Goodbye 2014

Well, somewhere, and I can't find that where after 15-20 minutes of rereading some of my posts - I wrote that College Girl had a goal to read 100 books this year. And I thought, why don't I try to do 100 blog posts?

 

Well, College Girl is upstairs reading - she said she's close to her goal.

 

I'm down here typing blog post 94. Didn't make it to 100. But I came a lot closer than I really thought I would as we got closer to the end of the year.

 

I was looking at my stats - and I had a couple of real winners. Not sure why. My blog is a little one - I usually have 30-50 people read a post. I had a couple posts, though, that got into the triple digits - really not sure why and how, but...

 

This one I did on beginning of the year lesson plans was viewed by lots of folks - and ha, it tells about trying to write 100 posts! Too funny!

 

Another one that was viewed quite a bit was one I wrote about Scholastic's Book Wizard. I want to add that the scanning feature on this app is wonderful - when it works {I told you that in the original post!} But Scholastic's own books - that they publish!!!! - they usually don't give any information when you scan the bar code. But if you take the time to type in the title, then you can see grade level, DRA level, Lexile level.

 

The highlights of this year - well, that has to be my professional growth. I've finished up the course work for my ESOL endorsement - just need to take the Praxis for that - fun times are coming for sure. And I've really taken to reading some "teacher" books - in hopes of becoming a better teacher - and with that hope, I've tried hard to let the ideas I've read influence me as a teacher - not just reading and lip service, but acting on them.

 

Even the low points of this year, those times I just want to vent, well, I've been blessed by this community of readers who often chime in with an "I hear you," or "It will get better."

 

And finally, I want to wish you a

 

 

 

However you are celebrating tonight, please be safe. And I hope tomorrow is the start of a wonderful year for you!

 

Lesson Plans

Yesterday College Girl was read, read, reading. She would hardly stop to answer a question or anything. But she did tell me she'd set a goal on Goodreads to read 100 books this year, and she's at about 50 right now. 

Then, I was looking at my blog, and I saw I had 48 posts this year. So I've made it my goal to have 100 by the end of the year. 

So here goes number 49!

I've been slowly working on lesson plans. Ack, I am so easily distracted. {College Girl told me yesterday that she thought I didn't like the actual thought of going back to school, but I like school once I get there. Personally, I think it's the having to get out of my pajamas and actually be somewhere every day by 8:00. But what do I know?} {Although dress code has been an issue here, and I think they should just tell us we have to wear scrubs. My nurse friends say they are so comfortable. But whatever - and see how easily I get distracted!!!}

Anyway, I'm going to be very brave and show you a little, bitty piece of some of my first week's lesson plans from last year:

{Phew - that wasn't so bad.}
I make pretty detailed plans for the first couple weeks - so I can remember everything that I want to remember!

Anyway, this is a little tip/ what I do. I mark these up pretty good with what worked, what didn't, what I might do differently next year, what we didn't actually get to. {I usually only make these notes for the first couple weeks, and then again for the last couple, when things are all crazy and a little unstructured.}

So as I'm making my plans for this year I can look back at last year's and I see that personally, I didn't like the Bucket Filling book. And that we didn't even get to math facts with dry erase boards; and I didn't get the story read that I wanted to do. And then I have where I wrote "yes." To me, that means that idea worked, so it's worth doing again. 

So this is a little way to make planning a little easier for myself, and to also remember what worked and didn't work previously. 

I have actually gotten the first day done. Well, in reality it's only a half day. But still. I'm on my way! 

Letting Things Go

It has been a long week around here. 

This parched area of the world finally got some rain last Sunday night. The rain helped us realize that one of our window wells filled up with water and that water emptied into our basement. That wasn't terrible - my daughter was downstairs, and consequently, we caught it pretty quickly. 

Two nights later, I had made a trip to the Big City, and it poured at home. We weren't as fortunate. My husband bailed water out of the window well for almost an hour, while my daughter tried to contain the flood in the basement. But we still had a good 2 inches of standing water under the window.

