Open House & Getting Organized

A few weeks ago I had Open House for the upcoming school year. I know it seems early but my "track" has ours early right before we track out. Pinterest inspired me this year to try some new things for Open House. Our Open House is basically a Meet the Teacher night where parents and kids stop by, meet their child's new teacher, check out the classroom and get a supply list/information for the new year.

The weekend before Open House I was a busy bee at home making some things. I made my coworker and I new signs with our names on them. I am in LOVE with the dots on turquoise/paisley decorations. This poster was clipped to my easel and put in the hallway to let parents know which room I am in.

 I saw a glow stick idea on pinterest and made a quick little note to go with it. 

 I was so excited about my wish list/giving tree. I put it up on the door and actually even made it look like a tree. Only problem was NO ONE SAW IT. Since the door was open and people were constantly coming in and out no one really saw the door and I was so slammed meeting parents I didn't have a chance to direct them towards it. I was kind of disappointed in that I didn't think it through but oh well I saved the apples to have out at parent night.

 Here are my student information folders. They contain a letter to the parents, a letter to the students, a supply list and information for the parents to fill out and send back the first week of school.

I also have the parents stop and write a little encouraging note to their child. I call them "shine on notes". I put them on each child's desk on the first day of school. The kids love them!

While I was on the creating kick I decided to work on a few organizational things as well. I use plastic drawers to organize papers. I simply added some paisely border behind them and they look so much cuter!

 And I had to make the teacher toolbox from Create Teach Share. It's perfect since I try not to store these things in my desk drawer since I have to move every 9 weeks.

I can't believe I'm already planning and organizing for the new school year! 

Why I Change Classrooms

A few people have asked why I have to move classrooms every 9 weeks. The answer is that I teach in a year round school. Let me explain:

- I still teach 10 months out of the year but those 10 months are spread out over the year. I do not have a long summer break.
- Typically I teach for 9 weeks and then have 3 weeks off. That means I get a break in each season!
- There are 4 different schedules in our year round system. Each schedule is called a track.
- Only 3 tracks are "in" at a time. There is always one track that is "tracked out". For example - Tracks 1, 3, 4 may be tracked in and track 2 is on break for 3 weeks.
- Because only 3 tracks are in the school building at a time, the school is designed to only fit 3 tracks. This allows there to be more students enrolled in the school than the building's capacity allows.
-In second grade there are 8 teachers/classes but only 6 teachers/classes are tracked in at a time. This is why we have to move - when you are tracked out you do not have a classroom!

It may sound complicated but once you get used to it all it's pretty simple. As a teacher I LOVE teaching year round. I love having breaks in each season. I love having breaks more frequently. It really cuts down on teacher burn out.

One disadvantage is that when I set up my classroom it's only for 9 weeks. I don't put up near as much things on my walls as the typical teacher probably does. At first this bothered me but honestly I like it now. I only put things on the walls that have a purpose. I don't have cutesy bulletin boards but I do put up student work and anchor charts. As year round teachers we also tend to be super organized - because we have to be! We all have 2 large rolling carts that we store our materials in. When it's time to track out the carts are moved to storage. As a grade level we have many items that stay in the rooms so we don't have to move them around.

This is my little cart - full of craft supplies, manipulatives, workbooks, tissues, pencils and SO much more!

I always store my large cart behind my desk because it houses my teacher manuals and resources that I use frequently. In this picture I have containers stacked on top of my cart because I took this right before I tracked out - so I was packing up!

Year round is definitely a different kind of teaching, but I've found that it's just right for me! 

Nonfiction Writing

We just finished writing biographies about classmates and are diving head first into more nonfiction writing - Informational Texts. Yesterday we discussed a very important word: Research. We made an anchor chart to discuss what research was. For our texts students will write about an animal. We will use 3 sources: nonfiction books, the internet, and an encyclopedia. We also brainstormed sub-topics that to research for our animals. 

 Then I began modeling the informational text writing process myself. My text is going to be about Jaguars. I got to see lots of Jaguars when I traveled to Belize last spring and I think they are pretty cool!

 I have showed the kiddos how to use each source to get notes. I simply take 4 pieces of notebook paper and write one sub-topic at the top of each page. Then whenever I come across a fact that I want to remember I make a bullet and write it down. By the end of yesterday I read information aloud/showed it on the document camera and they were able to tell me facts and what topic each fact should go with.

