Week One = Done!

  Ohmyword.

 

You guys, I'm about 1,000% positive I have never been this exhausted in my whole life. They say that there's no tired like "first week of school as a teacher" tired. And, I don't know who they are but they are not kidding. I know that! Take a quick peek at what accidentally fell into my buggy at the Dollar General this afternoon...

 

Whoopsies!

 

So, all in all, I'd say it was a good week. If I had to label my class this year in one word, it would be...

 

colorful.

 

They are colorful. They are delightful and adorable and happy and smiley and energetic and eager and they have personalities that are thisssssssssssss big! We had some excellent moments this week where I thought they were the best class I've ever seen. And, well, in the interest of full disclosure, we had some other moments, too. You know, those moments where you just grit your teeth and think happy thoughts and try to ignore the desire to run from the room screaming. Just me? Ha.

 

But, really. They're dolls and I think I'll keep them.

 

We've done a LOT this week.

So, here's a list of things we've been working on...

 

1. Shout Outs

 

 

This year, I wanted to give my kiddos a chance to write down their Shout Outs. We just said them at Morning Meeting last year and while that worked okay, sometimes we had a tooooon and sometimes we had none and it was all very random. So, I got this cute little mailbox at JoAnn's and placed some index cards where the kids can get to them and have been encouraging them to encourage their friends. This has caught on like wildfire, ya'll! I'm sure it will taper off, but right now they're doing about 6 or 7 a day! And, I read every one of them out loud every afternoon because I love to see them complimenting each other. It warms my teacher heart, for reals.

 

Not like Zone 2, y'all. Zone 0. That's really quiet.

 

2. Writer's Workshop

 

I think I've mentioned this before, but one of my favorite things to teach is Writing. I used to HATE it because I just didn't even know where to start. But, I think my first grade days have really come in handy because, in a lot of ways, third graders are still working on many of the same things. And, I know how to break it down for them because I HAD to in first grade. Does that makes sense?

 

So, all that to say, I need to make a confession.

 

This year, we just jumped right in. We had those kids writing complete paragraphs with topic sentences and all that jazz the first day of school and guess what? I can't do it. I can't just jump right in. I can't have them writing incorrectly all year with no punctuation and incomplete sentences and all that jazz.

 

I just can't.

 

I'm going to start with basics. I always do and I don't care what the pacing guide says. I know what my kids need.

 

Once I changed up the plan a little, the kids have LOVED writing! We started with Quick Writes. We do this every year and it just helps them to build stamina with writing. We teach them to brainstorm a topic (using a thinking map, woot woot!) and then to choose one of those topics and write about it. I model it for them each day and then give them the opportunity to practice. We all sit together on the carpet during this time and I play music from our Writing Playlist (Jack Johnson, Norah Jones, music like that). It's just delightful, y'all.

It blew their minds to make heart-shaped brainstorming maps!

Today we brainstormed places they've been and places they want to go.

After they brainstorm, they circle one of their ideas and then they just write about it. I don't check it or make them correct it. It's just all about developing stamina and a joy of writing. After a week of this, then I start doing mini-lessons and encouraging them to incorporate our new skills into their writing.

 

I realize that the writing above contains literally no periods. Believe me, we'll work on it. Right now, I'm just pleased as punch that they're learning how to keep writing and not give up.

 

I have to say, they've written a ton! We've only done this two days, so hopefully taking the time up front to get them excited about writing and teaching the basics will pay off. And, the plan is to use flow maps (another thinking map!) to write well-developed paragraphs.

 

3. Problem Solving

 

Today, after our first math test (which they ROCKED! HALLELUJAH.) I showed my kids the strategy we're going to use this year to solve word problems. Ive seen variations of this all over Pinterest, so I take no credit. I think the idea came from panickedteacher.com. I just wanted a step-by-step process for them to follow so they know exactly what to do.

The things I liked most about this strategy were that they have to name the operation they used to solve and that they have to use the inverse operation to check. And, ya'll, I had no intention to talk about any inverse operations except for addition. But, my kiddos started naming them all and I decided to take advantage of it! Ha. So, I made a little mini-anchor chart to hang up that they can use to remind themselves what operation they need to use to check their answers.

 

(Also, the blank white sheets are for us to list key words for each operation.)

I gave the kids a copy of this to fill out while I made oour big one and I wanted them to have a copy to keep in their Math Notebooks to refer to.

 

Fingers crossed this will help my kids become expert problem solvers!

 

4. Reader's Toolbox

 

Have you ever had a brilliant idea that you're totally convinced will save the world and then you realize that someone thought of it long ago? Well, that's the case here. Ha. My friend Claire and I were talking on the way home from PD one day this summer about comprehension. She made the comment that the skills they learn are tools to help them read and we should just call them that. We both kind of looked at each other and started talking at the same time. "Oh my gosh, let's make a toolbox! And then we can give each skill a tool and then the kids can put them in the notebooks and use them!" We were pretty darn proud of ourselves, I have to say.

