A Change in the Blog

The name of this blog officially changed today from Room 42 Daily to Mr. Kelsey’s Class. I’m not sure if I like this title yet but it will work for now. I have been enjoying my time off since school let out. I’ve been to a T-Bones game, went to see Indiana Jones, slept in a little bit, and had a day of technology training. I got some details finalized for the broadcast program for South Valley Middle School. The name of the program will officially be the Knightly Knews. It will begin the year as a weekly broadcast and hopefully by the end of each quarter we will be doing daily broadcasts.

In two weeks my wife and I leave for Colorado Springs for two weeks of classes offered through the Space Foundation. We will both finish up the first half of a master’s degree this summer in curriculum and instruction with an emphasis in space studies. Between the two classes we are taking we have 9 days off and will be driving to the Grand Canyon, Meteor Crater, Phoenix for an Arizona Diamondbacks game, and then a few days in Las Vegas. Once we return from Colorado I have a week off and then I go to Springfield for a broadcasting camp. It will be a busy summer but it should be a lot of fun. Be sure to stay tuned for updates.

How Far is It

Today in science class we created scale models of how far it is from the Earth to the Moon. The kids predicted that the moon would be no more than 2-3 meters away on our scale model. When they actually created the model they were amazed at how far away it was. (It is 10x the circumference of the earth or 240,000 miles away.) In our model the moon (a baseball) was about halway down the hall from the earth (a globe).

Where the Red Fern Grows

Today we started reading my favorite book of all time, Where the Red Fern Grows. For this in class project we will be reading the book both together and independently. Students will then respond to questions that are posted on the Red Fern Book Blog. For these questions, I really want the kids to bring in their own personal experience. Some of the answers I have seen on this project in the past have been touching, funny, and unbelievably thoughtful.

I would love for anyone interested to join us on our journey through the Red Fern. Don’t worry, I won’t grade anyone but the students. If you are in need of a copy of the book, let me know and I will be glad to loan you one. I have 5 copies left. First come first served. If you want to answer the questions with us, you can log in as anonymous and answer the questions. The only thing that I ask is that you put your name on the post so I know who it is coming from. If you have any questions, feel free to email me.

Red Fern Book Blog Link:
http://redfernbookblog.blogspot.com/

Room 42 Daily Featured in Cable in the Classroom Magazine

Yes, you read correctly. This blog is featured in this month’s edition of Cable in the Classroom Magazine. There is a great article about how I use the blog to communicate and there are some great pictures there also. Click on the link below and then click on the Homeroom to Home link.

http://www.ciconline.org/cicmagazine-may08

Adopted Soldier

Okay, so I’ve been really slacking lately and not getting updates on here. I will attempt to rectify that in the future.

Today we got a special surprise. Several Months ago we “adopted” a soldier who was stationed in Iraq. He is the future brother in law of one of our kids. We sent him a big batch of letters and a small care package. I found out last week that he was in town on a two week leave and wanted to come by and thank the kids for sending the stuff over. Today Kerry stopped by and the kids were completely surprised. We had a great talk about what it was like in Iraq (we learned about the food, bed times, body armor, and the kids). We also sent home with him one of the flags that went on the weightless flight. Check out the pictures below!

Exchange City Pictures

Finally, I have found an extra minute to post the pictures from Exchange City, sorry for the delay.

A New Opportunity!

It became official today. I will not be returning to Manor Hill next year. I have accepted a position at South Valley Middle School. While I am sad to be leaving Manor Hill, I am excited to be starting a new position. I have been at Manor Hill for the last 9 years. Actually, I have been there for the past 9 ½ years, since I student taught there as well. It will be really hard to leave that last day of school this year. At South Valley, I will be starting a broadcast program. I will actually have a studio and we will be producing live daily broadcast. I will also be teaching seventh grade science. I think both of these will be a lot of work, very challenging and a lot of fun. I told the class today and at first I don’t think they quite knew what to think but when I told them that I could be there teacher again in two years, they actually cheered. That meant so much to me.

Playing for the KC Royals . . . I wish!

