All good things

I have an exciting announcement!

This summer, I quit teaching! Things got really bad at my school. The administration gave us no support. The kids were wild, the parents worked against us. So many things went so terribly wrong. Out of 6 fifth grade teachers, 5 of us quit!

The only thing that went right was my STAAR scores. We managed an 82% pass rate! It was the highest the district had ever achieved by far, so I left on a good note.

So what am I doing now?

I am a newly minted process operator at my local Valero refinery. I run the equipment that makes a variety of products, like diesel and kerosene. I went in knowing nothing. I'm not sure how I even got this job, but I could not be more grateful that I did. I love my job, which is something I never felt as a teacher.

Please feel free to use anything and everything on this blog. I'll leave it up in case anyone wishes to use any resources.

I wish you all the luck in the word, teachers. Stay awesome!

~Ms. Kat

Let's catch up Weeks 18-20

I woke up today and realized that I had been sorely neglecting my teaching blog. Oops. I guess that lecture I gave the kids on apathy should have also swirled around and hit me too.


Let's recap the past 3 weeks, everything since the holiday break.

Week 18

Monday- Staff Development

Tuesday- Space and Weather unit Vocab.

Wednesday- Characteristics of the Earth, Sun, And Moon

Thursday- I bought the Science Cut Ups for Earth, Sun, and Moon. The kiddos matched the cards and we went through them.

Friday- The kiddos took their 3rd 6-weeks benchmark. Joy.

Week 19

Monday- Another Curriculum day. Wonderful and feeling spoiled after not getting ANY during the first semester.

Tuesday- Rotation and Revolution

Wednesday- Seasons. The kiddos filled in their ideas of what the avg. temp, rainfall, what plants and animals were doing during each season and we discussed.

Thursday- Rotation and Revolution lab

Friday- The kiddos took their Vocab Quiz. Did really well!

Week 20

Monday- I GOT OBSERVED TODAY. Woah, man. Crazy, having the principal in there for a whole class, typing away at my desk. I think I did well, though.

We talked about moon phases, and they practiced a song

 Tuesday- Moon  Phases Lab. The kids used oreos to make the moon phases.

 Wednesday- Weather

Thursday- I got shanghai-d into part of Hal Bowman's "Be The One" program, and pulled from two of my classes, so we took a day to watch Bill Nye's planets, and the Magic School Bus Stars.

Friday- Weather Maps

Wooooo. That was a doozy. I'll work harder to keep up. I've just been so... destitute this year. With our "president" and his shitty agenda, the kids losing focus and testing around the corner, we're all a bit off.

Here's hoping to a better February!

~Ms. Kat

Week 13 November 14-18

One. More. Week. Til. Thanksgiving.

Monday: The kids took their vocab quiz on Monday. I had far fewer failures than normal, so I think the study devices worked!

Tuesday: We started rock types. I handed out a bunch of rocks and the kids had to complete a data table on 3 of them, identifying their physical properties and then comparing it to the real table to identify their rock. They LOVED it.

Wednesday: We began the rock cycle. The kids did really well with predicting what went on the arrows. Lots of participation today. The kids are into rocks!

Thursday: Ah, the rock cycle lab. I sprung for some good sharpeners this year. The kids sharpened crayons to get shavings. They then added pressure and got sedimentary rock. They blew hot air and stepped on the shavings (inside aluminum foil) to get metamorphic rock. They then gave the foil to me and I dunked it into boiling water, and once cooled, they had igneous rock. Again, they loved it!

Friday: We are all pretty much DONE at this point in the year, so I bumped back today's lesson and we went over our Benchmark test.

And now that I'm rested and relaxed and very full from Thanksgiving, I'm prepared to tackle the next 3.5 weeks before Christmas. Hang on to you hats. Things are surely going to be bumpy!

~Ms. Kat

Week 12 November 7-11

My favorite part of the fall: CAST convention!

Monday: Work day. We had lead4ward come in for a 1/2 day training on data reports in eduphoria (hella useful) and 1/2 curriculum day.

Tuesday: We worked with our new vocabulary.

Wednesday- I fled to the sanity of San Antonio while my kids took their Benchmark. Results were not as good as I'd hoped. However, thanks to those eduphoria reports, I can say we have improved over last year's actual STAAR results, so there's that.

Thursday-My kids did a measuring up on Alternative Energy. I re-worded some of the questions to make it more do-able, as they always have trouble understanding what the question is asking.

Friday- The school board was, naturally, coming today when I'm gone. I left my kids with instructions to create a study device for their vocab quiz (flash cards or a flipbook or something). I got a text about 10 minutes into the day from my aide saying she'd had to fuss at the kids 3 times.

I asked her to put me on speakerphone. Fortunately that wasn't necessary. She relayed my disappointed and angry words to them and they shut right up.

Do you know how powerful it feels to be able to quiet a room of kids from 5 hours away? ULTIMATE POWER! *maniacal laughter*

Anyhoo, only one more week to catch up on. Yay.

Week 11 October 31- November 4

Ah, the last week of the 2nd 6-weeks. One of the most difficult times for me every year. The grind. Football season in its prime. Drill team going full out. Exhaustion. 14 hour days. So glad it ends with this week.

Monday- We did a lab with 3 stations, each one having to do with either reflection or refraction. They played with lasers and lenses at two stations, and with a mirror at a third.

Tuesday- We played a quizizz game to review for our test

Wednesday- The kiddos took their test on Google Classroom (which I am IN LOVE WITH btw).

Thursday- I have searched my memory for what we did this day. It has departed my mind. I probably put on a video or something. I was probably pretty done at that point.

Friday- Ah, early release day. We watched another of those Africa documentary episodes. The kids love it.

Bring on CAST next week!

Week 10 Oct 24-28

Woah, I kind of got REALLY behind there, didn't I?

Let's catch up.

Monday- Forces lab

We set up ramps using our otherwise USELESS science textbooks and these neat little cars I found stashed in the Science closet. I wish we had time to do a more involved experiment. Maybe during STAAR review...

I had the groups call out their measurements so we got to see why we were doing 3 trials. I then did an average on each one and used that as our conclusion.


Tuesday- Light + Reflection

We talked about the properties of light and how it reflects off of surfaces. I also finally got to break out my LAZER MAZE! I bought these last year after this unit, and was so excited to break it out. The kids LOVED it. I used it for a whole class demonstration, and it seemed to bring about a lot of light bulb moments.

Wednesday- Refraction and Opacity

We talked about the varying levels of see-throughness (transparent, translucent, opaque) and how light bends as it passes through objects.

Our activity wasn't on refraction,  but rather shadows. We tested light sources at different angles on different objects and showed how shadows get longer with a lower angle of light (like sunrise or sunset).

Thursday- Absorption and color

We talked about how light is absorbed, and how the combination of light being absorbed/reflected causes different colors. I blew their minds. Again.There's a lot of that going around this unit.

Friday-Unit Review

The kids used their science journal to work on their unit review. I took off this day, as it was :
A. A friday
B. Orange out day (wear as much orange as possible)
C. The last school day before Halloween monday
D. The end of red ribbon (aka costume) week.

Best.Decision.Ever.

Back in a mo for weeks 11-13