Home Sweet Brooklyn

We are no longer wandering nomads! After a month of subletting in various locations around Manhattan we have finally moved into our own home! We have a great 2 bedroom apartment in Brooklyn! We moved in 3 weeks ago and are still settling in. We bought a nice bright red corner sofa and we even have room for a dining table! In the second bedroom we put a little fold out couch, 3 big book shelves and a desk- so it's a library/ guest room/ office / sitting room/ fish area- we really can't decide what to call it... The whole apartment has been completely renovated so new walls, floors, fixtures and appliances. It's so nice- come visit and see it!






Our new kitchen is fantastic. It's an alley kitchen, but a BIG one! We have a nice big gas stove (one of the burners has a 'power boil' setting that really does the trick!), a large dishwasher and a new fridge- all stainless steel. We have a ton of counter space- it's some sort of fake granite looking material- dark gray. It's been really fun cooking and baking in our new kitchen! I've become obsessed with sweet potatoes! Who knew those little orange taters were so delicious! I've been dicing them up with some red skins, tossing them in olive oil, salt, pepper and garlic and roasting them in the oven for about an hour. So delicious!- they get a little crunchy but still soft and sweet. I also have been baking a lot. I made some cute little cupcakes for my students (even though my mom tried to eat them all...), mini banana muffins with brown sugar crunch and some fantastic sticky buns for an early morning math department meeting. I looked a few different recipes for cinnamon rolls that called for white icing before I remembered the gooey goodness of sticky buns like the ones Paige used to make. I found a recipe that sounded good and just kinda winged it. They were fantastic. I used crescent roll dough instead of bread dough and made the gooooo from brown sugar and butter. Wow- there were so good. Zach thought they were too sweet- not too surprising given his opinion of desserts and sweet things- but that was okay- more for the math teachers!







School is going really well. The first quarter is already over- it just flew by! I had to do report cards a few weeks ago and this upcoming week we have our version of parent-teacher conferences. We do conferences a bit different then other schools- instead of it being a meeting between parents and teachers about kids its a meeting led by the student where the child explains to their parent or guardian how they did in the first quarter. A lot of work goes into the meetings so the students are prepared for them- so fingers crossed that my advisees do well! Before we started all the conference preparation we had a little fun around halloween! We made little pumpkins out of construction paper and hung them on my door! They were all so cute- and so different. They really brought some smiles to the hallway. I hung a sign on the top of my door that said "Miss P's Pumpkin Patch"
Even better than pumpkins on the door- the whole math department dressed up for halloween! My dorky enthusiasm for the holiday spread throughout the department as I strongly suggested costumes to the other teachers until we became a wonderfully festive foursome! Nora is on the far left- she teaches geometry and has an X ax and a Y ax around her neck (get it... x and y axes... ? ) I am next, with a box necklace and whiskers drawn on my face (I'm a box and whisker plot!) Julie is to my right, she also teaches geometry. She is a Google ( a one followed by a hundred zeros)- she's wearing a one necklace with a chain link of 100 zeros! And Lauriann is on the right- she teachers Algebra II and Pre-Calculus. She has a script i on her tummy- she is the number i , the rest of her costume is imaginary (math dorks who get this joke can giggle now). It was really great.







Oh, we also made duck-tape wallets in advisory a few weeks ago. All of the kids got really into it. I bought duck tape in red, black, blue, purple, silver, camo and zebra and they went to town! We had one day where I showed them how to do it and then they spent the next few days making their own wallets. Some are really intense- with change pockets and id windows. I was really impressed!





Now that Thanksgiving has come and gone it is time to start thinking about the winter holidays! I can't believe it's almost time for christmas- it feels like we just started school! Zach and I are hosting Christmas at our apartment year- quite the grown up feat! I'm excited - but nervous about it! Fingers crossed I can figure out the turkey situation...

Yoda and a Field Trip

It's been over a month of actual teaching- real lessons every day, real homework assignments to grade every night! I have to say that I think that things are going pretty well so far! *Knock on Wood!* I haven't had any terrible days that I feel like the whole world is going to collapse, I haven't cried or screamed, I haven't even stayed at school past 6 pm! Thankfully, everything has been going pretty smoothly! I'm not saying it's been perfect, but I'm not complaining either!