 

Then, we searched it on Pinterest and realized that, um, we're dorks. Ha. There are many, many, many variations of this all over blog-land. But, we still just kind of made our own variation and I'm loving it so far!

So, in their toolboxes, they have an envelope glued to the front. This is where they put the cut-outs (tools).

 

Then, for each skill, we have a page with a picture of the tool, a place where they write what it means and why good reader's do this skill and then a list of sentence starters. Then, throughout the week, we encouraged them to write about their visualizing using the starters.

I'm making a big anchor chart that I can add each skill/tool to. Then, when we have them all, I'll add this chart over at our Guided Reading area for us to refer to.

 

I'll be sure to share some more of this once we do a little more. A special shout out to Claire for making all this cute stuff, though! She's a computer whiz and whips this stuff up in no time! Thanks, Claire Bear :)

 

5. Filling Up the Classroom

 

The classroom is junking up right nicely :) Bulletin boards are a lot more fun when there's actually stuff on them. Here's what has changed around the room already...

Building stamina for daily five...

Love this newe space where I can hang their cute, cute work...

If one more kid asked me for water this week, I maybe would have cried. So, we had to use our Morning Meeting yesterday to make a list of times when water is allowed and when it's not. Hint: mostly it's not allowed ever...

Adding some names to our Super Improvers poster already...

We started our Exit Tickets, too...

 

6. Don't Judge...

 

If there's one thing that I just LOATHE as a teacher, it's tissues to clean dry-erase marker boards. Mostly, because I'm an OCD neat-freak and I hate having nasty, black tissues that break apart and leave trails all around my classroom. So, every year, I go to Dollar General and buy sponges for the kids to use to erase their marker boards.

 

Well, I went today and I couldn't find them. And, I reallyreallyreally didn't want to go anywhere else.

 

So, I bought shower gel sponges. Yes, yes I did.

 

They were 5 for a dollar and you can't beat that! They're colorful and smallish and they even have a string! Ha! I couldn't stop laughing. So random, but I don't see any reason why they shouldn't work. I'll keep you posted.

 

7. Ryan Grace

 

And, this has nothing to do with school, but look at my little niece, ya'll.

She's four months old today and I love her to pieces, for real.

 

 

I could eat her alive.

 

So, that's my week. I am now going to lay in my bed, eat some candy and mindlessly surf the internet until I fall asleep. And, in case you're wondering, I couldn't be happier about it.

 

Thanks for reading!

 

 

 

 

The First Few Days

Ok, soooo...

I have a question. 

Do I teach in the only district in America that has already started school? It kind of feels like it, based on Instagram and blogs. And, really, I'm kind of jealous! 

Because, we're three days in already. And, so far so good! Still loving my kiddos. We actually switched for Reading today and those kids are super sweet, too! So, overall, I'm pretty happy with the start to the year.

I wanted to share a couple of things we've done over the last few days. Before I do, I need to tell you that I have a great little student teacher who started the year with me. And, since she isn't really teaching right now, she's been a HUGE help! I've been able to do a lot more this year because I have an extra set of hands in the classroom every day!

This year, we had some PD on Thinking Maps. Now, I've been through this PD before and these awesome maps are nothing new. In fact, if you look over on the side of my blog, you'll see all the first grade posts that I wrote two years ago that incorporate Thinking Maps. But, it's just one of those things that I just kinda dropped. And I honestly don't know why!!!

My school and my team have made a huge effort to start using these maps every single day. I truly think these maps are more effective than worksheets when used correctly. So, if you're not a fan, you probably aren't going to enjoy my blog very much this school year. 

We decided to start with the simplest one: a brainstorming map. Aka, a circle map. (We don't call it that because we want the kids to know when to use each one. Circle map doesn't mean anything to them, but brainstorming does.) 

So, we started the first day with these:

The middles say A Good Teacher and A Good Student. So, during morning meeting, we've brainstormed things that make a teacher good and make a student good. The kids have come up with some great ideas! 

On Friday, I modeled how to make a brainstorm map about myself. Then, I let the kids make one of themselves with construction paper. 

The cool thing about Thinking Maps is they are great for writing! Today, I had the kids write sentences about themselves using their maps on index cards. We're going to spend the rest of the week turning those simple sentences into a well-developed paragraph about themselves.

We also made My Important Numbers brainstorm maps in Math. These include all the numbers that mean something to my kids. I felt like this was a good activity to do the first day of math because it created some great discussion about why math is important and ways we use math in our real lives. 

I also started a Thinking Map bulletin board. The plan is for the kids to eventually be in charge of making their own maps and deciding which ones they need to make. So, hopefully, this board will help with that once we've practiced all the maps together.