Okay, this really doesn’t have a lot to do with school but I thought it was really cool so I wanted to post it. I have a new summer job. I will be helping run the scoreboard at Kauffman Stadium this year. It is nothing major, and at this point I don’t even know exactly what I’m doing or how many games I will get to work. I'm sure that my job will be very minor, however, just going to the first meeting last night was really cool. The scoreboard is PHENOMINAL! Imagine the size of the old scoreboard only this time it is all (no border) high definition. They had it on last night when I drove up and I couldn’t believe how awesome it was. Literally peoples jaws will drop when they walk into the stadium next year. A couple of cool things that I got to see last night were the control room (multi-million dollar). Wall to wall computers and video equipment, my KMH brain was spinning. They also use a program called Final Cut Pro that I have looked at using for KMH. Just the scope of what they do and the equipment that they use was amazing. Next week I have another meeting where I think I will find out more of what I will be doing and they will be doing a detailed run through of what a game will be like. I will post updates when I know more.

MAP Prep

This week we are going to work really hard on getting ready for the MAP test. To do this we are taking some practice tests and we will be going over them in class. I think it is really important for the kids to not only know what questions they got right or wrong but also to see why they got questions wrong. This week we will also be hitting our normal math lessons hard in order to get to the beginning of unit 9 which involves coordinate planes. I have a feeling that this might be a skill that is tested on the MAP test.

Spring Break

Wow, this whole blogging thing really seems foreign to me after having basically not blogged for the last three weeks. I had the flu which knocked me out for a week. I have never had anything hit me like that. I was so sick that when I was home, I did nothing other than eat a little soup and sleep. This week has been spring break and I did a lot of little random things. My wife and I went to the zoo one day, and saw the movie Vantage Point. I worked on a grant for next year and did some work around my house. I even got a new barbeque grill put together. I even got a chance to get some reading done. I’m currently reading Honeymoon with My Brother, a book that was recommended to me last summer. I can’t put it down. It is really good. I’m also reading a biography of Chris Kraft, a member of mission control for much of the Apollo space program. I also had an opportunity to hit several book stores and picked up a few books. I hate finishing a book and not having something new to read. I got a book by Bob Woodward, who was a part of the Watergate scandal during the Nixon administration. I got a book written by Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins about the trip to the moon. I also got a book called 102 minutes about the World Trade Center. Those should keep me busy for a while.

We have one week at school before the MAP tests start. This week we will be working on several different projects that we need to get done so that when we have limited time because of the MAP test, we will be able to get some things done. The biggest thing about the MAP test is to make sure that the kids are at school every day and at school on time. We will start right after school starts and go basically until lunch. Anyone that comes in late will have to sit in office until we get to a break, then will miss the afternoon to take makeup tests.

Math Casts

Despite the short day, we were able to get a lot accomplished today, especially for our Math Casts. I don’t know if I have mentioned this project or not. The students have each been given a math problem. They now must create a short movie explaining exactly how to solve this problem. Students are working in pairs and today spent a good deal of time just figuring out the steps needed to solve the problem. (Most of them could solve the problem easy enough but had trouble breaking it down into steps and explaining each step). Next week we will work on our final storyboards and on creating the steps and taking digital pictures. The last step will be putting it all together in Movie Maker and narrating it. Once all of the projects are done, I will post them online and students will be able to watch them to review for their test.

Enjoy your long weekend!

More Wax Museum Pictures - Finally

After much delay, and looking at my house, I found the cable to connect my old camera to the computer and I was able to download the lat two wax museum pictures. Brittany and Madison, sorry about the delay. You both had great costumes and did well on your presentation. This was even the first year that I had a "peg leg."

Parent Teacher Conferences

Just a short post today about Parent Teacher Conferences tonight, I know I won’t have much time after school to get anything posted. As soon as school is out it will be a quick dinner (at 4:00) time for a quick pit stop and then conferences until almost 8:00. I look forward to seeing everyone tonight. Remember, these are student led conferences, so the kids need to be in attendance. If they are not present, conferences will be really short. If you are unsure of your conference schedule, click on the link below to go the Room 42 web page. The schedule is on the front page, just scroll down to see it.

