A whole new world (and school year)

I finally moved and settled down in the suburbs of Illinois (Anyone from the Naperville, Warrenville, Wheaton area?).  I just wanted to say that moving can be exhausting!!  However, I am excited to start fresh in my life in a new city, meet up with old and new friends in Chicago, and finding a new teaching career here.  I do admit it is frustrating that the state of Illinois doesn't recognize my 4th/5th grade endorsement.  I've always wondered why only 47 states do and Illinois unfortunately had to be the remaining 3 that didn't.

Since the new school year has just began, I wish I was able to talk about the first days of school...and then I realized I've never really experienced "my first day of school" as an educator!  As a sub, I really don't get my feet wet in the classrooms until a few days or weeks later.  Now I'm trying to substitute in the Illinois school districts as I'm looking for a full-time job.

So, this post is for all the people who are still looking for teaching jobs (like me), newly graduated students, and substitutes!  If you are like me and are registered as a substitute in multiple school districts, it may become a little hectic of making sure you are getting paid for every job.

Quick Sub Tip: If you're a sub and want to try and work everyday, I found the best way to get jobs was to apply for multiple school districts. You are on more phone call lists and websites to look for jobs because there are a lot of substitutes out there! In school districts in Columbus, Ohio, we had over 23,000 substitute teachers!  On the days, I didn't have a sub job scheduled, I was fighting against so many people.

Here is a freebie I created and used for the past school year when I received sub jobs.  It's easy to fill out and I like to add the teacher's name under the "Grade" column especially if I am in the school's building a lot.  I always keep my district's pay dates sheet in my sub binder as a reference so I can quickly look for the next pay date and jot it down on my sub compensation sheet.  Then once I have received the money from the respecting school district, I simply put a checkmark on the last column "Received".  If you have any questions about my substitute teaching compensation sheet, let me know! I hope this is helpful for all of the substitute teachers out there and keep you more organized on your sub jobs and planning.

Currently April and a Job Hunt Tip

I'm linking up with Farley's Currently April party!  Here's mine!

Anyone addicted to the new ABC TV show, Once Upon A Time?  It's so good! You need to check it out if you like all of those princes and princesses and fairy tales.

I've been struggling with my free time on my laptop between blog stalking and trying to complete my TESOL online course.  I just started this month and it's a lot of reading!!!  Many of my teacher friends, school staff, and other substitutes have told me that adding a TESOL certificate to my resume will boost my chances to finding a full-time teaching position next year.  I am hoping and praying that's the case, since it is a decent amount of money and time I am spending.

Do you or do you know any teachers that also have a TESOL certificate on top of their teaching certificate?  I would love to hear some input about this.  Since job hunting season is about to come up, I wonder how people are preparing themselves (definitely people like me who are already a year out of college).  It's scary to not know what will happen this year will a lot of school budget cuts going on nationwide.

Anyways, here's my Job Hunt tip that I learned from last summer: If you are like me and are willing to move anywhere for a teaching job, you must stay organized!  The teaching applications will add up and the emails will become confusing (or at least for me it did).  I use Microsoft Excel to organize all of my teaching applications.  This is what mine looked like last year:

The main sections I use are:

• Location/School District
• Contact (I put the name provided on here (phone # and email). If there is no name, then I put the website link so I can look up the principal or HR contact. I also put the grade I applied for to reference.)
• Date Updated
• Date Submitted
• Need to Submit!
• Documents submitted

I organize my list by state.  So I with my home state and group all of the schools/districts within that state under it.

Then I color coordinate my list.  This will be helpful when you list becomes really long.

• Blue = didn't get the job
• Red = need to complete application, send cover letter/resume, contact school/principal/HR (basically anything you need to finish!)
• Green = have an interview.  Then I wait for results.  I change this to blue if I get the rejection call/email/letter.

Did you have a system of organizing your teaching applications?  This was the best way my friends and I came up with.

Don't forget to link up with Farley!

First Skype Interview

I wasn't sure if I was going to add more of my personal life into my blog, but I thought it was important for me to include my journey of finding a teaching job in here!  I know there are a lot of people in the same boat as me.

As a recent graduate (I can't believe it will almost be a year!), I didn't realized how difficult it would be to find a full-time teaching job!!  The past summer/fall was a little discouraging but I am enjoying my time subbing and working as an after-school program assistant.  A perk is getting to meet new and wonderful teachers every week!  Honestly, I learned so much about myself, beliefs and values as a person, teacher, and Christian, in the last couple months than my whole college years!

