Making Ends Meet - Using Swagbucks

It is no secret that most teachers are grossly underpaid. I am fortunate to work for a county that makes teacher salaries a priority, but even then, sometimes it can be hard to find extra money for birthday presents, Christmas, and just every day items. Fortunately, there are ways to make these things a little easier. My hope is that I can share some ideas with you to help you make a little extra money and, by doing so, make your life a little bit easier.

Today, I want to talk about Swagbucks.

Swagbucks is a website that will "pay" you to complete different activities online. There are videos to watch, polls to answer, and purchases to make. You can even earn Swagbucks by searching. Put in the terms that you are searching for and, periodically throughout the day, you will be awarded a number of Swagbucks for your search.

Swagbucks doesn't pay you in cash. Instead, you are rewarded Swagbucks, or SB. As you collect SB, you can then use them to purchase gift cards from a number of top retailers. My wife and I use our Swagbucks to purchase gift cards to Amazon.com, which we then use for birthday presents and Christmas gifts. You can also purchase gift cards from Kohls, Target, Best Buy, and Restaurant.com. There is also a gift card for PayPal, which is the same as cash. I used my SB earlier this year on our trip to Walt Disney World. I cashed in enough SB to receive $35 worth of gift cards to AMC theaters. We were able to take our entire family to the movies for about $12 because of the gift cards.

This may sound like a lot of work and, to be honest, it does take a little bit of effort to accumulate enough SB to get a gift card. Right now, you can get a $3 Amazon.com gift card for 300 SB or a $25 Amazon.com for 2,200 SB. One of the easiest ways to earn SB is to make use of the SBTV app available for your smartphone (just do a search in your smartphone's app store). I have it on my iPhone and use it every day. This is a really simple app. You simply make certain you are connected to WiFi, turn on the app, and let it run. During the day at school, I will set the app to run and leave it on my desk. Simply by running the app, I earn about 30 SB each day. I think my wife and I have earned a couple of hundred dollars in gift cards through this program.

If Swagbucks sounds like it might be helpful to you, you can sign up by clicking here. Please note, this is an referral link and I will receive a bonus because you signed up. You will also receive a 150 SB bonus for signing up, so it is win-win for both of us.

I hope that by joining Swagbucks, the little bit of money that you save from purchasing the gift cards will help make your budget a little bit easier.

Your Job Is To Protect the Students

I was scrolling through my Facebook newsfeed when I came across this status from Jon Acuff.

Yesterday on my flight, a 13 year old boy who was traveling alone sat next to me. Before we took off he lowered the tray table in front of him, put his head in his arms and started sobbing. Big tears covered the tray as he wept in his seat.

I asked him, "Are you alright buddy?" He told me he had spent 3 months with his mother for the summer and was flying back to another state to live with his dad.

Sometimes the frequency of divorce makes us forget the heartache of it. It's such an ordinary thing these days that we tend to rush right by the extraordinary pain it causes.

As an adult, I have had friends that have dealt with divorce. Sadly, it seems like an almost daily occurrence when my wife tells me that a friend of hers is going through a divorce. It is heartbreaking to know that a relationship that was supposed to last forever is coming to an end.

The even sadder reality is that this is an all-too-common occurrence in our classrooms. There are children who deal with the heartbreak and devastation of a divorce on a daily basis. Sometimes, Mom and Dad get along great after the divorce and sometimes it is nasty between them. Regardless, there is pain for the children. I am thankful that my parents are still together. It was a bit dicey at times, but they are still together.

We think we were hired to teach children and that is true. More importantly, we were hired to protect the students, to keep them safe, and to help them understand the world around them. It is pretty scary being an adult; it is even scarier being a kid. Love your students, make sure they know you are a safe harbor in their chaotic world, and teach them to love and protect each other. That is your job, the most important job you have when you enter the school building each day.

Your job is protect to the students.