Room 42 Web Page

Exchange City Mania

Two words pretty much sum up this week. Exchange City. This week will be spent on getting ready for Exchange City. Applications, resumes, cover letters, shop meetings, interview, and a million other little details to get ready for the day. Tomorrow we meet with Mr. Fisher to go over interview techniques. Our class will be doing interviews for their jobs on Monday, March 3rd. Students need to dress appropriately and will need to have their resumes, job applications, and cover letters done by then. We have two hours of computer lab time in the next two days, I am pretty sure that we will get all of that done at school in plenty of time.

Extra Pictures

As I was looking through some pictures on my computer today I came across a couple additional photos that I thought I would share. These are pretty much just random pictures of different class projects that we have worked on this year. Also, I have not forgotten, I am still looking for the cable that I need in order to get the rest of the Wax Museum pictures off my old camera.

Happy Unexpected Snow Day Part 2

I really was not expecting the call this morning saying that we didn’t have school. I love the snow day but I know that we have to make it up, probably at the end of the year. That won’t be as much fun. I have actually gotten a lot done today. I wanted to take a little bit of time to post some pictures of the lunar eclipse this week. I braved the cold and spent probably too much time outside taking pictures. If you didn’t get a chance to see it, you missed a great show. A lunar eclipse is when the Earth passes between the moon and the sun. Basically the earth casts a shadow on the moon. Everything started about 7:45 and you could just see a slim shadow starting to creep across the moon. At around 9:45 the shadow completely covered the moon. Now, you could still see the moon but it took on this really cool reddish shade. The pictures here in order and are fairly small. I had a really good camera (Thanks again Brian and Gina) but the moon is a really looooong way away. The pictures are good enough, however, to see the shadow. Enjoy the pictures. If anyone else took any that turned out well, I would love to see them.

Happy unexpected snow day!

What did you do on your snow day? I got to go to school. I was already scheduled to be gone for a technology conference in Lee’s Summit. So when I got the phone call this morning saying that school was cancelled, I was almost ready to leave. There was a debate about if we were going to go or not. We decided to go so I spent the day in Lee’s Summit. I’m actually in a session right now about email and blogging. I presented a session today about how to create a news broadcast program. My session went really well – I really think that a couple of the people in my session might be going back to their schools and start a broadcast program. It kind of stinks that I didn’t get to sleep in today on the snow day (my wife had school in KCK) but I think I have learned a lot today, not only from the sessions that I was in but from the other teachers that went along. I am always amazed at what great ideas a group of teachers in a van (on really bad roads) can come up with.

Eclipse and Pictures

Just a few pictures today of our Exchange City Job Fair. Also, don’t forget that tonight is the total lunar eclipse. The observatory at William Jewell is open but you can see it from your back yard. It will start around 7:45 and be in totatlity (when the earth completely blocks the sun from hitting the moon) around 10:00. If you go out to see it, stay warm!

Hectic Schedule

Today the fifth grade teachers were working on our schedule for the next few weeks and let me tell you, hectic is the word to describe it. With trying to coordinate Exchange City lessons, lessons with Mr. Fisher for Exchange City, interviews with Mr. Williams and Mrs. Cunningham, and the lessons we have to teach, it has been difficult. We think we finally have everything scheduled. Not only do we have to schedule all of that but we have to schedule all of that around Spanish, strings, computer lab, library, and book fair preview, and an early release. We think we finally have a schedule that will work . . until something else comes up.

Today the kids created posters for the different shops at Exchange City and tomorrow they will be traveling around looking at the different posters to see which shops, and specifically which jobs they want at Exchange City. Later this week we will be working on applications and check book writing practice. Mr. Fisher has already begun the process of creating resumes and will soon hit cover letters. Also, all of the kids will be interviewing for their jobs this year. We will talk about interview techniques and appropriate dress. Right now we are scheduled to interview on Tuesday, March 26.