Last night, same thing - but on a smaller scale. {Yeah, I know - 3 nights with rain is just plain unheard of here!}

This has meant a basement that I can hardly walk through because furniture has been scooted here and there. And there are two industrial strength fans running and a humidifier. It is very noisy down here, which gives me a little headache. And all these machines running make it pretty warm in our normally cool basement. And this is where I do all my work for school when I'm at home.

I realized this morning, I have one week left until we start 3 days of in-services and 2 work days. If you saw a post I wrote earlier this summer, I like to have everything ready until at least Labor Day.  This year, I was hoping to go another week because we will be gone two of those weekends. Well, I have gotten 2 weeks of lesson plans done, instead of the 3 I wanted. I have very few of my materials ready. I haven't gone up to work on my room {good news, the janitors didn't move any of the big furniture :)} I'm afraid there might have been leaks at school, and I so don't want to deal with that. I wanted to take some pictures of insects {I'm doing a unit on that to start the school year}, and add some inspirational words to them, but it just isn't happening.  And I really, really, really, want to have a mom/daughter day with my girl before I start back and she heads off to college {two weeks later}. 

All of that has made me realize I need to let go of some things. I need to be happy with the 2 weeks of plans I do have done. I need to concentrate on what I need for that first week of school. I need to have things done in my room that will make me comfortable with starting the year. And I need to have that mom/daughter day! 

So what have I done that puts a smile on my face? Well, I DID get those 2 weeks of plans done. And they are very specific because I want to work hard at really teaching procedures this year. I've noted where I want to make anchor charts and how I want to teach a procedure and how I want to model things. Yeah, me! I did die-cut candles - the kids will decorate one and we'll put them up to show when birthdays are.

{sorta like this, but they are white so the kids can decorate them.} My sister has a Silhouette machine, and she cut out the letters to make a Welcome sign for me - and they look so nice! I bought some things to put in birthday bags - thank you, Target dollar section - stickers and these absolutely crazy erasers that I'm pretty sure they will all love. {still want to pick up some pads of paper and little bitty notebooks}

I was even thinking - and this is just really crazy talk here - I don't have to have everything perfect for that first day! What??? Gasp!!! I just want it to be nice - for our Open House and for that first day. I want it to be a room that children want to come into, and guess what? I think part of that will be the smiling face on this teacher, who is as excited to meet her new students, as they are to meet her! 

What about you? How are your Back To School plans coming? The way you want? Or have you hit some bumps in the road?

Guided Reading Plans

Well, I have to make an edit to yesterday's blog post. Today I'm not with my kids because we're having a

SNOW DAY!

But I have to tell you, it is not a pretty kind of snow day. It is a bitterly cold, windy, wet, nasty snow day. I'll take whichever, but I'm certainly staying inside today :)

So what does any good teacher do with a snow day? Especially when the rest of her family is snoozapolzing? Well, I finished up lesson plans for the next five weeks. Our basal reading series goes in 5 week units, so I try to plan those five weeks at one time. Then I just have to make little tweaks when I get to that actual week. 

Last Saturday, I wrote about reading Teaching with Intention and how I was going to try to take one subject and really make an effort into the plans for that. I had mentioned Writing and Whole Group Reading, but I decided to really take a look at Guided Reading. 

I wrote out plans Guided Reading for all five weeks - well, I've done that before, but it's been bare bones. This time, I noted if I wanted to make a chart with the kids, if I wanted to divide up a story and have each kid summarize it, etc. 

Also, our district is moving toward Rigor and Relevance. I have to admit that I don't understand all of what the district is expecting from us, but one thing that has been talked about is questions we ask our students. 

Here is a link to the type of questions that our district wants us to start using with our kids. They really want us using Quadrant C and D questions. So I even made notes about questions I wanted to ask my students. 

So, for example, for one group, their Monday will look like this:

Square M
Preview Story Thoroughly, discuss difficulties Anticipation Guide Make mini posters for each heading

This group's story for the week is about different groups that do weaving in different ways. So I've made a note to discuss difficult parts of the text. I'm also going to use an Anticipation Guide. These are kind of fun - my kids last year seemed to enjoy doing them. Go here for more about them. (Ha! Just realized that's also a link to my first blog post - a year and a day ago!) I'm also going to start little posters for each different group that the book talks about - Navajo, Asante, Maya, Maori. I'm hoping to have different kids fill in the posters and then talk about them to the small group.

