Survived Week 1

When I came home Friday afternoon, I was so exhausted from the week that I fought to take a nap.  It was such a busy week, so much got planned and accomplished.  I got to know my new students pretty well.  I now know which ones will be helpful and which ones will be a challenge.  If I were to compare my crew from last year and this year, and I'd have to say there is a similar dynamic going on.

In spite of that, we've accomplished quite a lot.  We've already started talking about our state, locating key places and also talking about the role of the 3 branches of our government.  They've started a research project on our state, such as what our state flag, motto, bird, tree, flower, and so on are.  This Thursday we'll be doing Mystery Skype.  We have our first "meeting" with a 2nd grade class two states away, then we'll be doing the same with others who are waiting for things to be arranged.  I just wanted to have 1 under our belt to get an idea what to expect from this point on.

This afternoon I'll be bring to class our new "pets", if you will.  I know not everyone will feel this way, but my students are excited about getting Madagascar Hissing Cockroaches,  and I am too.  My colleagues are slightly grossed out, and I know some of the parents feel that way as well.  I know that we have to make sure they don't get out, and I have prepared all of the precautions, I think......

Phew!

It was the first day of school for my district today.  Being in a new building with different procedures that my last school, let's just say that I learned a lot today.

When the bell rings at 7:55 in the morning, my kiddos came in to class from the cafeteria where they all wait and some eat breakfast when they arrive, to drop off their book bags.  Not realizing what was going on, I had them all have a seat and began talking with them.  After about 5 minutes I happened to look out the window and saw that the rest of the school was at recess.  My poor kiddos!  I felt so bad, but like I told them, I won't make that mistake again.

One can't say that I over plan, especially today.  Although I was where I wanted to be for math, and the reading portion of the day, what I planned for science and social studies took less time than I expected, and covered the material for the next two days!  Oh well, that works well because we've got lots to do!

One more thing I learned today, is that the shoes I've been practically living in all summer are much more comfortable than the fancy shoes I chose to wear today.  So glad I brought my comfortable pair just in case, because I needed them.

All in all, it was a great first day.  I think we're going to have a great year together!

Ready or not....

Well, I'm as ready as I'll ever be.  Perhaps.  We had our 2 days of workshops yesterday and today, and tomorrow is our first day with our students.  I mentioned in an earlier post how I received several responses from parents and students on my letters that I sent them.  I also got to meet two of them today.  I feel better about tomorrow.  Although I just taught 3rd graders this past year, for some reason I was imagining my 4th graders as larger students.  I'm not sure why....

On Sunday night I definitely didn't feel ready mentally for school.  The idea seemed surreal.  Yesterday, before our district workshop in another building, I went to my classroom to drop off some items.  When I left, I felt more motivated and energized for school to start.  This morning, after a couple of meetings, I was able to work in my room.  I got pretty much everything I can imagine prepared.   Now I'm sitting on my couch waiting for laundry, patiently waiting for a decent time to get to bed, and I feel that I'm ready.

However, as ready as I feel right now, I certainly was dealing with the nerves this morning and afternoon.  Yeah, let's just say that I'm really looking forward to Thursday, because the first day of school jitters will be over.

Count Down Begins!

This is my last Friday before school begins, and I haven't been to my classroom all week!  Whohoo!  I'm actually impressed with myself, because I'm usually there at least once a week, so not having been there since last Friday is really good for me.  So, I wonder what's waiting for me there...

Our first workshop day is Monday, but it's district-wide, so I won't be spending any time in my building until Tuesday.  So, my plan is to head over there early Monday morning before I need to be at the district wide workshop and just make sure everything is all set.  I have a couple of things to drop off and I probably have some parent or student letters waiting for me.

A couple of weeks ago, I sent out an introductory letter to my parents and a separate one for my students.  I asked parents to tell me about their child.  It gives them a chance to brag.  In all the years I've been doing this at the start of the year, I only had 1 parent who 'warned' me about how annoying, talkative, and inattentive her child was.  As sad as I felt reading it, I strongly believe it was the best thing, because it gave me an idea of what this little gal went home to, so I was able to give her the positive attention she deserved at school.

As much as I enjoy sending and receiving these letters, I usually only receive a fraction of what I sent out.  For example, this year, I sent out 12 letters and have only heard from 4 families (which includes parent and child).  Like I said, I might still have some waiting for me at school, and last year I received one more on the first day of school.  Oh well, some is better than none.

