Ms. Shikles: A Self Reflection of Senior Year

🥰TEACHER WIN🥰
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Today, I had a major teacher win! After forgetting a pool noodle (which was needed for my lesson plan) at home, I quickly had to come up with a new lesson. I was nervous for how my students would react and felt unprepared because of my forgetfulness. As I was giving directions to the students, I saw their faces light up. I, Ms. Shikles, was going to let them do a crafting project for inquiry! I’m not one for messes. But man, my students blew my mind today! At the very end I heard a soft voice saw “This was the best inquiry EVER!” And that my friends was enough to have me smiling from ear to ear!

👋 Goodbye Interview Season 👋
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Wow, I am so behind! I’d take formal lesson planning every day if it meant no more interviews! But at last, I am done! Recently I’ve been focusing on being present with my students. Taking the time to stop and let them sing me a song or tell me a funny joke. Since then I’ve noticed a significant improvement of my class community. Together we talk about respect and kindness and how that affects our relationship and environment.

👩🏽‍🏫 Interview Season 👩🏽‍🏫
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What a crazy past few days!!! Last Friday, I had my first interview with one of my top schools. Which was followed by scheduling an additional two interviews with different districts. And ended with scheduling an interview with my top school district! While it has been a crazy past few days I’m realizing the amazing experience I’ve been given at Stephens College. I’m confident in not only my teaching ability but my beliefs and practices. As my time at Stephens College is coming to an end this reflection process is becoming harder and more real.

☘️St. Patrick’s Day ☘️
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I’m not one for arts and crafts. Today I challenge myself, and my sanity, with a St. Patrick’s Day painting craft. Surprisingly enough, it was a huge success. Students loved being able to express themselves and get a little messy. And even more surprising, I enjoyed it! This was a challenge to myself and it was a success!

🗣 Math Update 🗣
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Last week we began our place value unit in math! We explored Base 10 Blocks and played a game called “Who Am I?” The challenge of this game was to match the number to its number represented in Base 10 form. My students were so engaged with the game and loved making their own problems with their classmates! Also pictured, my two anchor charts that will be used throughout this unit!

✨ I’m back ✨
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I’m sorry I went off the grid for a while. Last week was midterms and I had a 2 page paper, and 8 page paper, and 2 midterms due by Friday!! But I’m officially finished and ready to keep moving forward!! With last week being so hectic I decided this week I was going to focus on being present with my kids. Leaving my phone on my desk and living in the moment rather than trying to capture every second of our day in a picture. It’s been a nice time talking with students and checking in on them and their mental health. School is tough and my students mental and physical health is important to me. So we continue this week my challenge for everyone is to take a mental health moment and check in with yourself. You will thank yourself afterwards ❤️

⛳️ Introduction to Force and Motion ⛳️
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As an introduction to this unit, Abbey and I created a golf course within our classroom. We challenge students to think deeply, as they golfed, on why we were doing this. After an engaging 30 minutes of golfing, we called students back to the carpet. Students were convinced we were going to be exploring golf. After a few hints and prompting questions a student guessed “MOTION!” They were very excited when we told them the full name of the unit! For it being our first day of this inquiry unit it would call this a major success!!!!

🤯 Force and Motion 🤯
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During the past few weeks, Abbey and I have been preparing for our next inquiry unit! As of today, we can officially say we are ready and excited to start our force and motion unit on Monday! When we began this process, we started by webbing our own knowledge and writing down our questions and curiosities. Once we finished webbing and questioning we found websites, professional resources, picture books, and videos to help expand our knowledge of force and motion. After weeks of exploring this topic we felt confident in our findings, we discussed what our learning objectives and learning experiences will be for our students! We are so excited to see what our students question, learn, and explore over the next few weeks! Stay tuned for those results!!

❌Banned Books❌
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During our two day week last week, we were able to watch the 4th and 5th graders Independent Inquiry! Inquiry is a process in which students are able to pick a topic they are interested in and research it. After they research their topic, students then present their findings to their classmates. Last week we were able to watch presentations over snowboarding, vaccines, emperor penguins, and (our personal favorite) banned books. After listening to the banned books presentation my students engagement skyrocketed! Afterwards, we talked and answered more questions about banned books. We discussed why some books were challenged/banned and if we agreed with it or not. We ended the day with exploring a list of banned books and even found out our current read aloud book was once banned!

✨Miss Rich✨
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Thankful to have this gal by my side during my last semester at Stephens. She’s always pushing me to dive deeper into my lessons and reminds me daily that we are lifelong learners. Not many can say they teach with one of their best friends, but I sure can!!! I’ve always been told “Two great minds think alike” well today we tested that theory and showed up wearing the same shirt without planning it!!!

❔Mystery Squares ❔
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With it being our first day back since last Friday, we decided to spend time collaborating together during today’s math lesson. Over the past week, we’ve been exploring the 100 chart. Today, I introduced a game called “Mystery Squares!” Students loved being able to create their own game board and challenge their classmates.

❤️ Happy Love Day ❤️

During literacy on Friday we talked about love. We had a great conversation on different types of love, a conversation that was sparked after I wrote “my students” in my heart. We talked about how you can love friends, family, doing certain things, eating something yummy, and animals.
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In this activity students were to write down the things they love on their paper hearts. They then wrote a short story and/or explanation of why they wrote those things. This past week was a crazy adventure but being back in person with my students after being quarantined was exactly what my heart needed! ❤️

🎤 S**t Like That 🎤
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This week, as we continue to explore members of the Black Community during inquiry we chose to focus on influential musical artist. We dove deep into Louis Armstrong, a jazz singer who is credited as the inventor of s**t singing. S**t singing is the action of not singing words but instead singing funny sounds.

We started the week with an exploration of who Louis Armstrong is and what he stands for. As we continued the week we studied the lyrics of “What A Wonderful World” and discussed what it meant. We started today with S**t Like That, a call and response song full of s**tting. As we finished today, students were able to create a continuous loop of different s**tting!

🚨 DROP EVERYTHING AND READ 🚨
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Each week, I find a total of 45 minutes to D.E.A.R. with my students. It gives students time to read what they want to read, share what they've read, and receive the support they need for further reading explorations and reflections. D.E.A.R. provides students with much more than a just-sit-there-and-read experience. 📚

Hello World!!! 👩🏽‍🏫🍎
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This semester for a college course, Senior Seminar, I have been challenged with the task of reflecting on my last months at Stephens College. Something that is bittersweet to say and even more to think about. Through this assignment I will reflect on my student teaching experience for various experiences I have within the classroom such as, assessment, collaboration, and lesson planning as well as discuss the successes and challenges of teaching. Thank you for following with me on this journey!

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Also, check out the view from my desk!! 👀🏙❄️