Three Things I Try to Tell My Students Every Day

For anyone who is a teacher, you know that it is game on from the moment the bell rings in the morning until the last student gets on the bus at the end of the day. It is crazy and hectic and there are days I forget that I need to drink water and go to the bathroom. I forget to sign papers and one time I even forgot to send home report cards. Trust me, the parents and students didn't let me forget the next day. I think I am still answering emails about that.

However, even with all of the craziness that is a day in a third grade classroom, there are three things I try to tell my students every day. I can't say that it happens 100% of the time, but I do make an effort to let them know these things every day.

1. "You are doing a great job!" I want my students to know that I think they are doing a great job and that the work they are doing is being noticed. I want my students to work hard and I want them to be recognized for that fact. I tell them this even if they have only completed half of the activity because, for some students, they are working to the best of their abilities. Sometimes, as teachers, we tend to focus on the students who complete all the work and answer all the questions. I'm guilty of that very thing. I want to make sure that my students know that I see what they are doing and I think it is great.
2. "I'm proud of you!" I tell my students I am proud of them all the time. When a student completes a multiplication problem he has struggled with for several minutes, I let him know how I feel. When a student has had a bad day and does something remarkable, I let her know how I feel.
3. "I love you." The first time I told my students I loved them, most of them gave me strange looks. "Did our boy teacher really just say that?" I tell my students I love them every day. Sometimes it is "I love you very much, but you all are driving me crazy at the moment," but I want them to know how special they are to me. I know it is cliche, but I may be the only one who tells them "I love you" in any given day. I pray that this isn't the case, but it might be. I say "I love you" to my class so often that, as I was leaving the other day for an appointment, as I walked out the door, one of the girls called out, "Mr. Pearson, aren't you forgetting to tell us something?"

Why do I do say these things? Well, there are lots of reasons, but, mostly, I want to build relationships with my students. I want them to know I care about them and they are more important to me than tests scores and reading data graphs. I want them to trust me and to know that I am there to protect them, even on those occasions when I am upset with them because of their behavior. It makes it so much easier and more effective when I tell a student, "Hey, you are out of control and you need to settle down," if they know it is coming from a person who loves them and wants the best for them.

Do you say these things to your students? What are some things you tell your students every day? Please share in the Comments!

Making and Using Videos in My Classroom

The other day I had a scheduled day off. It wasn't necessarily a fun day, but I had to be at the Admin Building for some training for committee that I help facilitate at our school. On the day I was to be off, my students were going to begin learning (and/or reviewing) how to tell time on a clock to the nearest minute.

As a literature tie-in to the lesson, I decided to read Game Time by Stuart Murphy. This is a great book that talks about units of time and how they work on a clock, all set in the context of students playing a soccer game. I knew my students were going to love it.

The only problem was that I wasn't going to be there to read it to them. Obviously, I could leave the book for the substitute to read, but I didn't want to for some reason. So, I decided to make a video of my reading the book. It's not a particularly well-polished video, but it achieved the purposed.

If you are interested in the video, I posted it below.

The best of part of this story is this: When I returned to school the next day, I asked my students what they thought about the video. I figured they would say they liked it, but one student had a really great answer. She said, "I liked the video because it's like you are here with us, Mr. Pearson, even when you aren't in the classroom. We miss you when you aren't here. Well, at least I miss you."

So, yeah, that's why I make videos, even if they aren't always the best.

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Do you make videos for your classroom? How do you use them?

I Love My Job

I am experiencing a new adventure this year. I am co-teaching a third grade class that has an enormous number of students who have been identified for special education services. Yeah, it is exactly how it sounds.

Yesterday, in class, one of my students put his arm behind his head, pulled his sleeve up, and began sniffing and (possibly) licking his armpit. I was trying to teach about rounding numbers to the 1,000s place. Do you have any idea how hard it is to teach on rounding when there is a student licking his own armpit?