As of last Friday all of my bulletin boards were finished and my areas were set up.

This is one of my bulletin boards behind where I'm going to have our small groups.  I have a small table with some station work (math & language arts), and the expectations on anchor charts.  My classroom will be loosely based on CAFE, using some of the concepts, but I found a structure that I found worked well last year.

This is how I'm planning to approach our social studies unit.  I have a drawing of our state (I have fixed the paper since this picture was taken so it looks neater), and we're going to spend the first couple of days talking about what we know about our state.  The capital, where we live, other places that we know of (national parks and state parks), then go from there.

This is where I'm keeping track of my classroom jobs.   I've decided to forego the student of the week, at least the way I did last year, and rotate responsibilities instead.

This is my help wall.  Some of what's up there has changed, but the green and blue poster boards are still there.  There are lots of masking tape and Command Strips behind those posters, but I couldn't see undoing them, and the different colors helps divide the subjects.

This is where our calendar is located, as well as our daily schedule.  As long as I can remember to make the appropriate changes each day, I can avoid the usual questions of what do we have today.  Next to the schedule are hanging pockets where I store my concept charts that I'll display on my document camera.

Here is where I've place my classroom management chart.  This is the first time I'm trying it, so  I hope it works out well.

       I thought I had a picture of our meeting/reading area, but couldn't find one finished.  I'll add that picture later on.  Cosmetically, it looks like I'm ready.  Curriculum wise, I feel like I'm ready.  Now I have to get back into the school/teaching zone.  I spent all summer in school mode, and this week I managed to take a break from it.  I just hope I'm there on Monday when we have our first workshop.

Evolution in the Classroom

As teachers we tend to go through a constant evolution, at least many of us do.  There are still some teachers who are comfortable and set in their methods that trying out new ideas is difficult.  Perhaps it's because of the direction my teaching career has taken, going from teaching pre-teens to teaching 8 and 9-year-olds, that haven't allowed me to remain stagnant.

Yesterday I went to my classroom to do some organizing and starting talking with one of my new colleagues.  As I mentioned in an earlier post, I've been thinking of using developmental spelling with my students.  As we talked more, bouncing ideas around as to how to manage it in the classroom and track student progress, we got on the topic of math facts.

Just like I was raised with having a list of spelling words and being expected to spell them correctly at the end of the week, I was also raised with practicing my math facts and being expected to keep up with the rest of the class.  Well, my conversation with my fellow teacher enlightened me on the idea of developmental math as well.  I left school yesterday excited about a new tool I can use to help my students increase their math facts skills at their pace, rather than expecting them to keep up with the rest of the class.

Two new tools!  I felt hopeful with the idea that my new kiddos will have an opportunity to do some aspect of math and language arts at their pace, which is the direction I really wanted to take this year.

With one week left before school begins, I feel that I'm ready.  My plans are made, my room is organized, and I think I'm organized (maybe) and ready to go.

Trouble focusing...

Perhaps it's the beautiful weather we've been having, teaching summer school in the mornings for a few weeks, or other distractions that life brings, but I'm struggling to stay focused with what I plan to do with my kiddos this year.  

Last year I had guidance, or shall I say a laid out plan of what the other two 3rd grade teachers have been doing for several years.  I followed nearly everything that they did, or at least I tried to.  I know my students didn't accomplish everything, or was exposed to everything that the rest of the third grade was, but it wasn't for lack of effort on my part.  There was so much to learn about being an elementary school teacher compared to having been a middle school language arts teacher for several years.  I never had to do fluency checks,  DAZE, or have them practice multiplication facts like I did as a 3rd grade teacher.  I just started with a new novel, completed the activities I had planned to enhance their English language arts skills, then moved on to the new book when we were finished.

An important thing that's distracting me is how I plan to teach this year.  I've explored strategies such as Flipped Classroom, Whole Brain Teaching, using QR codes, and Student-Centered Classrooms (unless that's the same as Flipped Classroom, I'm still trying to figure that out.  I like some of the concepts of all of these strategies, but it's a bit overwhelming, especially as I'm trying to organize what I plan to use.  

As I mentioned before, I've been looking at beginning the year having my students investigate native and invasive species and use technology to share our data with the community as a science activity. But one of my challenges is how to guide my student so that the activity is directed by them (i.e. student-centered classroom).  

