Day 5

I made it to Friday!  

I did start my morning with duty...I'm not a fan of the gate.  I picked up my kiddos, took them off to Art, then planned math with another teacher in my grade level.  We had a grade level meeting yesterday and split up who is planning what subject.  This is an adjustment for me. Instead of planning everything, I'm planning one subject, writing up super explicit lesson plans, and making the copies for the grade level.  So far, I'm liking it!  I still read over their lesson plans and put my own flair on them, but it's nice that collaboration and team work is the norm for my grade level.

After I picked my kiddos up from specials, we jumped right into math.  For our number talk, it's "fact Fridays" where I gave them their first timed multiplication test.  

Last year my grade level split up multiplication and division facts into "easy", "medium", and "hard" facts.  We made 3 different versions of each test and would give them a chance every other week.  Today they had 3 minutes to do the easy multiplication ones.

Easy facts: 1, 2, 5, 10

Medium: 3, 4, 9, 11

Hard: 6, 7, 8, 12

Of those, about 6 of my students passed their easy facts on the first round.  I'll be making a tracker to glue in their notebooks and a brag wall similar to this:

For them to sign off when they pass each level.  Granted, this is a third grade standard, but many of my students don't have these facts mastered (yet!).  We'll alternate testing and practice weeks.

From there, I had them compare notes on what a good mathematician is before adding their thoughts (on post-its) to our chart:

 

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We also went over the first math practice (make sense of problems and persevere in solving them).  I had them record it in their math notebooks with sticky labels and added the chart to the wall.  I didn't want to put up all 8 without going over them because then students have no connection to what's on the wall.

I also raided another teacher's classroom and found the rods I was looking for!  I modeled that the rods and units represent tens and ones in this case, but made it clear this won't always be the situation.

I had the table teams model 43-29 for me using the manipulatives and they did a pretty good job.  I think most of our math this year will be hands-on because there are some major gaps to fill.  However, after talking with my grade level, I'm not the only one who feels this way so that's nice we're all wanting to give them meaningful practice to help make sense of numbers.

In science, they finished exploring the mystery bags and we had a conversation about all the skills they practiced.  They did a really good job with their team building task.

In writing, they finished their final drafts (which I accidentally left at school...Wednesday problem).  In reading, they took their STAR test to place them for AR and worked on building their stamina in silent reading until everyone was done with writing.

From there, I modeled the importance of previewing a text, again using The Lightning Thief as my mentor text.  I jumped right in and read, without modeling metacognition or stopping to think aloud parts.  A few pages in, they were confused (as they're supposed to be).

We talked about strategies that good readers use, one of them being to preview the text.  What this means is they need to look at the front and back covers, as well as the table of contents, to formulate an idea of what the text is about.  

I then had them practice with a book of their choosing, modeling on a post-it.

We reviewed phrasing and went over rate, adding to our charts in our notebooks.  We'll go over expression and accuracy next week.  We'll also go over buddy coaching and have some fluency practice before we take our beginning of the year Aimsweb benchmarks.

With the bell approaching, they did their classroom jobs and I sent them on their way with this:

They o-fish-ally survived their first week! It's Labor Day weekend and we have a staff development day Tuesday, so I won't see them again until Wednesday.  

One week down!

(On a side note, I did have to write my first citations and lock myself out of my room on Friday. I also forgot to send home last year's CRT scores, so I stapled apology notes to parents and those scores will go home Wednesday.  There were definitely moments of frustration on Friday, mainly due to me forgetting things...so a nice relaxing birthday dinner with B at Red Robin was so deserved!)

How cute is she?

My previous school essentially became a self-appointed turn around school.  Over ninety percent of my previous staff, including my principal, left for various reasons. 

I did my research and interviewed at one school which prioritizes reading and is quite close to my new home.  They did quite well last year on standards and have a diverse population.  They are still a Title 1 school but with an incredibly supportive community, which will be a nice change.