I have another student who became very upset at transition time. He was standing in the room, sobbing. The reason he was so upset was because he had a handful of rocks wrapped up in a paper towel. Every time he would try to pick up his book box to leave the room, he would drop some of his rocks. "How can I carry my cubby when my hands are full of rocks? I can't pick up my cubby because I have to hold on to these rocks! I'm not going to be able to leave school!"

Another student was singing "What You Gonna Do With That Big Fat Butt?" in the lunch room. My student with autism told on him and he started to cry.

There is a little boy in my class who can only read 6 words per minute. He stumbles over the simplest sight words. When he was given a reading passage as a part of his PALS testing, he looked at the passage (with the very large print and few words on the page) and said to the teacher, "Are you kidding me? This is a joke, right?" I gave him a story that I wrote using some site word phrases and his response was, "I'll read this, but your story doesn't make any sense."

I also have a student who is extremely sensitive to noise. I gave her a set of headphones to wear because I thought it might cut down on the amount of noise she can hear. Unfortunately, I have created a monster. Now, she wants to wear the headphones all the time and the headphones have to be "plugged in." Oh, and now all the other students want to wear headphones as well. It is like a Daft Punk concert in our hallway.

I love my job.

Back to School - Day 1

Yesterday was my first day back in the building. I have been doing some training, but hadn't been in my classroom yet. I don't have a lot of exciting things to report, so I thought I would share some of the things that I did today.

First, I had to reorganize the furniture in my classroom. When I arrived this morning, all of the furniture was on the opposite side of the room from where it needed to be. Additionally, all of the desks had been taken out of the room so that the floor could be waxed. Needless to say, I had a bunch of moving around to do.

Here are a few pictures of what the room looks like at this point:

Obviously, I still have a lot of work left to do.

In addition to moving furniture, I also got a little bit crafty. I am going to have 23 students this year and my co-teacher will have 24. I soon realized that I didn't order any name tags in my school order and I didn't have enough left over from previous years. What was a teacher to do? I pulled out my laptop and put my Teachers Pay Teachers skills to work. Here are my new name tags for this year. My students will have blue and my partner's students will be in red.

Another thing I made was a cover for my students' binders. It is pretty simple, but I think it makes the point.

Finally, we will be sending out our placement letters to our students on Friday. Our principal asked that we put together a personal letter to the students to introduce ourselves. Here is the letter that I made to send out. To be honest, the idea is not original with me. I got the idea from Pinterest.

So, that was my day. How was your day at school? Please share your thoughts in the comments.

Student Teaching - What's the Worst That Could Happen?

Everyone has memories of their student teaching experience. Some are good, some are bad. While my student teaching semester was one marked by the worst kind of tragedy (my classroom experienced the death of a student), my "worst" experience happened on the very first day of "Full Responsibility."

For those of you not familiar with that term, "Full Responsibility" is the week where a student teacher is completely in charge of the classroom. My supervising teacher handed me the roll book and walked to the back of the room, where he picked up a novel and started to drink coffee.

When students are coming into the classroom, the best word to describe this is chaos, pure, unadulterated chaos. Even the most organized and managed classrooms experience this chaos every single morning. As I was standing there greeting the students and collecting notes, one of the girls came up to me in a bit of a panic.

"Mr. Pearson, I don't know what happened. I just looked down and noticed that my skirt was covered in blood and I don't know where it came from!"

Did I mention that I was teaching 6th grade? Yeah, that should set some context for this story.

I didn't really know what to say, so I looked back to my supervising teacher. He shrugged, took a sip of his coffee, and turned the page in his book. Great.

The poor girl looked like she was about to cry, so I did the only thing I could think to do: I sent her to the nurse. "Quick, here's a pass. Go to the nurse. She'll take care of it."

The girl left and I was able to get the day going without any further catastrophes. About an hour later, the girl returned to class wearing a new skirt. A little later in the day, I asked her if everything was okay, secretly hoping she wouldn't share too many details of what had been going on.

