Grandma Fifi Quilts

After mulling around with the idea and months of planning, I am pleased to announce my mom has opened her Etsy shop {Grandma Fifi Quilts}!

Together we navigated figuring out shipping, packaging, selling logistics, pictures, and Google Drive.  

She's got an Instagram account (follow her {here}) and has posted pictures of current quilts and past projects:

She's got 9 quilts and table runners available now with new ones coming soon!

This marvel-ous beauty will be in her store shortly!

Valentine's Day 

Living room inspiration

 

My graduation quilt (UNLV colors of course)

Baby Austynn (10 months) on a Winnie the Pooh quilt

Waffles on B's Denver Broncos quilt

Baby Donovan and his newborn quilt

Below are some items that are currently available in her shop: 

Cheers to new adventures!

Nine for Nine

As I'm savoring the last few weeks of summer break, I'm looking ahead to year nine.  Yikes, nine?  Sigh!

Last year I had the most amazing year with thirty six fifth graders.  We had some bumps in the road, but overall, I had amazingly supportive families and loved co-teaching with Ms. S for PBL (project based learning).  We tried curriculum units with moderate success (the timing, planning, and copying was more intense than we anticipated).  I had a lot of fun with my students, they learned a lot, and I'm proud of the work we did.

I've enjoyed my summer.  I tackled some craft projects, crafted, napped, vacationed, saw friends, and read books.  

But now it's time to look ahead to the 2017-2018 school year.  I've got my bulletin board ideas mapped out (thank you Pinterest) and will ease into the school year by headed back early.  (More information about my super short summer and decision to return early is found {here}.
In honor of year nine, I've decided on the following goals:

1) Have a clean desk on a more consistent basis.  Read more about my struggle {here}.

2) Continue with my {teacher instagram} account.  

I had great success with class dojo last year, but I want to step out a little more and use social media to create more of a classroom environment.

The idea was inspired by Your School Rocks, So Tell People! and approved by my administration.  It wasn't approved so much as I texted my principal that I was going to do it and wanted to make sure they were in the loop. In my opinion, it's always better to ask for forgiveness than permission.  

I then recommended the book to her and let her borrow it, so she's able to see the rationale behind it.  To be fair, I've got an amazing principal who encourages us to take risks and try new things.  She doesn't micromanage (which is good, I need freedom and creative opportunities to be successful).  As long as she is told the "why" or purpose behind the action, she tends to be on board.

So my purpose for a teacher Instagram account? To share the awesome things my students are doing with the outside world.  I'll continue to use class dojo for close up face pictures of my students, but post the artistic (non FERPA violating) pictures on my teacher account.  That way aunts, uncles, grandparents, etc can still see all the things my kiddos are up to.  

I will also use this as a forum to post inspirational messages.  I have friends that battle with depression, so seeing supportive messages may help.

Read my thoughts on the book {here}.

3.  Provide more prompt feedback with writing tasks...maybe.

I'm not supposed to say it...but I hate grading writing.  I'd rather do literally anything else.  In fact this is how I feel about grading writing:

Hopefully it'll be better in third.  There won't be as many essays to grade.  They won't be as long. I can give smaller, more frequent assignments and focus more on the mechanics of writing instruction.

With smaller assignments, I can (theoretically) grade them faster and provide faster feedback.  Fingers crossed!

On a side note, I totally bribe myself with Panera when I'm grading writing.

I am not ashamed.

4. I want to take a more active role with community involvement this year.  I went to most of the social events last year, but only the girls' soccer games.  I'd like to be more prevalent at school events.  This will go hand in hand with our school's new house system, based on the Ron Clark Academy.  

As a member of the Reveur house, I'll be bonding with not only  my own students, but kiddos across the school. 

(More on the RCA {here}.  Fair warning, it's a long post and Ron Clark information is at the end.)

5. Provide my students with more computer time.  One of the benefits of being in the pod is that computers are right outside our door.  Third grade will also be the first time my students take standardized testing on the computers, so I want to give them ample opportunities to be familiar with computers.