When I went for my interview, there were dozens of high school students coming over to volunteer and parents helping in the office.  Immediately I welcomed this change and the thoughts of never grading Aimsweb progress monitoring probes again danced in my head.

My interview went well and I was hired, which was a huge sigh of relief.  I was the last of my grade level to secure a new position.  One teacher is headed to teach third grade with several other staff members (oddly at the elementary school my boyfriend attended many years ago).  Another is leaving the district for charter schools with her husband.  A third member of our team is headed to an elementary school close to her daughters' daycare to teach departmentalized math and science, which her masters degree is in.  Our special education teacher is following our former principal to her new school, along with several other teachers.  We are all on to better things and I was finally, with a sigh of relief, welcomed into this club.

It was hard to tell my students I was leaving, but since they are all moving to middle school, I stressed that we all need change.  

My mentee in third grade and his wife had interviewed several places but were struggling to find positions at the same school (their requirement). 

I knew of one opening at my new school and quickly inquired about the possibility of another with my new principal.  I passed along her contact information to the married teachers and was thrilled when they had interviews.

I was even more excited when they were both hired at my new school.  He will be teaching third grade again while she will be back in general ed in second grade, which she's previously taught.  Adding to my excitement is she will be in my pod and only a few doors down!  I was thrilled when I got her Facebook message sharing they'd both been hired.

If possible, I was even more excited when my new principal texted to let me know she adored them and hired them both.  She thanked me for recommending them to join our school family.  This sense of support is such a refreshing change.  How cute is she?!

 I love that I'm going to a new school where everyone is excited to go to work.  I love that there is such a community feel and that two of my favorite teachers from my old school get to join me at my new one!

Onward and upward!

That time has come...

For the first six months of the school year, I ran my small groups with ease.

Okay, not ease per say, but with a relatively stress-free mindset compared to the rest of my day. 

 I knew where to go for my weekly fluency passages (reading A-Z), I had a list of must do's to choose from based on what standards we were working on in whole group and what grade level assessment data revealed.  I've changed up our "word work" a few times, but am now using this great resource:

Based on my notes from our daily fluency practice (and my RCBM progress monitoring), I select what focus skill we'll be using for the week.  So far we've done irregular past tense verbs, silent consonants and soft & hard c.  Next week we're looking at stressed and unstressed syllables.

Over the past several years, I've meticulously created teacher guides for my novels.  Through the amazing generosity of supporters on donorschoose, awesome sales on Scholastic, thorough searching at second hand bookstores, Amazon's fast shipping and shamelessly using my teacher discount at both Borders and Barnes and Noble, I have established a decent classroom library, filled with multiple copies of some great books.  I try to have at least six of each, so I can use these novels with a small group.

However, with twelve small groups, I've arrived at the day I've dreaded.

Some of my groups are ready to read novels I haven't had the time to meticulously prepare...which means I have extra homework!

Granted, reading is by no means a chore.  I love reading!

However, while I'm reading the novel my students are, I'm carefully taking down vocabulary words, writing comprehension questions (with answers so I don't forget), picking out specific parts for a close read, brainstorming homework questions and more.  It takes a long time for me to prep a teacher guide so that I feel confident doing the novel with a small group.  I'm not one of those teachers that can just sit down and read the book with them, I want to be ahead of them so I know if the answers they're giving are correct.

Last week not one, but three of my groups finished their novels and selected new ones that I haven't read yet.  So this weekend's homework is reading at least the first part of these books:

"Who Could That Be at This Hour?" (the first of 4 novels in Lemony Snicket's All the Wrong Questions series, a quasi-prequel to the Series of Unfortunate Events)

The Lost Hero by Rick Riordian.  Darn, more adventures at Camp Half-Blood!

They selected this book because they noticed the Newbery Award on the cover and concluded it must be a good novel.  How can you argue with that logic?

I figure I won't finish all of them by Monday, but I can at least get part way through and stay a few chapters ahead of them!

