove head first into the task by selecting words like, "photosynthesis."

Something Amazing

I'm writing a post in the middle of the day because right now at 12:09, lunch time, I am watching something really amazing happening. The trainees have purposely called each other over to eat together at the same table and are all talking to each person in the group.

This is the first time this has happened since class was started 3 months ago.

Wednesday: Life Skill Lessons From Spongebob Squarepants

Last week a trainee suggested we watch a Spongebob Squarepants episode titled "The Suds." In this episode Spongebob gets sick and makes several mistakes before he finally gets the proper treatment for his illness. I absolutely loved the idea because it was a great way to demonstrate what people should and shouldn't do when they get sick.

I showed the episode in class today and then asked the students to create a T-chart for the good and bad things Spongebob did  when he got sick. The trainees loved watching the episode and they actively participated in a classroom discussion to help decipher what Spongebob did right to help take care of himself, what he did wrong, and why each of these actions was positive or negative.

The class gained a new member today as well and I couldn't be more excited. This new trainee warmed up to the group within 20 minutes! To help introduce the new crew member to everyone we played an icebreaker game similar to "Have You Ever" in which the trainees formed a circle and one at  a time stepped into the center, shared something they have done or like. If the other members of the circle have also done or agree with what the person in the center has said, they also step into the circle. Everyone seemed to learn something about each other and our new person didn't have any reservations when sharing information about herself.

Tuesday: The Library

Tuesday was our day that we go out somewhere. I try to get the class out to go volunteering so that they can practice working in a group towards a common goal. Unfortunately Arc wasn't able to line up anything for us yesterday so the class made a pilgrimage to the library to select new reading material.

My favorite thing about the trip to the library yesterday was one particular trainee's enthusiasm over a book he found at the library. The trainee found an interactive book about World War II which included realistic looking copies of declassified army documents, maps of U.S. Navy's routes in Japan, and several pictures. The trainee was so excited about his book that when we got back to the classroom, he emptied the book of its contents and arranged all of the documents on the table by type of document. He spent his 15 minutes of reading pouring over his reading materials trying to make sense of every detail provided.

After reading I gave everyone a short "test" about everything the class has been learning about Microsoft Word. So far the class has learned how to change the font in Microsoft Word including its style, size, emphasis, and alignment. I'm happy to say that about 75% of the class was able to complete the test with minimal assistance. Next week the class will be getting into some of the more complicated aspects of Microsoft Word including creating tables, inserting pictures, etc.