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!

A week in small groups

I spend 1/3 of my day doing small groups for reading.

My 12 groups range from DRA 40-70 and are split up by both DRA level and students' interests.  My afternoon group also has all the fifth graders in GATE/TAGs (advanced course work for gifted & talented), so I have to make sure to never schedule their group meeting days on Tuesdays or Fridays.  I also had to group them in the same 3 groups for this reason.

When they meet with me, we do close reads of important parts of the passage, go over comprehension questions, zoom in on vocabulary and work on predictions and inferences.  Lately they've been running more of their small groups, which is awesome.

We have daily word work and fluency practice.  I have to RCBM two kids a day (fluency progress monitoring with AIMSweb), so during this time, they read our weekly flueny passage (leveled passages from reading A-Z).  During that time, they coach each other on the components of fluency (rate, expression, accruacy and phrasing) to help each other improve.  By doing the same passage over the course of the week, they practice repeated reading and their accuracy improves over the course of the week.  I get to use this time to progress monitor so I don't fall behind on my case load.  I love that we multi-task and it's not wasted time.  

We have been working on weekly "must do's" as well with the A/E/I/O/U strategy and our science readers.  I chose informational text because they struggle with main ideas and supporting key details.  In fifth grade, they are expected to pick out the main ideas and make connections within text, including scientific ones.  Our science CRTs (standardized tests) are up first on the testing calendar, so I'm utilizing old science content to not only review science material but informational text as well.  If I give them a task, there should be a clear focus!  (Or in my overachieving case, several)

Here are some snap shots of what they're doing when they're not at my kidney table:

Collaboratively adding details about the characters in their novels on their large graphic organizers.

Using fifth grade description cards to analyze characters.

Responding to a post on kidblog.

Referring back to the text for evidence in a written response

Keeping track of characters in a novel

Collaboratively recording information about the novel, including juicy words, character development and settings.

Happy reading!

Responder Cups

One of the things that drives me nuts as a teacher is hands raised to go to the bathroom.  Or when students just shout out an answer rather than raise their hands and wait to be called on. (That wait to be called on thing is rather tricky!)

So I use responder cups:

These are just plastic cups from any dollar store.  I purchased red, green, blue and yellow ones for my classroom.  They usually come in packs of a dozen but I could supply my whole class for under twenty bucks.  We have had to have many, many conversations about not poking holes in the cups or drawing on the cups, but it doesn't bother me enough to purchase more.  A set of cups will last a year or two (tops) but hopefully your students would be slightly more respectful of supplies.

We do have conversations about not playing with the cups during instruction and 99% of my students follow this norm.

The cups' primary use is for independent or group work.

Green: I'm good. I know what is expected of me and I am fine.

Yellow: I'm a little stuck and have some questions.

Red: I'm confused and need help immediately.

Blue: May I use the restroom?

We also use them to vote and respond in class.  Instead of shouting out answers, I can get a quick (and silent) response from the class.

We use them for A/B/C/D questions, true/false, agree/disagree, math operations and to vote on other class matters (lights on or off, choices for stations, etc).

To help my students, I have the color coded signs at the front of the room in case they forget:

My favorite function of the cups is the restroom issue, especially during independent writing or assessment time!  (Or when I'm conferencing with a student or progress monitoring)

I'll send one boy and one girl out at a time and when they come back, they pick another boy or girl to sign out and go to the restroom.  Students know to keep working until it's their turn and no one is wasting time with their (writing) hand up in the air asking to go.

I love how these responder cups help my classroom run smoothly :)  

(Well, as smooth as a fifth grade classroom can be!)

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!