At the same time, I want to begin my social studies unit having them explore  communities and our government, beginning locally, moving on to county, state, and national.  If I plan to follow the student-centered structure, they need to develop the driving question. 

Science and social studies seem easy enough, and in language arts I'll be following a text.  As for math...the first few days, possibly the first week will be reviewing what they learned last year as 3rd graders.  This is where I won't be too lost, because I'm coming from having taught 3rd grade, but how do I use student-centered structure when dealing with math?

So much planning and organizing is involved, but I'm thankful that I love teaching and learning new strategies that I can use.  The ever-changing world of education will help keep me on my toes and hopefully keep me from becoming stagnant.  I might always feel that I'm never "there", meaning never finding that perfect teaching method, but I guess that's just the nature of the profession.

My major focus this summer has been organizing my room, now that I've moved to a new building in the district.  The major part of the organization is mostly complete, just the fine tuning needs to be done.  I've worked some on my bulletin boards, and prepared some photocopies for our morning warms-ups (which may not be following a Flipped Classroom structure).  

I created these math and language arts help boards last year because I lacked bulletin board space, so they were placed on the windowsills instead.  Plenty of Command Strips and masking tape is holding them up.

This area will be my small group station.  The board behind me is a magnetic chalk board that I might use to display information about our stations.  On my closet door is my "Classroom Jobs" poster where I'll place clothespins with my students' names on them.

This board will be the focus board for language arts, with the vocabulary words displayed where the polkadots are on the left.  The rest of the board will have our focus for our standards.

This is another magnetic chalkboard.  I was impatient and wasted some Command Strips to hang up the daily schedule and calendar, but I plan to stick colored fabric on it before it's finished.  On the right of the board is my classroom management chart.  I will have other clothespins with students' names on it to show where they are all at when it comes to their behavior.

I've allowed myself to go to my classroom a couple of afternoons a week while teaching summer school, but I'm forcing myself to stay home, at least for this next week, to focus on the curriculum and strategies I'm choosing to use.  

Until next post.....

Excited about science!

A few years back when I was teaching middle school language arts, I joined my science teacher friend at a 4-day workshop 6 hours south from my home.  Granted one of the motivators of taking the workshop was that it was an "vacation" with a friend away from home, near the ocean, free of charge, and I was getting paid a stipend from the organization giving the training after all was said and done.

Aside from the immediate and monetary benefits of attending the workshop, it was an opportunity to be trained in something science related, which appealed to me as a language arts teacher who loves science, and that uses technology.  It also is a way for my students to have an impact on their community and have a genuine purpose for their inquiry-based learning and exploring.

Now that I'm being relocated to another building in my district, I'm excited to get started.  I was so overwhelmed with my own learning last year, that I didn't get the opportunity to even consider implementing the unit in my class.   This school is located near a boat landing on a river, and has a wooded area near our playground.  These are perfect locations for my 4th graders and I to look for native and invasive species in both plants and aquatic animals.

The whole purpose of the unit is for students to identify species of plants, insects, or aquatic animals, by using species cards. They collect data, draw the species, use the species cards to determine if they have found or not found the species they were looking at, as well as include the coordinates of where the species was found.  All of this data is uploaded to the website called Vitalsignsme.org and is eventually verified whether it was found or not.  

It's a process, but after all is said and done, students have helped their community, both local and state, by identifying a species, and if it is an invasive species, then scientists in our state know where it is found and can monitored.  The unit can be kept as a small unit, or one that is on-going throughout the school year.  The thing is, in our area, we have snow for a large part of the school year, so we can't continue our investigations until the spring.

As for where it falls in the standards, it includes writing for an audience, student-driven investigations, use of technology, as well as collecting data and making graphs to represent data.  Depending on how in-depth the teacher wants to take the lessons, depends on how cross-curricular it becomes.

The training I received provided me with materials, such as cameras, GPS devices, contraptions for collecting aquatic plants and capturing aquatic animals.  The website itself provides tons of materials for teachers, citizen scientists, students, and anyone who wants to participate in any way.

I feel it's the perfect unit to begin the school year with, and one that can be my signature unit.  No one else in my new district knows about Vitalsignsme.org or how to perform the lessons.  Although it was originally designed for middle level to high school students, I can see how it can be easily adjusted for upper-level elementary grades, too.  You're welcome to check out the site.  I recently did an investigation for Cow's Parsnip, or Indian Celery, and I'm just waiting for someone to review my data and verify whether or not I've identified it properly.