Oh yeah, everything's fine. There was a kid on the playground this morning who cut his leg open. I guess he brushed up against me and that is where the blood came from. I had to wait in the nurse while my mom brought me a change of clothes. No big deal."

No big deal for her. It certainly threw a wrench in my plans for the day. And, fortunately, that was the most traumatic (for me, anyway) thing I had to deal with during my student teaching. Interestingly enough, my student teaching experience is not at all what my actual teaching experience has been, but I guess that is the case with most teachers.

What memories of student teaching, good or bad, do you have?

Guided Math in Action Book Study - Chapter 3

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Today's post is supposed to be about Chapters 3 and 4 from Guided Math in Action by Dr. Nicki Newton (have I told you that you should probably own a copy of this book?) However, my family had a pretty dramatic event take place this week and I was only able to prepare my thoughts for Chapter 3.

What was the event you ask? Well, my wife gave birth to a little girl on Friday afternoon. Catherine "Kate" Alice Pearson is now a member of the family. Isn't she beautiful?

So, while my wife has been recovering the hospital and getting acquainted with our new little one and her eating and sleeping and pooping habits, I have been at home taking care of our other four children. My wife and I are the proud parents of 4 boys (ages 8, 6, 3, and 2). Needless to say, there has not been a lot of time for reading and writing over the past couple of days. With that in mind, I hope that you will allow me some leeway with this post.

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Chapter 3 is all about setting up the Guided Math framework. Dr. Newton is big on Math Workshop, but, as I've said before, you can use whatever math framework works best in your particular context. Right from the start, Dr. Newton makes it abundantly clear that you have to start with the routines from the very beginning. Students thrive on routine. The sooner you can get your routine established, the easier it will be to have the students follow along.

Among the first things to establish are the rules, consequences, and rewards. Students need to know what is expected of them when they are working in math. We need to make sure that there are positive expectations for the students and that they are clearly posted so that there is no disagreement about what needs to be done. The consequences for breaking those rules must also be established and followed. Finally, the students need to know the rewards. The key that Dr. Newton pointed out was not to "bankrupt" the system. If the students earn the points, they need to know that those points aren't going to be lost.

The other key aspect of the chapter is to build a teacher's toolkit. A toolkit is supposed to be at your meeting area so that you are completely prepared when your groups come back to work. The toolkit should include folders that include examples of student work, materials for keeping anecdotal records on the students, papers, pencils, different supplies like scissors and glue, and manipulatives like cards, dice, and rubber bands.

Now to the questions:

Do you have a teacher's toolkit? At this point, I don't a specific "toolkit." Having read this, I am going to work on putting together the necessary items that would be included in a toolkit. My friend Sarah has a great post about what she includes in her toolkit. You may want to take a look at her post to get some more ideas about what to include in your own toolkit.

Do your students have toolkits? All of our materials are kept in a central location. I have a cubby cart that holds all of the number cards, dice, and math games that the students may need when working at centers. This cart also has the rulers and crayons, as well as extra pencils and glue sticks. I do need to figure out a better way to organize the pencils and the glue sticks because I honestly think my students were eating them. I have never gone through as many glue sticks as I did last year.

How do you establish routines/expectations? I make my expectations and routines known from the first day. My students are told the routines, they tell the routines to each other, and they repeat the routines back to me. After that we practice the routines and if they aren't done correctly (which they typically aren't), we do them again. It usually only takes a few times of doing it over for the students to get the idea of what is expected. Additionally, I also make signs to hang up so that the students will have a constant reminder of what they should be doing.

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Well, that brings us to the end of another chapter. Please be sure to read the other blogs that are participating, especially since my post is missing Chapter 4. And, like most of have said, if you haven't gotten a copy of the book yet, you really should. Amazon.com has a pretty good price on it.