Just a little over an hour ago, I just had my first Skype interview with a Principal from an American School in Taiwan!!  This is the last and final round before they decide on who they are going to hire for the new year.  If you didn't know, January and February are the time of the year where schools overseas hire teachers.  I've been praying and hoping this may be the path for me to start my teaching profession.  It was interesting to do the interview over Skype because you could see the other person but also yourself.  I kept checking every once awhile to see if my hair was ok or if I was looking funny while the interviewer was talking.  It was a weird and exciting experience, and I would totally do this again!  I am happy to report that I believe the interview was wonderful and it went extremely well (insert super smiley face)!

I am hoping for good news in the next few weeks!! If not, I'm glad I had the opportunity to practice and increase my interviewing skills (The market out there is tough!).  In addition, I've been fortunate to meet incredible people in the teaching world who have given me a lot of great tips as a new, inspiring teacher!!

ON A SIDE NOTE:
Today, during my after-school program, I taught 5 Korean students the meaning and reason why they didn't have school.  These 5 students just came from Korea in January, so they have no background of the U.S. history.  It was great to teach them about our important historical leaders.  I thought it was funny how the students were so intrigued on how each president died.  They wanted to know details, like if he was murdered or died of illness.  They even wanted to know which body part where a president got shot.  Little children are so funny sometimes!

I used Leslie's cute President's Day booklet from First Grade Fanatics.  It is a great little booklet that talks about multiple presidents.  She has a lot of cute ideas! Definitely check her blog out if you haven't already!

I'm off to finish watching my episode of The Bachelor on DVR and catching up on blogs I haven't visited in awhile!

BINGO Card Freebie

UPDATE:
One of my New Year's resolutions is to try and blog more! BUT I'm totally not doing a good job on this!! Hopefully this habit will change.  In the past couple days, I've been tagged (3 times) and received an award!  I adore how teachers are spreading the love and support through these awards! So I promise write a post about those tomorrow (crosses fingers).  ALSO, if you didn't noticed, I revamped my blog layout into this cutesy pink, green, and black color template.  In addition, I finally made a button! I found my awesome template from Dani's blog called Blog Designs. Definitely check her stuff out!


Who doesn't love playing BINGO?  I remember during my student teaching my first graders LOVED it when we could play BINGO during word work time.  I would give them the blank sheet and they would fill out the sheet with words from the word wall.  Today, I let my students from the after-school program I work at play.  The majority of them (75%) are from Korea.  Even though, they speak English well, many of them are behind on their reading comprehension and fluency.  They loved playing BINGO because of the simple rules.  I wish I took pictures because they are so adorable.

Get the freebie HERE!!

I have also used the blank BINGO cards for math facts.  Let the students fill out the sheet with the math fact answers numbers.  You can be more specific like, write down the multiplication math facts of 5 (so they will write 5, 10, 15, 20, etc. all over the BINGO card).  You can let them do any numbers from the 100s chart for addition or subtraction).  Once you call out a number for example 10, the students must write in a math fact of 10 (for example: 5+5, 5x2, 8+2, etc.).  I hope this make sense!! If you have any questions, let me know!!

Here's a picture of what I was trying to explain! Hope it makes somewhat sense. LOL

I haven't used BINGO yet while I subbed but this is another great resource to add into your sub folder/binder, just in case you need something extra to do!
What ideas do you guys have on using the game BINGO in the classroom?

Super Student Tickets

As a sub I love using this classroom management strategy and the kids always try to be on their best behavior to earn their tickets!  I got this idea last spring during my student teaching.  The substitute teacher that subbed for my host teacher always did this.  This is an easy classroom management strategy for guest teachers!

Materials:

Print Super Student tickets on construction paper

Small basket/box/bucket

Optional- stickers, pencils, small rewards, etc.

During morning meeting/calendar/morning work, let the students know that through out the day you will be passing out super student tickets when you see students modeling good behavior, following directions, etc.  Remind them to write their names fold the ticket and put it in the basket.

Tell them you will be pulling 5 names out of the basket at the end of the day and they will receive a prize.  

**Check to see if the teacher has a prize box or what other types of reward system she uses.**  Some reward systems I've seen are good student stickers, fake money, and bucket fillers.  If the teacher doesn't have any, it is always good to bring your own like stickers and pencils as a back up plan.  Let them know the more tickets they get, the more likely they will receive a prize at the end of the day.