It's always interesting to hear where they think we should look online for research. Most of them said "Google". While I'm definitely a big fan of googling myself I want them to learn to use information from reliable sources. Our school subscribes to Pebble Go, an online nonfiction listening library, so we used that. I highly recomend Pebble Go as it is an awesome way to expose young children to nonfiction that they will understand. My kids love watching the short "video" of each animal along with listening to the sounds.

Next I showed how to write an opening paragraph and then copy down 3 facts for each topic. My kiddos were shocked at how simple it really was to make their plan! I also had them pick a few key vocabulary words for each page and think about a text feature that would make the page more interesting.

The planning page is available for free on TPT. I recommend copying it onto 11x17 paper as it gives the kiddos more room to write.

Today my assistant and I were very pleased at how engaged my kiddos were during my writing mini-lesson. They loved helping me find facts from my sources, pick the 3 facts to use for my plan and come up with ideas for the title. I'm really excited to see them write their own informational texts!

Long Live the Clip Chart

Behavior. It can make or break any classroom! I don't know everything (major emphasis on that) but I do feel that I've learned quite a bit about behavior/classroom management over the past years. Mainly, stay positive! It works so much better to praise the positive and then watch others try to do the right thing as well.

When I first started teaching I had "elephants" (little elephant post its with the kids names on them) that moved down levels with push pins in a cork board. It was cumbersome and not easy to manage. After that, I made the elephants magnetic and added a "soar" level. My awesome cooperating teacher from when I taught came up with the "soar" level for students to move UP to for doing a great job. My kids loved our new soar level and really got into it!

Then I learned about the clip chart. This was back in the days before Pinterest (can you imagine?) so I read about it in this ebook by Rick Morris. I quickly got to work during one of my track out days and made a clip chart. It works wonderful!

Now I'm on my second clip chart, since the old one took so much wear and I wanted to pretty-fy it up a little. :)

The kids all start on Ready To Learn and from there move their clips up or down. At the end of the day if you are on Great Job you get to stand up on your chair and the whole class does a cheer for you. If you are on Outstanding you get to add a sticker to your clip. My how they love those stickers! It's the simple things folks! I will say that the "jewel" stickers (get them from Micheal's) stay on the clips better than some regular stickers.

If a child moves their clip to consequence then they get a refocus form where they write what they were doing, what they should have been doing and what they will do next time. Then they have to take it home and get it signed and bring it back to me. Sometimes I will choose a different consequence based on the action so that's why I labeled that level consequence. Parent contact is pretty straightforward - I hardly ever have kids get to this level and by this point in the year I usually am not moving many clips down but UP. :)

About halfway through this school year I came across a very good problem - I had kids filling their clips up with stickers on both sides! So thus came about the "Clip Hall of Fame". A child moves their clip to the hall of fame once their clip is completely full. What a reward this is! They get so excited about it! I then will make them a new clip so they can keep on earning stickers.

At the beginning of the year I teach my kids hand motions that I make to tell them to move their clip up or down - a simple pinch of 2 fingers and a thumbs up or thumbs down. To reinforce positive behavior I simply will start some positive behavior dialogue "Wow, Bobby you are doing an excellent job of getting started on your morning work, please go move your clip up!" Before you know it, everyone is getting to work on their morning work as well!

I also have had kids make it to pink/outstanding and I will tell them to move their clip up. They then go to Top of the Chart. After Top of the Chart comes Off the Chart where I will then proudly wear that student's clip. Yes, I usually look like a dork with a clothespin clipped to my shirt, but they love it! Once this year I had a student who was already on Off the Chart when I asked her to move her clip up. So we invented a new level where I go take a picture of their clip with an Administrator and then write them a positive office referral.

Word Work Updates

Every now and then, I feel the need to spice things up for Daily 5, keep the kiddos engaged and interested. During my workdays before track in I hunted all over the lovely blog-o-sphere for new word work ideas. I've always loved this list of ideas from Christina Bainbridge. Definitely worth checking out.

On the far left in the green basket, are our Writing Folders from Really Good Stuff. I love those things. They really help the kids learn the writing process. We don't keep them in our desk because our grade level has to keep the same ones for 2 years before we replace them. So to keep them from the doom of what is often my kiddos' desks they live in the green basket.