VFW Award

This weekend I was honored to receive an award from the VFW. My mom is a member of the local ladies auxiliary. My grandfather was a WWII veteran who served in Germany as a barber. I was chosen from the Liberty post of the VFW and entered in the district competition which I won. I got to attend the district VFW meeting on Saturday to receive my award. I have to tell you, it is a very powerful thing to be in a room of so many men who helped protect our country. One of the coolest things from the meeting was the pledge of allegiance. That group of people, didn’t just say the pledge, you could tell by the conviction in their voices that they mean every single word of it. Several students were honored for participating in the Voices of Democracy essay contest. This is a contest open to students in 6-12th grades. I highly encourage students to enter this contest when they can. Each of the winners not only received recognition at the district meeting but also a nice certificate or plaque and the top winners even got savings bonds.

The award that I won was for teaching patriotism and citizenship. In my application I talked about writing letters to soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan, bringing flags with me on the microgravity flight, and included pictures from some of the historical places that I have been that I use in the classroom. From what I understand, they said that I was close to making it to the national competition. It was a great honor to get this award from the VFW. I will be proudly displaying my certificate in the classroom starting on Tuesday.

Great Picture

I had to post this picture because I thought it was awesome. This is my little niece, riding her Space Shuttle that we got her for Christmas.

Space Station

I just got in from freezing a little bit but also taking some really cool pictures. The International Space Station docked with the Space Shuttle passed over Liberty tonight. It was unbelievably bright. I will post later how to see it when it comes over. The way that I took these pictures was by shooting an 8 second exposure. The three pictures I have posted here show just the space station (looks like a streak) just coming into view. The second is taken as it passed near the moon (not literally but from where I was looking it was near the moon). The final one, and one of my favorites is of the station and shuttle passing over Manor Hill.

Happy Valentines Day

Today I want to tell you about a lesson that I did in class today. Usually I don’t go into this much detail but I think this is a really cool lesson that is centered on a great (and the research I have done – true) story. A couple of weeks ago I talked to the kids about writing positive comments for each other. We talked about what a really good comment would be. We then used a blog (mainly to save me time) and the kids wrote a comment about each student in room 42. This week I have been compiling those lists. Today in class I read a story (see below) about a teacher, student, and soldier in the Vietnam War. You might want to read the story below now. After reading the story, we read the book The Wall and talked about the monument in Washington DC. After that, we unfolded a miniature scale model (see picture) and found Mark Eklund’s name. I also showed them a tracing of a real name on the wall (by the way, anyone heading to DC anytime soon, I would LOVE a tracing of Mark Eklund’s name). The last part of the lesson was to pass out each kids own list of positive comments. I think they really enjoyed reading these, and I love doing this lesson on Valentines Day. On a side note, I was talking to a former student yesterday who was in my class 8 years ago. She still had the list of positive comments that I had done back then.