(On the bright side, novel guides for these three books will be available within the coming month on my TpT site!).

On that note, I say goodbye for the weekend and am off to read!

Clicks and Clunks

This week, our school's power (vocabulary) word is strategy.

In honor of this, I'll share about one of my new favorite strategies: "clicks and clunks".

I'm aware this is in no way a new strategy and is taught in numerous teacher prep courses.  However, it's new to me :)

I read about it in my beloved CORE source book:

And it's really "clicking" with my students.

(By the way, I googled for an image of the CORE book and my own image from a prior blog post came up...weird moment.)

Basically, it's a formative assessment where students analyze thier own learning.  They share what's "clicking" in their heads and what is "clunking" (not making total sense).

We talk about the importance of being honest and talk about why things are clunking.

I have my students give me fist bumps on their way out the door and share their clicks/clunks with me.

Yesterday, one student told me that our weekly phonics skill (/s/, /sh/, /z/) was clunking with her because she was confused about the letters.  Using this clunk, I explained in a different way during our word study this morning and she got it :) 

 (Hopefully others did too but since she specifically told me that was a clunk, I wanted to help her with it)

Speaking of clicking and clunking, here are mine for the day:

Clicks:

Almost all of my students are making growth on RCBM for Aimsweb for their oral reading fluency and words per minute.  One that went down had a very honest conversation that he wanted to try reading without using his finger as a place holder to see if he really needed it.  Turns out, he does need to keep track of his place with his finger but more importantly, he realizes that it's a strategy he needs to use because it helps him. 

Some of my students have grown over forty words since their beginning of the year benchmark.  Yes, you read that correctly. 40 words. In a minute.  They're almost at their end of year ambitious goals.

Clearly our daily repeated reading, buddy coaching and fluency stations are working!

Clunks:

Voice levels still aren't where they need to be.

Our server was down today: no access to my documents, my premade lessons, my email or the internet.  We made the best of it but it was frustrating being without technology.

Happy Friday! (almost...)

Week 7

This week in whole group reading, we were working on main idea, supporting details, alternative perspectives and inferencing.

We used the passage "we were here, too" (grab it for free here) and the kids did a great job.

First, we made a list of people we associate with the American Revolution:

 I was really proud of my students for acknowledging that slaves were important.

They read the passage with their table teams:

They also were working on their metacognition and recording their thoughts and predictions on paper:

They did a really great job with this activity :)

They were also shocked to learn that George Washington had slaves, but we talked about the historical context and how he treated his slaves.  I think I blew their minds with that fact though!

They are also working on fluency passages in small groups as a station/center:

One person watches the timer (the passage is to be read for one minute).

One person reads.

The other listens and provides meaningful feedback in the form of buddy coaching.

They have made some great growth on their words per minute (WPM) for their Aimsweb RCBM probes!

Also in stations, they were working on sorting different scenarios into survival elements:

(The groups that did this are reading Hatchet and Hunger Games, so survival is one of the themes of their novels)

Students then analyzed my sort and added suggestions on how to improve it or add cards to sort.

I like that they help me improve my centers and then have more input, thus more investment :)

(As a side note, you can see one of my polka dot rugs and my polka dot center bucket in these images...I love polka dotted things!)

Well that would be helpful...

I set up my Aimsweb progress monitoring schedule this weekend and oh man, is it overwhelming.  I have the high kids so most need to be progress monitored once a month and given the MAZE comprehension test once a month.  Well, I have over seventy students in my reading classes so that's a lot of progress monitoring!  I've been thinking about how I want to set up a system (I obviously need a system) and then I stumbled upon this image:

So simple and straight forward.  So easy for the kids to help keep me accountable!  My goal is to create the schedule for Monday through Thursday, leaving Fridays for catch up if students were absent or if we had a weird 4 day week.  I would color code by am/pm and that'd be it :)

I could also use this for setting up writer's conferences since that is clearly the intended goal for the orginial post.

Hooray for meaningful organization!