Next is one of the new word work choices, ipad words! I found this via a pin on pinterest - Mrs. Gilchrist adapted the iphone idea into a larger ipad. I have a list of "ipad words" that goes with this. The kiddos have to first write the words in alphabetical order in the boxes with a dry erase marker, then they "type" them and hit "send". Seriously, it is the cutest thing for this apple-loving teacher to see. I told my kiddos that I would LOVE to have more ipads and have them using those for word work, but I'm not made of money so we make do. :)
Next up is Boggle Words. Anyone else out there ADDICTED to playing Scramble on their iphone? Me me me! I love this game and have seen Boggle bulletin boards for the classroom. I bought this set of cards by Rachel on TPT. I laminated 4 of the cards, put recording sheets in the folder, and voila challenging word work. I've explained to my kiddos that this choice is a challenge, that even adults find it hard! Therefore, this is not always the best choice for everyone. But I knew my higher readers needed a word work choice that was challenging and I can tell already that they love it. Sometimes we'll do one as a class in between rounds and I'm always shocked by how many words they find!

Bananagrams has always been a popular and favorite choice for word work and I don't think I'll ever get rid of it. I have a spelling list in a sheet protector and the kiddos use the tiles to spell their words and any other words they know. Scrabble Flash is a new one this year by the reccomendation of my coworker, Jim. It's basically like making words except the game self corrects and tells them which words are actually words! I love it! My kiddos can tell you what a stickler I am for quiet during Daily 5 but I do allow for the beeping of this fun game.

I forgot to take a picture of my last choice, Lacing Letters. Basically the letters have holes in them like beads and the kiddos lace their spelling words onto strings. Very kinesthetic. We've had that choice around for a while too.

February in Review

Where has all the time gone? I won't waste your time by telling you all the reasons why I haven't blogged in forever but let's just say February was a crazy month! I'm kind of glad it's over and gone!

More for the sake of myself I'm going to write about some February classroom happenings. It was a busy month with many holidays and things going on.

First up was Valentine's Day. We did SO many fun Valentine's activities! I made my kiddos heart shaped crayons. I had fun making them and bagging them all up cutesy. The kids reaction- "Miss R, what are these?" :) Once I told them they were crayons they were pretty excited though. Oh and it didn't hurt that I threw a homework pass in the bag either. :)

We did the usual sweetheart candy graphing. I realized that while this is fun most of my kiddos have already done this activity in first grade. Next year I think I'm going to try using the heart candies to do some fraction activities.

Also in February was our Inferring Unit. I had so much fun teaching this unit, many thanks to Pinterest! I found this pin about using trash to infer about a person and we did it at the beginning of the unit.

Then we practiced inferring using many great books. Some of my favorites are The Stranger by Chris Van Allsburg and Two Bad Ants, also by Chris Van Allsburg. Mandy Gregory also has some great inferring mini-lessons that I use as a guide to help me plan. I also found a fun ipad app, Understanding Inferences, that I used in reading groups.

President's Day! This was my first year to really put some emphasis on President's Day and I'm glad I did. I was able to incorporate it into Social Studies. I used this unit by the First Grade Fanatics on TPT along with this unit by Amy Lemons that had a template to make the Washington Monument. I made a few labels with info about the monument and voila - history in the form of a craft. My kiddos thought it was pretty cool!

And that wraps up February!

Valentine's Cards

Valentine's Day is just around the corner. My kids are excited and so am I. I have lots of fun learning activities planned! Today we did our first activity - writing letters to our parents. My kids needed some practice writing friendly letters so I thought they could write to their parents. First we made a chart reviewing the parts of a letter and some ideas and sentence starters for our letters.

Then we wrote our rough draft letters on notebook paper. I conferenced with individual students as we worked. The plan is tomorrow to copy their letters onto this pretty paper I made very quickly using graphics From the Pond (love them!). You can grab a copy of my letter paper here!

This afternoon, I started to work one on one with my bus kids to make their cards. I used the heart hands idea from this pin. Tomorrow I will finish with the rest of the class. Then they will write different ways/languages to say I love you in black pen around the outside of the heart. The letter to their parents will then be glued to the inside of the card. And Voila, a heartfelt Valentine's card.

I think the cards are turning out very cute so far! And the things they say in their letters, sooooo sweet and funny! Here are some samplings:

"I love it when you buy me things."

"I know it's rough being a parent."

"I love how you take care of me."

"Thank you for feeding me."

"Roses are red, Violets are Blue, I know you love me and I love you too."

Love them!