Here is the story:
He was in the first third grade class I taught at Saint Mary’s School in Morris, Minn. All 34 of my students were dear to me, but Mark Eklund was one in a million. Very neat in appearance, but had that happy-to-be-alive attitude that made even his occasional mischievousness delightful. Mark talked incessantly. I had to remind him again and again that talking without permission was not acceptable. What impressed me so much, though, was his sincere response every time I had to correct him for misbehaving - “Thank you for correcting me, Sister!” I didn’t know what to make of it at first, but before long I became accustomed to hearing it many times a day. One morning my patience was growing thin when Mark talked once too often, and then I made a novice teacher’s mistake. I looked at Mark and said, If you say one more word, I am going to tape your mouth shut!” It wasn’t ten seconds later when Chuck blurted out, “Mark is talking again.” I hadn’t asked any of the students to help me watch Mark, but since I had stated the punishment in front of the class, I had to act on it. I remember the scene as if it had occurred this morning. I walked to my desk, very deliberately opened my drawer and took out a roll of masking tape. Without saying a word, I proceeded to Mark’s desk, tore off two pieces of tape and made a big X with them over his mouth. I then returned to the front of the room. As I glanced at Mark to see how he was doing, he winked at me. That did it! I started laughing. The class cheered as I walked back to Mark’s desk, removed the tape, and shrugged my shoulders. His first words were, “Thank you for correcting me, Sister.” At the end of the year, I was asked to teach junior-high math. The years flew by, and before I knew it Mark was in my classroom again. He was more handsome than ever and just as polite. Since he had to listen carefully to my instruction in the “new math,” he did not talk as much in ninth grade as he had in third. One Friday, things just didn’t feel right. We had worked hard on a new concept all week, and I sensed that the students were frowning, frustrated with themselves and edgy with one another. I had to stop this crankiness before it got out of hand. So I asked them to list the names of the other students in the room on two sheets of paper, leaving a space between each name. Then I told them to think of the nicest thing they could say about each of their classmates and write it down. It took the remainder of the class period to finish their assignment, and as the students left the room, each one handed me the papers. Charlie smiled. Mark said, “Thank you for teaching me, Sister. Have a good weekend.” That Saturday, I wrote down the name of each student on a separate sheet of paper, and I listed what everyone else had said about that individual. On Monday I gave each student his or her list Before long, entire class was smiling. Really?” I heard whispered. “I never knew that meant anything to anyone!” I didn’t know others liked me so much.” No one ever mentioned those papers in class again. I never knew if they discussed them after class or with their parents, but it didn’t matter. The exercise had accomplished its purpose. The students were happy with themselves and one another again. That group of students moved on. Several years later, after I returned from vacation, my parents met me at the airport. As we were driving home, Mother asked me the usual questions about the trip, the weather, my experiences in general. There was a lull in the conversation. Mother gave Dad a sideways glance and simply says, “Dad?” My father cleared his throat as he usually did before something important. “The Eklunds called last night,” he began “Really?” I said. “I haven’t heard from them in years. I wonder how Mark is.” Dad responded quietly. “Mark was killed in Vietnam,” he said. “The funeral is tomorrow, and his parents would like it if you could attend.” To this day I can still point to the exact spot on I-494 where Dad told me about Mark. I had never seen a serviceman in a military coffin before. Mark looked so handsome, so mature. All I could think at that moment was, “Mark, I would give all the masking tape in the world if only you would talk to me.” The church was packed with Mark’s friends Chuck’s sister sang “The Battle Hymn of the Republic.” Why did it have to rain on the day of the funeral? It was difficult enough at the graveside. The pastor said the usual prayers, and the bugler played taps. One by one those who loved Mark took a last walk by the coffin and sprinkled it with holy water. I was the last one to bless the coffin. As I stood there, one of the soldiers who acted as pallbearer came up to me. Were you Mark’s math teacher?” he asked. I nodded as I continued to stare at the coffin. “Mark talked about you a lot,” he said. After the funeral, most of Mark’s former classmates headed to Chuck’s farmhouse for lunch. Mark’s mother and father were there, obviously waiting for me. “We want to show you something, his father said, taking a wallet out of his pocket. “They found this on Mark when he was killed. We thought you might recognize it.” Opening the billfold, he carefully removed two worn pieces of notebook paper that had obviously been taped, folded and refolded many times. I knew without looking that the papers were the ones on which I had listed all the good things each of Mark’s classmates had said about him. “Thank you so much for doing that,” Mark’s mother said. “As you can see, Mark treasured it.” Mark’s classmates started to gather around us. Charlie smiled rather sheepishly and said, “I still have my list. I keep it in the top drawer of my desk at home.” Chuck’s wife said, “Chuck asked me to put his in our wedding album.””I have mine too,” Marilyn said. “It’s in my diary.” Then Vicki, another classmate, reached into her pocketbook, took out her wallet and showed her worn and frazzled list to the group. I carry this with me at all times,” Vicki said without batting an eyelash. “I think we all saved our lists.” That’s when I finally sat down and cried. I cried for Mark and for all his friends who would never see him again. The density of people in society is so thick that we forget that life will end one day. And we don’t know when that one day will be. So please, tell the people you love and care for, that they are special and important. Tell them, before it is too late.