In Reading today, we did two other things. First, we worked on building our stamina for Read to Self. (I know this is not a popular opinion, but I'm not really the world's biggest fan of Daily 5. But, the one aspect I LOVE is Read to Self. I don't always follow exactly what the book says, but I've just kind of rearranged it so that it works for me.) We made this anchor chart to help the kids understand what I expect while they're reading independently. 

Once we got started, they did soooo good! One little boy got a little off-task and quit reading, so we stopped. But, overall, they did great! 

We're charting their stamina on the anchor chart below. The goal is 25 minutes. Fingers crossed we'll get there sooner rather than later :) 

The last thing I want to share is just a quick, fun activity. But, I think it was a good way to start Reading class because it gave my kids a chance to reflect and understand why we're doing what we're doing at school. (I saw the original idea on Pinterest and just changed it a little to make it work for my kids.) 

I gave my kids three index cards. On each card, we started one of the following sentence frames: 

-I'm the kind of reader who...

-I want to be the kind of reader who...

-To be a good reader, I need to...

Then, when they finished all three, I gave them a card to draw a picture of themself and to write their name on. Then, I had my student teacher staple them onto a strip of ribbon and hang them on our bulletin board in the hall. 

Here are some close-ups...

I feel like this was great to do today because it really helped me see my kiddos' ability levels. Also, it's something cute in the hallway for Open House Thursday night. So, win/win, friend.

We've got some other good activities planned for this week, so I'll do my best to get pictures and do a blog post this weekend. 

Ok, I'm off to watch the Real Housewives! Have a great week!!

Good to Great

Guys.

I. Am. Pumped. Up!

We have a new principal this year. And, he's adopted the motto "Good to Great!" Because, overall, our school is good. We have teachers who work hard and a warm environment and our test scores are pretty average for the demographic of children we serve. 

But, honestly, good's not good enough. 

I think I'm a "good" teacher. I think my co-workers respect me and I think the kids do, too. I think I have good ideas and my test scores are just fine. But, guess what? Good isn't good enough! 

I want to be GREAT! I want it more that anything. I want to be the kind of teacher who changes lives. I want to be the kind of teacher who every single parent wants their child to have. I want to be the kind of teacher who doesn't make excuses and inspires every single child in their class to succeed. 

So, I've been walking around for days repeating "Good to Great" in my mind. And, when you add in all the awesome PD we've had over the last week, I'm so pumped up!

We had our first day of school today and I can say with 100% honesty that this is the first time in 8 years that I wasn't a bit nervous! I was so dang excited to meet those kids and get them in my classroom! And, they are stinkin' adorable, y'all! So seriously cute. They were just all so happy to be there, which is awesome. 

I wrote a blog post the other day about setting the tone the first day and I'm happy to report that today was a night/day difference between my first day last year. (And, I can pretty confidently say that my attitude was the key factor here.) Was the day perfect? Of course not. But, I just have a different mindset. I know some of them are low and some of them have behavioral issues, but you know what? Who cares!! I am NOT going to complain about my kids this year. (Even on my blog.) 

I do NOT want to be one of those teachers again. I want to be GREAT. 

So, what did we do today?

Well, we started with Morning Meeting. The kids threw a little stuffed animal to each other and introduced themselves when it was their time to catch it. They thought it was super duper fun! Then, I showed them a PowerPoint all about me. (I will say that those kiddos LOVED seeing pictures of my family and things I enjoy. And, they could NOT stop telling me all about themselves! Ha! Which is actually perfect because they're going to make circle maps about themselves on Friday.)

Then, we had to take pictures for their student ID's and we went straight to brunch after that. (Also, we had a pretty lengthy discussion about what brunch means...) After brunch, I read them my very favorite first day of school book: First Day Jitters.

I read this every year and usually, when I get to the surprise ending, the kids are like "whaaa???" But, today, they just all burst out laughing. They thought it was so funny! And, during the whole book, we talked. I asked them questions and they discussed with their shoulder partners and they even were citing evidence in the text! On their own! Oh, Common Core, how I love you. (Never thought I'd type those words!) 

The only procedures we practiced today were walking in the hallway and using our class anchor songs for transitions. I decided to use "You've Got a Friend in Me"  by Randy Newman (from Toy Story) as our Morning Meeting/class song and I'm using "It's Your Life"  by Francesca Battistelli as their afternoon pack up song. I will also use "Send Me On My Way" by Rusted Root (from Ice Age and Matilda) as our clean up song. This is, hands down, my favorite management trick. There is nothing better than kids who do what they're supposed to do without you saying a word!!! Plus, I just think it's so adorable when they all sing along ;)

We did one other quick activity today. I heard a quote this week that stuck with me. "We can do hard things!" So, we talked for a few minutes about what that means. I told them that third grade was going to be hard at times, but they can do it. They will do it. Then I gave them all an index card and had them write CAN on it. They got to decorate it however they wanted, too. It was a perfect first day activitity because it was quick and simple! 

