Butter, Taxes and the Last Day of Winter SUN

Wednesdays are crazy for me and this week was no exception.

I start my Wednesdays on campus with math for elementary school teachers. I then run home grab something to throw in my bag for lunch, hop on my bike and ride the roughly six miles to the fifth grade classroom I help out in.

The fifth graders are currently doing a social studies unit on the American Revolution and my CT is doing it in the coolest way. I'm a bit of a history nerd myself and am geeking out about how this unit is being taught.The class has set up a mock Boston colony and each student has created a colonial representation of themselves. Each student has a house and occupation for their colonial-self ranging from mayor to minster.

Today was the first day I got to observe their open market. For about an hour each day, the class sets up a trade market where they buy and sell different goods. Students can bring in objects from home to sell for shillings. Today the town baker brought in bread and homemade butter (yum!). The owners of the local tavern brought in rootbeer and chips and has quite the business going.

At the end of the free market period the mayor announced two new policies to be enacted the next day.By order of King George, there was to be a new sugar act in place: colonists would have to pay one shilling for every good sold containing sugar or for any good containing sugar brought into the class (including during lunch and recess), The second policy enacted had to do with imports; goods could no longer be brought in from outside of the classroom and could now only be made using supplies in the classroom.

Needless to say, the majority of  the student colonists were ticked off, The new acts put a damper on many of their business plans. I love this unit because my kids are getting to experience what it was like for Americans prior to the Revolution. I think emotion is a hard think to capture in a history lesson but this starts to.

After the near revolt with my fifth graders I jumped back on my bike and went to the after school science program I help out in. I work mainly with one second grade boy who needs a little extra help in the classroom. He's a sweet heart but can be a bit of a handful, I spent the majority of the first part of the class pretty much chasing him around, trying to keep him out of the teacher's stuff, I ha a small victory by the end and got him in his seat using beans and balloons to represent the digestive tract.

Around 4:30 the program ended and I made my way home, exhausted. Yes, Wednesdays are crazy but honestly it's the most rewarding day of my week. It's an amazing opportunity to  get hands on experience in the field you want to go into.

Getting Started

I just wanted to takes a second and say thank you for visiting my page. I'm new to the blogging world and hope that you will bear with me for my first few attempts at posting. Generally, I am terrible at taking time to write about my life (consider this warning of prolonged absences) but as an educator it is always important to reflect on how things are going in your classroom. I want to use this blog as motivation to more regularly  check in with myself and verbalize where I am at in relation to goals for myself and for my students.
I am currently half-way through spring semester of my junior year of college (yikes!) and it's incredible to see how far I've come. College has been a crazy roller coaster so far but I wouldn't have had it any other way. This semester is by far my busiest but it has also been one of the most rewarding experiences of my life. I somehow talked myself into taking twenty-one credits this semester (not the best choice for maintaining sanity), have an on campus job and split my field experience between three different sites: a fifth grade classroom in Northeast Portland, an after school science program and at an after school program for students of low income families.
In what little free time I have (believe me, it isn't much), I love to get outside and explore. Rain or shine, my happy place is nature.