The end

The final days of second grade were rather busy, considering they were the last days for the kids as well. On Tuesday we did a lot of busy work, preparing for their conferences being Thursday and Friday. We assembled poetry books and portfolios, writing captions that explain what exactly we did throughout the year and reflecting on what exactly we learned. There was a small amount of math and reading, but the day was mainly focused on portfolios. I basically just walked around and helped the kids put together all of their work. Wednesday was less work and more play. We started out the morning by going to an end of year assembly that the entire Lower School attended. The kids sang songs about school being out and graduating to the next grade. It was pretty crazy considering it feels like yesterday that I was sitting in that chapel singing those songs. After the closing assembly we spent the day finishing our Cleveland study at the West Side Market. All of the parents came so the teachers could really just walk around and shop for ourselves. Afterwards, we went to Edge Water Park where we had a picnic and played some fun moms/teachers vs. students dodgeball. It was a great way to finish off senior project. I really enjoyed working with the kids this past month. I never realized how much work goes into being a second grade teacher, but I'm very glad that I had the opportunity to spend time in the classroom and see for myself what the field of education is all about.

Spending some time in the Kitchen

On tuesday I walked in expecting it would be like any other day going out with the truck, but because one of the chefs is in the hospital with some nasty virus the chef of the food truck had to work at the restaurant  which meant the truck was not going out that day. So instead, I was the prep chef/ the guy who did the dirty work. I washed some dishes here and there and put things away. But then came the somewhat fun part of actually making some food. The recipes they have in their book are NOT detailed, to say the least so I had to ask alot of questions. But after a few hours I had made Sherry Coleslaw, Corn Bread, as well as Sarache Aioli (a mayo based hot sauce used on PBLTs as well as the sauce for tater tots). It was fun doing something a bit different and seeing a different side of the restaurant for once.

Monday-Wednesday

We all know Monday was our national day off so I can't blog about that. Tuesday, on the other hand, I went back to work for our second "professional" day. Since all the faculty and staff had meetings about improving things for next year, I was left with little to do. I occupied myself for a good hour organizing books in the library. After that, I just hung out in the office and surfed the web on my laptop. Wednesday, the whole group of faculty and staff are all going to the Indians game for their last professional day so I won't be coming since I am not a big fan of baseball. I guess this is it, done with senior project! :)

The Final Days

Since Wednesday's prep for the final day on Thursday, not much has happened aside from Thursday itself. Thursday I came in early, at 7:30 in order to help prep for commencement, awards and field day. First I helped  set up some things in the auditorium for the official part of the morning and then went shopping. A colleague of mine and I had to run to Dave's to buy some snacks and refreshments for after the commencement and awards ceremonies. When we came back we organized two tables filled with a variety of refreshments, cheese and cracker, fruit, and veggies and dip trays that we assembled ourselves. Following that, we escorted the senior graduates into the room where we helped them find their caps and gowns. Time flew by and it was already 11 o'clock so I had to go to my make-up AP Chemistry exam. The kids sure missed me as they were hoping to dunk me in their so called traditional field day "dunk tank", filled with gallons of water. Friday was the first professional day, and my sponsor and the director of the school left to go on a field-trip with the senior cluster so I had absolutely nothing to do.

lighting style

Today was good.  I'm excited for tomorrow, when I expect I'll get to the trickiest shot of my film: the hanging.  More on that to come Wednesday.  Right now I'd just like to highlight the shift in lighting style that my movie is undergoing at this point.  By now, we've gotten through the golden years of boyhood and adolescence for our main character, leaving him a twisted example of a full-grown human being.  I'm underscoring this shift in character with a similar shift in lighting.  While earlier I used more low-key lighting to eliminate harsh shadows on my puppets, now I'm using high-key lighting, which is all bright highlights and black shadows, with very few tones in between.  This stark, ugly look gives a sense of seediness and evil - that's why it was the lighting style of choice in old film noir movies like Touch of Evil.  So, that's the general trend of the lighting in my movie.

Thursday and Friday

Thursday and Friday can easily be epitomized by one single world: portfolios. Every year in the lower school, the kids have the opportunity to make and take home portfolios which include nearly everything they did all year. They get to cut and paste and decorate and put little captions to explain what exactly they learned in the second grade. Well, due to school ending a little earlier, and just getting a little behind, my second grade class never quite started them. So I spent all of Thursday and Friday in the hallway putting together the portfolios for them. It is actually incredible to see how much work the kids have accomplished in the last nine months, they are all really proud of themselves. I got a small break when my mom and sister stopped by to meet the kids. My class loved getting to meet them because sometimes I think that students don't think that their teachers are real people who live normal lives with normal families, so they were pretty intrigued by that. The kids were in the classroom basically all day until the afternoon when they had their last swim class (which they were all thrilled about). Because of a small mix up and a little disorganization, I only got through 3 portfolios on Thursday, which meant Friday I would be working all day on them. I turned out that it was easier to just not have the kids with me while making the portfolios, and just letting them look at them once they were finished. They were pretty bummed out but it made my job quite a bit easier. Luckily they had three or four specials Friday, so they were barely in the classroom anyway. I finally finished ten more portfolios on Friday, which means I only have 4 more to complete next week. I'm truly enjoying being a teacher although I never realized quite how much extra work and "homework" it entailed. The teacher that I am working with explained that a teacher always has homework, and that I have realized is very true.

Wednesday

Wednesday was a rather plain day in second grade. I started out by finishing assembling shape books for the kids. These were little books all about 3-D shapes, so they could learn to recognize what a 3-D shape was and looked like. After assembling the shape books, I helped the kids decorate their poetry books. They've written numerous poems this year and so I was able to help them decorate them. Eventually the kids had Chinese and then an early recess, and then it was off to lunch. We had a very quick morning. Later the kids went to art, did a little bit of their Cleveland study, which included me reading to them a fictional story about Cleveland, and then they went to science. After coming back from science we did some fraction studies. We worked on worksheets and I helped explain to them what a numerator was and what a denominator was. We used candy and cookies to explain fractions, which I think allowed them to focus on the study a little bit better. We ended the day by finishing the Cleveland book I had started reading to them, and then we had a closing meeting where we played heads up 4 up, one of their favorite games.