There have been a few days that after my lesson is over I say to myself "well, that sucked". I think that most of the lessons that I think don't go well are the ones that I just have the students practice the math procedure individually. I know that I shouldn't have them doing activities or playing math games everyday and sometimes the best to learn something is just to practice it, but those days are awfully boring. Earlier this week the principal of the school and the head of the math department wandered into my room for an informal observation. They just happen to choose my strongest class (the classes are separated by mathematical ability- but one of my classes just turned out to be the smallest and the most advanced by far). This class is full of students who are comfortable and confident in math and thus they like to just put their heads down and work most of the time. So when the principal walked in to my class it was supposed to be during the work time- where the students work together with the people around them on the given problems. But instead this particular class was sitting quietly at their desks completely their work silently. I was mortified. I wanted them to talk! (I'm sure I'll regret saying that sooner or later) I wanted them to ask questions and be checking answers with each other. But- nope! They just wanted to sit quietly and work. Ugh. I late spoke to the head of the math department about it and apologized for them walking into the class during the quiet boring part. I told her that they were the smart ones who just like to work and she quickly told me not to apologize and that it was quite impressive that all the students were on task and knew exactly what they should be doing. I suppose she's right- can't be all fun and games all the time. And the last time that they were in my room the students were doing group work on a 'top secret data analyst project for the government' - so now they've seen some fun group work and some serious practice time.



Yoda has become part of the Miss P Algebra experience. As my students display 'mastery' (they show me on a test or quiz that they really understand a topic) they earn checks. If a student earns a check on a quiz then their name (written on a brightly colored, 4 inch light sabor) is pinned up on the Math Masters bulletin board- right next a nice 3 foot cut out of Yoda. Thus as they earn more checks and become math masters they earn their place on the board next to Yoda- the ultimate Jedi Master. I'm very very proud of this board! Some of the kids think it's cool, some think it's lame. Many of my students from last year have commented on how they think it's great and how I make math fun and how they miss me (which is very nice to hear!)

I gave my first quiz a few weeks ago, unfortunately I made it way to easy! Most of my students earned As on the quiz and finished in half the allotted time. I'm giving another, longer quiz next week which should be a bit more challenging. The students also have a big project due tomorrow. They have to come up and perform 3 surveys and report their results in tables and graphs (1 histogram, 1 scatterplot and 1 box and whisker plot). I paired them up and gave them a week to do the project. Needless to say, today after school I had more people in my room asking questions and wanting to work than I have all year and I've received about 10 emails in the past 5 hours asking questions. It will most certainly be interesting to see how they do on the project. I think most of them will do alright- the ones who put forth a little effort and time into the project, while the students who just started today after school may not be so successful.

I went on my first field trip as a teacher this week! It was quite the adventure! Consider this: it's 9 am on a wednesday. You're in charge of 40 13-14 year olds. You're going to a park in New York city so the students can complete a worksheet about green spaces. BUT before you can get this 40 rowdy students to the park you have to take them on the... dun. dun. dun... SUBWAY! Oy! We had to get special forms so that we could take 43 people on the subway (we got let in through the door, not the turn style), then we all had to get down there- that was the easy part. Then we had to ALL get on the same subway car and try to ignore the evil eyes and bad looks from the other adults on the train saying 'oh god- look at all these damn kids' as all the students were talking and bumping into everyone else. Then we had to make sure they all got off the car at the right stop and get back to street level. Then we did a head count- AND drumroll... we didn't lose anyone! We had a close call though- one of the students had found his way into another group accidentally, so when we should have counted 41 we counted 40 and almost died. But, the missing boy was found shortly and our heart rates returned to normal. The time at the park was nice. It was a nice day and the kids weren't too annoying. They mostly just complained about the worksheet they had to do while wandering up and down the park. I told them it was better than doing the worksheet in school- right? After about 2 hours we had to pack them all up and headed back down to school- with all 41 kids in tow.


On a non-educational note: Zach and I are currently homeless nomads wandering around new york city... Our lease ended on our old apartment at the end of september which was okay when our new apartment was supposed to be ready on October 1st. But then it got pushed back to October 15ht... THEN it got pushed back to November 1st. UGH. So we sublet a place on the upper west side for two weeks now we're subletting a place in the far west village for two more weeks. Fingers crossed the new place is ready November 1st... this living out a suit case thing in one small room with no kitchen to cook in is no fun at all.

I need to learn 90 names!

