Ms. Phillips

I moved back to Johnson City, TN with my fiance after living in Atlanta for two years. I took an interim position that ended up lasting the entire year. I taught students who were deaf and hard of hearing and worked in an 8th grade resource classroom. It was my first year working with middle school aged students & I LOVED it. I also had a preschooler and several students in high school that I would consult for. It was a really interesting year. I went to 5 different schools a week! For my multi-age students who were D/HH, I worked with them on self advocacy and lots of reading and language skills. I relied on daily reading practices, skill based task cards, IXL, vocabulary building and sight word cards. I also had the opportunity to introduce ASL to a couple of students which I really enjoyed😁 For my 8th graders, we used a program called SPIRE. SPIRE is an intensive reading intervention for struggling readers. I would use parts of the program, but I would also include other el...

  "Get your CRAY on" Sad I missed wearing this one this year because of school closures, but here it was at the end of the 2018-2019 school year!

During the 2018-2029 school, year I was a co-teacher in a 5th grade ELA class. There were actually 3 teachers in the room (Ex. Ed, Gen. Ed., and ESOL.) We used the one teach one assist model and station teaching. The general education teacher would lead the activities and introduce the content. Then, we would pull into small groups, and this is where I supported with student work for ex. ed students and other struggling learners. Additionally, I kept up with student data/progress for my exceptional education students. We had reading and skill groups that allowed for instruction on students independent levels. We began each class with 15 minutes of mentor sentence. This was to practice grammar skills. Next, we would move into 45 mins of reading. About 20 minutes would go to teaching the skill; this is a little bit longer on Mondays. Then, the rest of the time would go to the students practicing the skill with their tables or independently.  After reading, we would move to w...

Connect four and flashcards Materials: Flash cards & connect four game Directions: Students will take turns drawing a flashcard from the pile, if the student answers the question correctly they get to add a checker into the connect four game, if the student answers the question wrong then they lose that turn. Whoever gets connect four wins! Students who are on different ability levels can use different flash cards (mult., division, add., sub.), but can play with whoever! Multiplication or adding board game Materials: Giant playing cards, large foam dice, counters Directions: Set up playing cards in a spiral (mocking a board game), then have students choose a counter. Students will roll a dice and multiply (or add) the number on the card by whatever number is on the dice. If students answer correctly then they can stay on that card. First one to the end wins! Math Ball Materials: Beach ball, sharpie Set up/ Directions: Write math facts on the ball; I did this ...

 The last day of school was a blast. 5th grade had their bridging ceremony and kindergarten wore pajamas and were encouraged to read all day! Trailer 5 is packed up and ready for summer! I'm looking forward to a long break away from school and spending some time with my friends and family.

On May 3rd, Henderson Mill Elementary School hosted a career day for their students. I traveled with my co-taught kindergarten class to learn about different careers. We met a DJ, Georgia State Police, SWAT, police officers with K9s, a truck driver, and some scientists! Thank you to all the volunteers who came out to inspire our students 😀 To the left: Ms. Frazier's class stop for a photo with two scientists for the CDC! To the right: Two students see what it is like in the hub of a truck! There were bunk beds in the back.  To the left: Students dress up as a dentist & a doctor. To the right: A student is dressed up as a construction worker!

After five months of co-teaching this is still a difficult question to answer. My schedule change has allowed me to experience co-teaching with 5 different teachers. Co-teaching has the end goal of meeting the needs of students who learn differently. One partnership I experienced was in a reading class. Students are required to interact with their text for 20-30 minutes and meet with the general education teacher every reading class. It was challenging to decide what students were going where and when! I questioned why there was even a need for a co-teacher with that model of reading instruction. An example of how this worked with a co-teacher was, one teacher pulling a small group and the other teacher assisting students with seat work (interacting with text).  I would ask students to read aloud to me to ensure that they were comprehending and decoding correctly (not just sitting there flipping pages too). Another example of co-teaching is each teacher taking a small group and t...