I added the quote to the top of one of my boards and then stapled all their CAN cards around it. It adds some color to the wall and it'll be a great reference for kiddos who are feeling frustrated or overwhelmed. You better believe I'll remind them to look up there. Last year, I started having my kids write CAN at the top of every single test they took. And, y'all, it helped. They would sit there and give themselves a pep talk! Some of them even started writing "You can do it!" Or "I can make an A!" Warms my teacher heart, for real. So, that will definitely be something we do this year, too. I don't want kids who do good, I want kids that are motivated and do GREAT things. 

After we made our cards, it was time for dismissal. A quick, fun day. I don't want to brag or anything, but one little boy did tell me that I was the greatest teacher ever in the world ;) I wonder if he'll still have that opinion after he spends more than three hours with me, ha! But, I did tell my kids that I was the luckiest third grade teacher because I got them in my class and I truly, truly believe that. 

So, I guess I just want any teacher out there who may be reading this and may be about to start school soon to know that "Good to Great" has really motivated me this year! If you feel tired or overwhelmed (and it's easy to do because we all know the beginning of the year brings a lot of stress), just start saying this in your head. Especially during times when you're frustrated or stressed or want to take the easy way out of a situation. It really, really helps. 

For me, that's one day down and many more to go. 

I can't wait. 

(And I give you my absolute promise that there will be no more sappy blog posts from me on this blog for a long time!)

Classroom Tour 2014-2015

 

Hey, y'all.

 

Today we had yet another exciting day of teacher inservice. Tomorrow is our last day and we have kiddos in the room on Wednesday! I spent a good amount of time in my classroom this afternoon and tonight. And, well, I *think* it's done.

 

I say think because you never know when inspiration will strike. But, it's as done as it's going to be before Wednesday, that's for sure! I wanted to get it done today so that tomorrow afternoon I can do some plans and make some phone calls to my kids. And, I wanted to post the pics tonight because tomorrow night, I will be doing my best to block school out completely so I don't die of nerves. Even after 8 years, I still get sooo nervous!

 

I thought about not posting pictures because, honestly, not much has changed. But, I'm going to because I like going back to look at past posts and I know one day I'll want to remember what my classroom looked like.

 

So, here it is.

This is my objective board and carpet area. I used to have the calendar on that bulletin board, but I decided this year that I'd rather have the space. Oh, and the school took my computers away and replaced them with laptops. So, after much hemming and hawing, I decided to keep them in that red basket. We'll see for how long ;)

 

This is my classroom library and Reading bulletin board. My books are labeled by AR level.

This area is actually new. I used to have a Word Wall here, but decided to just use my academic one this year. So, I exposed the chalkboard (which, I kinda love!) and added some ribbon and clips to hang student work on. Also, instead of getting rid of the computer table, I made it a Writing Center! I've always wanted one and I couldn't be happier!

This is my desk and Writing bulletin board. I added those stars to my lanterns above. They cost $1.00 at JoAnn's so I couldn't turn them down!

I try to color code my teams. So, they have a colored ribbon in their totes, colored chair pouches and a pouf. This is obviously the blue team!

The front of the room.

This is my small group area. I've tried to cover a lot of the shelves because I think the fabric is more calming than clutter. Also, I had my mom make me some pillows to put in the windowsills. This is actually the kids' favorite place to read and work!

Try to ignore the air conditioner. It has been leaking and they came in today to "fix" it and are coming back tomorrow. Fingers crossed on that one. But, this is my academic Word Wall. I use paper clips to attach words I want my kids to remember. Also, the table is where the turn in their work. I added the "Be A Leader!" poster this year for two reasons: that is our class motto and they took a TV off this wall and left GIANT holes in it's place! Two birds, one stone :)

I have this bulletin board and then another one just like it on the other side of the air conditioner. I didnt take a picture because, again, the air conditioner was laid out on the floor in a million pieces. Ha! I use this bulletin board for students work and anchor charts and I use the other one for Guided Reading stuff.

Small group area again.

These are their book boxes. They keep library books and center materials in here.

The back counter area with our "Ten Essentials" ready to go! I pretty much worship Ron Clark. So, these are biggies for me.

This year, I tried to put out a bunch more of my math manipulatives so they're more accessible to the kids. Most of them landed here.

I have a little craft for us to work on Friday that will go on that blue area above the chalkboard. It will, hopefully, make this wall look more finished.

This is the only view of my room that I just hate. It looks so junky! But, I think it's just because of all the books and I don't know what to do about it. But, I hate junky classrooms so it does bother me, I'm not gonna' lie.

 

 

 

So, that's my classroom!

 

If you have any questions, please leave me a comment and I'll do my best to answer!

 

 Thanks for stopping by!