My first full week as a real- all grown up- teacher has come and gone! And I have to say- it was exhausting! It was quite the first week! On Monday and Tuesday the students spent their day either going on a trip (a scavenger hunt for freshmen, an obstacle course for sophomores and a college visit for juniors) or taking diagnostic testing. So on Monday I spent my day proctoring exams and setting up my new computer! It's a Dell Tablet, I really like it. It has a swivel and touch screen. I'm not sure how or when I will make use of those features, but they're pretty nifty nonetheless. On Tuesday I went on a scavenger hunt adventure with my advisory! We were given a digital camera and a list of pictures we had to try to take. We ran around Soho for about two hours in attempts to take as many pictures as we could: a picture of the whole team with a horse, a picture of a team mate with a milk mustache, a picture with the whole team under water, a picture of a team member taking candy from a baby ( I thought that one was a bit over the line), a picture of the whole team with the statue of liberty (this one is featured below) and lots others. I was with my group of advisees running around like crazy- I have to say it was quite the experience- soho with 10 14 year olds.

Wednesday was technically the first day of classes but since my school focuses on an individual course program for each and every student- and we follow block scheduling ( which means that each class does not meet every day, so each day's schedule is different), the scheduling process is very very complicated. Even though the school has yet to grow to a full four year school ( we only have freshmen, sophomores and juniors this year), scheduling 320 students is a very difficult process. The school uses some sort of scheduling software program that is supposed to make the entire process worry free- but of course, it didn't work for all of the students. Therefore most of the students- at least most of the freshmen- didn't have complete schedules on Wednesday. Some of them didn't have enough credits- some had two math classes, some had lunch first period, or no lunch at all! Needless to say- there was still a lot of work to be done on the student schedules.

In my math classes on Wednesday we read through the class syllabus and played a little game. I told the students about quantagories and we solved some of the puzzles for a while. An example of a quantagory is 24 H in a D. Do you know what the H and the D stand for? Give up? It's 24 Hours in a Day. Here are some more puzzles if you want to play around with them!

1. 6 O in a BI
2. 3 W on a T
3. 5 T on a F
4. 13 S on the USF
5. 52 C in a D
6. 3 BMSHTR
7. 88 K on a P
8. 9 L of a C
9. 100 C in a D
   

It's a fun little game- not completely math related, but not totally void of any logical reasoning.

On Thursday and Friday depending on if I'd seen that class or not, we played around with The Four Numbers Game- the topic of my senior exercise at Kenyon and played some more math games online. I wanted to show the students how to access the online course system we use and how they will use it for math, but unfortunately the freshmen don't yet have access to the system. This is particularly annoying to me- if they can't get online then I have to print out a copy of the homework for each and every one of them (90 kids!).

So the combination of the incomplete and wrong schedules with the lack of system access left me very frustrated. I'm sure it will all be worked out by the end of this week- but it is still frustrating now. But tomorrow should be better- I'm planning on teaching my first real lesson! Fingers crossed it goes well- the topic is data and data tables. Woohooo!

Here the picture of me with my advisory with the statue of liberty. Aren't they cute!?

One day down, about 40 years to go.

Today was my first day as a real teacher with students. Although no instruction happened, it still counted as my first-first day. And I think it went pretty well! My day started at 6:15 when my alarm sounded, even though I'd woken up many times throughout the night thinking that I had overslept my alarm and would be late! I got to school (venit espresso beverage in hand) at a little before 8 am and did a few things before the school day began. The freshmen arrived at 9am to a class meeting and then I took my advisory down to my classroom. What was once assumed to be an all girl advisory turned out to be 5 girls and 5 boys. They were a bit awkward and quiet, but I guess that's expected for their first day of highschool. We did the boring administrative tasks of passing out metrocards and going on a tour of the building's facilities. Then it was off to a math test for them! I proctored an exam for a bit and that was the end of my official responsibilities for the day.

While I was with my advisory, the 10th graders arrived at school at 10 am for their class meeting before heading to their own math assessments. The principals constructed a small presentation that included pictures and names of new faculty. I was not at the meeting, but was told by 6 different teachers that the sophomores cheered loudly when they were told that they were no longer freshmen and cheered even louder when my picture was shown in the slide show. It is definitely nice to feel welcomed and missed by the students I had last year as a student teacher. Hopefully the new freshmen will like me as well!