6. This one is a little tricky for me.  I want to collaborate with my grade level, but not do all the work.  This balance is something I've struggled with my whole teaching career.  I want things done right for the benefit of my students, but I don't want to do everyone's work.  This commitment to excellence means sometimes I pull more than my fair share of the weight. I want to learn the new curriculum, continue to build my {TpT store}, collaborate with new team members but not be taken advantage of.  

7. Along with goal six is setting limits.  Last year, I sold all of my preps to be a Read by 3 strategist. I loved getting into classrooms and mentoring new teachers.  It also meant I needed to juggle a lot and be flexible with when other teachers wanted to meet and discuss classroom events.  While my contract time is 8:26-3:36, I unofficially made my work hours 7:10-4:45.  Living close to school means I was home by five and left work at work (most of the time).  I'd like to keep to that schedule this year, even though I'm still in limbo if we will have Read by 3 again.  We're waiting on funding from the state to determine if I'll be a teacher/strategist again this year.

8. Continue to build up my PLN (professional learning network) with twitter chats (specifically #TLAP on Mondays), blogging, Instagram, book chats, and the DEN on facebook.  My husband loves me, but he really doesn't want to sit around discussing teacher philosophies and classroom ideas.  (To be fair, I don't want to engage in an in-depth analysis of his fantasy baseball stats or how his latest round of video games went.  We stick to the highlights.)  I've got a stack of books to read, 4 of them being related to teaching (and one being for our honeymoon plane ride):

I'm excited to implement Ron Clark Academy principles in the classroom.  I'm excited to learn more about Google Classroom.  I'm excited to try to create video updates (another idea from Your School Rocks) instead of (boring) paper newsletters.



9. Be open to change.


What are you looking forward to this year?

One and Done!

As {previously mentioned}, I've got some professional reading to tackle this summer.

This afternoon, I sat down with  Your School Rocks...So Tell People! with the intention of tackling a few chapters.

 

 Two hours later, in one sitting, I was done.  

It was a good, quick read that reaffirmed a lot of what I am already trying in the classroom.

My take-aways?

1) Continue to use class dojo to communicate with families about all the awesomeness that's happening in the classroom.

2) They aren't reading the paper newsletter.  Find a different (digital) way to communicate.  I like the idea of weekly podcasts.  I like the idea of them being limited to 2-3 minutes even more.  I'm hoping to figure out how to link them to Instagram instead of posting to Youtube.

3) Respect FERPA. Get permission before posting face pictures and don't use last names.  When in doubt, take artsy, behind the head shots.  It's hard to identify backs of heads & hands.
 
4) Create a classroom/teacher Instagram account.  I've got a personal one that I use and I'm already snapping pictures of class events for dojo, so why not?  In addition to this book being in favor of using social media, dozens of other respected educational articles back up this idea.

I didn't check with administration first, but created one that's totally separate from my personal account.  I shared a message on class dojo with last year's class and explained that families are welcome to follow me, but I won't follow back (thus ensuring their privacy).

One of the big "a ha" moments while reading was how often teens are on social media, so why not use that as a positive force.  One chapter focused on teachers/schools that were sending daily positive affirmations to help students start their days off right.  I have a teacher friend in Texas who has been doing this for years within the Discovery Educator Network (DEN) with massive success.  Why couldn't the same ideas be applied to the classroom?

I'm eager to see how this evolves, but I've got my branding hashtags ready (classroom specific, school specific, and the 50s pod specific). 

I stumbled upon this:

Which I plan to use.  I want the account to feel like a classroom account, so I will be sending students out with the iPads to take pictures.  I'll have them send to me and then I'll post from there. I also like the idea of them writing the captions and mini-blog posts.  Students tend to put forth a lot more effort when they have an authentic audience (meaning not just me the teacher). 

I've got two followers so far, one parent from last year and one teacher friend's professional account.  She used twitter last year and was my inspiration for the project (and who recommended the book to me), so it's nice to have someone to bounce ideas off of in the realm of technology.  Thanks Mrs. K!