I'm excited to see how this all works as I go through this unit. I'm hoping it helps me remember all those great ideas I thought of - and it holds me accountable for pushing my kids.

I am now done working! I'm going to go watch DVR things and consider cleaning the bathroom. Don't know how far I'll get with the 2nd - but the 1st is a certainty!  

Hope you've had a good day, too! Sara 

Saturday Sayings

 “I believe we cannot underestimate the power of our influence – what we choose to say and do in the classroom profoundly affects the ways children view their teacher, themselves, and each other.” Debbie Miller Teaching with Intention.

I’ve been slowly going through a small book called Teaching with Intention. Oh, it’s making me think! Sometimes that’s good, and sometimes I’d just rather not (if you know what I mean). 

I learned about Teaching with Intention from Deanna Jump’s blog.  A while back, I was reading her blog and she said something about when she started including more things in her lesson plans, particularly the questions she wanted to ask, she felt like she became a better teacher. (I can’t find this exact blog post, so this may be a huge paraphrase, but anyway!)

Well, let me tell you, I’ve always tried to make my lesson plans as short as possible. I want a week to fit on one type written page. Hmm, maybe I need to rethink that. One of my worst feelings is when the kids go home, and there on my desk is sitting that great idea that, whoops! I forgot to include.  And I am so forgetful! On days when I really want to remember everything, and I write myself a little note, guess what? It feels like things go better. 

So, in an effort not to go overboard, I’m thinking what if I took one subject – say writing, or whole group reading – and really made an effort with those lesson plans. Instead of putting all my thinking into the WHAT I’m doing, what if I put the majority of my thinking into the HOW I’m going to do.  (Or better yet, how THEY are going to do  :)) And then did step 2 - wrote it down in my plans so I'll remember when it comes time to do it!

This is the perfect timing for me, because guess what I’m doing this weekend? You got it – lesson plans! Here comes some Teaching with Intention!

I really enjoy reading Saturday Sayings – they do make me think and reflect about what I’m doing in my classroom. Thanks, Tammy, for letting me join in with you this week.  Make sure you head over to Forever in First and read Tammy's Saturday Sayings, and then hop over to her other guest contributors this week.

And have a great weekend - whether you're working or having fun! Sara

Work Weekend!

Work Weekend for me! My daughter (who usually hogs the computer :) is out of town, so I'm spending the weekend getting lessons, etc. done. Our reading units are 5 weeks long, so I usually like to plan those 5 weeks at one time - so that's what I'm working on and when I get done with that, we'll only have 1 more full week and then 4 days! Woo Hoo (not that I'm keeping track, of course!)

Sometimes I just have to laugh at myself. Last week, I was frantically looking for a little something extra to do on Friday afternoon. Ha on me! We always have a big Pep Assembly for our 3rd and 4th graders who have to take the state assessments. And this year, my 2nd grade team was in charge of it. That pretty much took the whole afternoon. So we didn't get to do our rather cool Watercolor and Salt Painting of Roosters. Maybe next year. 

Last week, we had a little extra time in the mornings (because we didn't have our reading intervention groups), so we talked about idioms one morning. Then I had them fold a piece of paper in half. On one side they drew what an idiom sounds like it means. On the other side, they needed to draw and write about what it really means. They did a nice job. (no pictures, sorry.) One example was "stomach was tied in knots." Some of the kids drew a stomach actually tied in knots. On the other side, they talked about how it really meant someone was nervous. 

I don't really have any cool ideas to share this week. Does anyone else use Houghton Mifflin Harcourt's JOURNEYS for reading? It is so much more "serious business" than our old reading series. Anyway, don't have any fun "connection" activities planned to go along with the story for next week. 

AND I haven't seen any cute math ideas lately to share. On the Leap Day sale at TpT, I purchased Toad-Ally in Love Math Centers by Lory Evans. I need to print the rest of those and laminate them, so I can put them out in math centers. These are really cute, and the ones I've already used seem to keep my students working (which I like!).

Alright, me - back to work! Hope you have a good weekend, whether you are working or enjoying the beautiful weather.