The entire experience was a bit surreal, as I think many of these first weeks will be. I can't believe I'm really here- being a teacher- and in New York City no less. I thought back to some of my earlier 'first days' when my mom would take a picture of my sister and me in the morning on each first day of school. Some pictures are really cute- while the ones when we are in high school are of us being annoyed and just wanting to go!

Due to the Jewish holidays our school year started with a very strange schedule. After just one day we now have a four day weekend! A bit odd, but okay with me. I'm going home! Back to Ohio for the first time in 9 months. I have a very busy 3 days ahead of me- many many friends including my best friend- shannon- who i don't plan on spending a minute without! I can't wait to spend time with my family! I miss my (not so) little brother! I'm also getting my hair professionally done for the first time since January of 2009. And the best part of all- I'm going to The Ohio State University football game! And spending a night at Kenyon! I honestly don't know what more I could ask to do in a trip home! I'm sure it will be exhausting and amazing.

I"M A TEACHER!!!

The first day of school is in less than one week. The summer just flew by! I think I'm as ready as I can be. I almost have the entire first quarter planned out, including homework assignments, which was quite the task.

So I'm going to be teaching 4 classes- 3 sections of Algebra 1 and 1 section of an Algebra/Pre-Algebra. My school also has a strong advisory program that all of the teachers take part in. I will have an advisory of between 12 and 14 students- mine will all be ninth graders. I was able to choose the theme of my advisory, and I picked 'iCraft'. So we are going to do lots of crafting projects. My advisory will mostly likely be all girls, but I'm okay with that. Hopefully I will be able to teach all of the students how to knit-if they don't know already- and we can all knit as many scarves as possible that we can donate to a shelter of some sort around the holidays.

I was able to get into my classroom this past week and set up! It was by far the most fun I've ever had at work! Here are some of the 'before' pictures of my classroom on the left. It's a huge room. It is almost twice as big as the room I was in last semester, but with only two more desks. It's quite the upgrade! The room already has a Smartboard in it - for those of you who are unfamiliar with Smart Boards here is a little video to watch:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0U05WeXPGlk
I create all of my lesson plans using Notebook software and then use my Smart Board in class. When I first started student teaching, I thought that the smart board was silly and unnecessary, but after a semester of using it everyday, I honestly have no idea how I could teach without one! It's an amazing tool that has the potential to improve education. Anyway, my room also has a full wall of white boards and it had a small and really gross old chalk board. The chalk board was written on and scratched up, so I covered it up with poster paper and turned it into a bulletin board. One of the walls in the room has built in closets and shelves.

I covered the old chalk board and the cork boards with poster paper to create fun bulletin boards. I put up posters and hung up all of the math jokes that I collected over the summer. I also printed out and laminated pictures of the top twenty mathematicians of all time to hang up in my room. I hung up mountain climbing guys and a cool wall pocket system. I also bought a big calendar and laminated it too. Here are some of the 'after' pictures! What do you think?





































I set up the desks in a flying V like pattern angled towards the smartboard (it's black int he pictures because it is covered up with a fabric cover. There are 20 desks in the room in little rows of either 3 or 4.

So, I have a few days left until I become a real-live teacher. I've been preparing for this for years. Since I was a little girl torturing my sister and our neighborhood friends to 'play school' which for me was a very fun game, but to them was hours of school work which they considered painful. After years of working hard in school to get the grades to go to college and grad school, after many hours spent tutoring and summers sacrificed to math camp and after certification tests, student teaching and a master's degree- it's finally here. In just a few days I'm going to be a math teacher. Life Goal: Achieved!

On another note, our attempts to find a new apartment are proving annoying. Zach went to look at a place yesterday that he liked, but it's such a complicated process. Hopefully, we will find a place soon and have the whole ordeal done with before school gets in full swing. We made a delicious home-made mac and cheese the other night. It was so creamy with a nice crunchy backed top. It was great!

Classroom stuff!

Oy, where the hell did July go? Just a minute ago it was June, and now July is almost over. How did that happen? And if July is almost over, it means that it is almost August, which is when school starts! And thus the reason for my extremely anxious attitude as of late. I don't have a plan! I always have a plan. Now, I am effing planless and anxious as all hell. I don't know what is going to happen on the first day of school. I don't know what my first lesson will be, or how the pre-algebra class will work. Scary scary thoughts of being unprepared are piling up in my head increasing the likelihood that my first year of teaching will, in fact, be as terrible as all of my predecessors say it will be.