An InLinkz Link-up

How I Became a Teacher - My Journey to 3rd Grade

It was never my intention to become a teacher. I never had any grand aspirations of "shaping the world of tomorrow" or "trying to make a difference" or any of that type of thing. In fact, I didn't even go to college with the intent of studying education. I went to college to study to become a pastor.

I attended Pensacola Christian College to study Pastoral Ministries. This is a great school if you are interested in studying the Bible. It is, however, not a school for everyone, but that has nothing to do with this story. After a semester or so, I quickly realized that, even though I still wanted to be a pastor, Pastoral Ministries was not for me. I didn't "fit in" with that crowd and so I needed to change my major. So, I decided to study to be a lawyer. From one side of the spectrum to the other, right?

When I spoke to my academic advisor about the major change, she suggested that I consider pursue something like history or English instead of pre-law. The reason was that, if studying law didn't work out, I would have something else to fall back on. With this thought in mind, I decided to change my major to Elementary Education. This would allow me to study a wider variety of subjects (math, science, history, English) instead of just focusing on one main area. Plus, there was about a 99:1 ratio of females to males in the Elementary Education department. In many of my classes, I was the only guy. Unfortunately, many of them were friends with the girl I was dating at the time, so...moving on.

While I was studying and practice-teaching, I was still preparing and desiring to become a pastor, more specifically a youth pastor. Turns out I was pretty good at being a teacher. Obviously I was a little rough around the edges and not what my professors would call a "star pupil," but I did pretty well. I completed my student teaching, graduated, and moved back home. I was volunteering at my church as the lead youth worker and I got a job at Faith Christian School as a 4th grade teacher. That was my introduction to full time education. That first year was incredible. I had a wonderful class of students. It was a small school, so I had a small class and I team-taught with a wonderful teacher, doing what I do today: math and science. During this year, I also got engaged to the girl who is now my wife (we've been married for 10 years!).

After getting engaged, I realized that I needed to make a little bit (by a little, I actually mean a lot) more money, so I began looking into working for the public school system in my county. I had a few connections from a summer job I had had in the personnel department and that helped me to get an interview. I interviewed and that fall I began my career as an elementary school teacher. I have been in the county for ten years at this point.

My teaching career has had some ups and some downs. I was still interested in becoming a youth pastor and even served as one part-time for nearly a year. I honestly believed that I was going to leave education and become a youth pastor full-time. It would appear that God had other plans for me. I am no longer in that ministry and have found a deeper love for my job as a third grade teacher. Part of that comes from my work with Teachers Pay Teachers. It is always interesting how people end up doing what they do.

My journey to becoming a teacher began with a desire to become a pastor. Through several twists and turns, I cannot imagine doing anything other than being a teacher. I have been blessed with an awesome team and great students and the county I work for takes very good care of me. I am truly blessed.

How did you become a teacher? Leave a comment and share your story.

Guided Math in Action Book Study - Chapters 1 and 2

Welcome to the first installment of the Guided Math in Action book study. I hope that you have had an opportunity to read through Chapters 1 and 2. If not, please consider picking up a copy of your own (available at Amazon.com). I promise it is a book that you will refer to again and again.

In the first chapter, we are introduced to a class that is involved in a guided math lesson. The teacher and her students were involved in a mini-lesson on subtraction with regrouping. I learned about a really great idea for students who aren't able to grasp the idea of Base-10 blocks or numbers. The teacher gave the students bundles of sticks. Each bundle of sticks had 10 sticks. When a student needed to regroup, he "broke" apart the bundle and moved those individual sticks to the ones place. Brilliant! I'm ashamed to admit that I had never considered doing that, but now I have a project!

The teacher worked with the students on a few questions together, then allowed them time to work independently. The other students in the class were involved in independent or group activities. After the group time was finished, the teacher walked the classroom and took notes (this is a perfect opportunity to use Evernote!) on what the students were doing. At the end of the math period, the class joined back up to share what they were doing in math that day. It was very interesting to see inside another teacher's classroom.

