February Draws to a Close

My spiritual director said never to make any major life decisions in February, but I don't think starting a blog counts. Considering my life in the past few months, this is hardly a major decision at all. Just in case someone besides my mom does read this, allow me to introduce myself. My name is Lisa Kallenbach, but the name that I am called most often (200 times a day at last count) is Miss K. As in, "Miss K, can I go to the bathroom?" or "Miss K, he won't stop bothering me" or, my favorite, "Miss K, tell her to stop looking at me." I teach fifth grade at St. Francis de Sales Catholic School in Washington, DC, fondly known to its staff and students as SFDS, soon to be known as Center City Public Charter Schools - Brentwood Campus.

I have always been skeptical of this whole blog business, especially after one of my friends told me that she once asked her roommate how she was doing, and the roommate replied, "Check my blog." Believe me, that will never, ever be my response to such a question. So, why start a blog if not to provide an up-to-the-minute description of my emotional state? Well, aside from a solo mission to the arctic, nothing is quite so lonely as the Sunday night of a first year teacher, so perhaps someone will stumble upon this when they are feeling particularly down, and find something to at least make them feel less alone. Plus, I've put so much time and energy into my job/vocation as a fifth grade teacher already, maybe someone can use one of my ideas and make things a little easier for herself. (By the way, before you call me biased toward female teachers, keep reading. I promise not to show preference to any gender of teacher out there. The only bias I claim is a preference for grammatical correctness.)

Now that I've explained who I am, at least minimally, I'll end with a story for today. I shot myself in the foot once again this morning, as I do about 3 times each week. Two of my students, David and Diamond (names changed) were happily working out the mysteries of rounding with our ever-patient high school tutor while the rest of the class was at library. I looked up from my work and espied the biggest, weirdest looking bug I have seen since my return from South America. This is where the poor decision-making came in. I should have simply kept the presence of the bug to myself, but, in a momentary lapse of sanity, I pointed the bug out to Diamond and David. It is safe to say that no more rounding got done after that. However, perhaps it was evidence that our prayers don't go unanswered, because the kids have been asking for a class pet since before Christmas.

In this blog I plan to include lesson plans, rubric, worksheets, etc. that I have created for my class in case other teachers wish to use it. All I ask is that it not be reprinted commercially without permission. One big part of my reading program, that I took from a teacher at Sacred Heart and made my own, is the literature response journal. The students turn in their journals each week on Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday, and I score the entries based on a rubric that I created. You can download the rubric by clicking on the link below.

Journal rubric

Then, I reply to the students' entries, pass the journal back with the rubric stapled to the entry, and the cycle continues. This activity meets Indiana Learning Standard for 5.5.2, writing literature responses. I will try to put up some sample student work for this activity as well.

Peace to all.