So, what do I do? How can I calm my self down so that I don't have a 'teaching breakdown' before I even become a teacher?! Well, I've found a few things to keep me busy.

• Read my " how to be a good teacher" books
• elliptical my ass off
• become fake smiley barista of the year.
  
• Watch tv
• not do laundry
• make lists of things I want to do.
• Start a blog
  
• Spend too much money on class room supplies.
  
• Create an awesome mountain like painting for my class.
  

Mounting like painting, you ask? I have an idea for motivating students to do their homework. I've created a large painting of a mountain and I made four little cut out hiker men.


I'm going to create 20 steps along the mountain trail and use magnet tape to be able to move the little hikers up the mountain. The plan is to assign each of the sections of my algebra class a little hiker man and if everyone in class does their homework from the night before than that classes hiker man moves up a step. The first class to reach the top of the mountain gets a reward! I'm thinking cookies, as i often do.

So, will it work? Or will it be an absolute failure? Will I not be able to keep up with it and it will be a mess after a month or so then I will just have a big painted (and not even that well) mountain on the wall of my classroom? I'll get pictures of it up eventually...

Here We Go.

Let's begin at the beginning of my 'grown up' life. I finished my bachelor's degree last may in Mathematics (moans and groans) and promptly moved to New York City. I left behind the quaint suburbs of cleveland, where I spent my younger days, and the corn fields of Gambier, where I attended college.

Kenyon College is my favorite place in the world. Nothing will ever compare to its beauty, the amazing people I spent my college years with, or the hilarious, embarrassing and perfect memories I have of Kenyon. Honestly, I miss it more than I miss anything else. More than my family, the little town I grew up in, lost loves, softball, anything. Kenyon is my happy place.

But after four years in my little paradise, they said I had to leave. So, I graduated and moved to New York as a teaching fellow for Math for America. Sounds big and impressive, sometimes I think it is, most of the time I don't. I've just finished my master's degree in math education and procured a teaching position at a (relatively) new high school in Soho. I'll be teaching 9th grade math in this small, independent learning based school. I'm very excited, yet nervous about the beginning of my teaching career especially as the fall grows closer. More of that to come.

For the summer, I've gotten myself a little job as a barista! It's been an interesting, frustrating exhausting adventure including too much free coffee, some annoying customers, some annoying coworkers and a significant lack of sleep. Thus I've been spending my days making coffee drinks for strangers and my evenings as a house-girlfriend (housewife in training) to my boyfriend, Zach. I've become quite the little homemaker since graduating from college and moving into an apartment with a decent kitchen. Apparently I had a chef hiding underneath four years of microwaved soup and late night pizza deliveries! Hence the emergence of my new favorite hobby- cooking!

Much to Zach's pleasure, I've not only taken up cooking, but am experimenting with fancy food as well. Some nights are more interesting and fancy than others, but the majority of them are delicious! For example, here is a little 3 course tapas 'dinner' I made when the lovely and beautiful Miss Rachel came to visit me a few weeks ago. The first course/plate is a watermelon and feta layered salad over arugula with pine nuts and a lemon vinaigrette . I have to admit, I stole this one from Zach's mom! The second dish is tuna tartare with lots of avocado and crispy shallots topped with a wasabi-soy dressing . And finally we had seared sirloin steak on a boursin covered pita bread topped with a mushroom and onion sherry reduction . Overall it was YUMMY! I was pretty pleased with myself, having prepared a relatively complicated menu with out any mishaps! It was quite the evening, involving these three delicious plates and three even more scrumptious bottles of wine! Moral of the story is that I like to cook and will be including it in my posts. Who knows, maybe I'll include some recipes from time to time if I get bored with my life and need to fill up the page...


I think my main motivations here are to document the happenings of my first year of teaching. Everyone, and I mean EVERYONE, says that your first year of teaching is terrible. And although I'm hoping for the best, I don't have unrealistic expectations. What ever happens I'm sure it will be interesting. I'll probably have great days where all I'll want to write about it how awesome my students are or how great my lesson went, but I'm sure there will be other days where I'll want to cry if I think about school and then I'll make a delicious meal and write about that! So we'll see how it goes, I'm sure it will be quite the adventure...