Question 1: Stretching myself can be difficult at times. I went to a college that had a very distinct way of teaching a class. There was little in the way of differentiation. We were taught to teach to the middle...not exactly the best way of doing things. I am very, very comfortable doing whole class teaching, but guess what? Not every student can learn that way! I have to stretch myself and be willing to try new things to help my students learn. If this means I am doing small groups with whiteboards one time and one-on-one with modeling clay another time, that's what I need to be willing to do. And while it can be difficult to keep track of the educational needs of 20+ students (hello, Evernote!), I need to come up with a way to do it. You may notice that I keep mentioning Evernote. Evernote is an app that is perfect for this.

Question 2: Third graders are the kings and queens of giving up before they even attempt to do something. If I had a dollar for every student who came up to me with the phrase "I don't get it!" before he had even put his pencil to the paper. In my classroom, we have a poster that says, "We Don't Do Easy." My students know they are responsible to keep trying a problem and to use multiple strategies in their attempt to solve a problem. There is no greater reward from me than a Knuckle Bump when a student works through and solves a problem she was struggling to solve.

In Chapter 2, Dr. Newton discusses the importance of a numerate environment. Such an environment allows the students to "safely" discuss their thinking and to challenge the thinking of other students. We want our students to be able to explain what they are thinking and how they were able to solve the problem.

Dr. Newtown also makes a big push for math workshop. While this is not the method that I currently use, many of the elements of math workshop can be found in my math classroom as well. The elements include:

• Calendar time
• Problem of the Day
• Whole Class Mini-Lesson
• Guided Math Groups/Centers
• Journals

Like I said above, I don't currently do a math workshop, but many of these elements (Problem of the Day, Mini-Lesson, Guided Math Groups, Centers, and Journals) are things I incorporate daily.

Question 1: While I believe that I have a numerate environment, I realize that there is always room for improvement. To that end, I am working to develop more math-related "decorations" for my classroom. I have started an "Anchor Charts" board on Pinterest. I am also looking for more ways to incorporate math word study. As I continue to develop these things, I will be certain to share them with you.

As I said at the beginning, I hope that you have been able to read along and are learning as much as I am. Please be sure to join me again on Sunday for Chapters 3 and 4.

An InLinkz Link-up

My Favorite Parent Comments

Over at Buzzfeed.com, there is a list called "21 Things Parents Say That Drive Teachers CRAZY." As I was reading through them, I was amazed at how many of them were incredibly true. It was like they had a microphone and camera in my classroom.

In honor of this list, here are a few of my favorites.

• My child would never, ever act that way! Sadly, I hear this one a lot, especially from the parents of the students who actually do act that way...all the time! I sometimes want to say, "Ma'am, if I am calling you, it is either really bad or this is the seventeenth time this week your child has done this very thing." I guess we all see our children through rose-colored glasses.
  
• How could my child possibly fail his math/spelling/science test? Unfortunately, this statement is repeated way too often. Of course, the lack of preparation for the test may have something to do with the doubleheader he played in or the 3-hour dance rehearsal. As a teacher, I know I do my best to prepare my students for the upcoming assessments, but nothing can take the place of reviewing the material at home the night before the test.
  
• Did you get my email? I receive many, many emails per day. Because I work for a large county, every online university in the nation wants me to enroll to receive my masters degree from them. Sometimes they want me to enroll so badly, they send me two or three invitations...within minutes of each other. I say this to say that sometimes emails get shuffled around. Sometimes email has to wait until the end of the day or the next morning. I appreciate that email is an excellent communication tool, but sending reminder emails about the first email is often not helpful. It just pushes the first email that much further down the list. This is why I remind parents that there is a 24-hour response time on emails and emergency matters should not be communicated this way.

I hope that this post doesn't come across mean-spirited. I have been blessed over my teaching career with some really incredible parents to partner with. Teaching is a challenging job. Parenting is a challenging job. Together, we can make it that much more rewarding for everyone.