Pause

As I've shared a few times, I'm in the middle of Teach Like a Pirate.  

I've been enjoying the book and all the teaching ideas that are flowing from the author's open-ended questions.

Between tidying the house, unpacking from my trip, and deep cleaning, I've been breaking up my house work with escaping into the book.

Yesterday, I headed to school for two main tasks.  

First, the Sunshine social club cabinet was in desperate need of tidying.  By tidying, I mean I took everything out, wiped down the shelves, organized by item, and trashed some particularly disgusting ancient table cloths and bowls.  It looks so much better now.

Second, we were doing open library.  Students are invited in for two hours to read and take AR quizzes.  There were several teachers there for a half-dozen kids, so I didn't feel bad about only being in the library for the entire time. 

One of my former students (he's off to sixth grade) was there and it was good to see him.  Upon leaving, he inquired if I'd finished The Dark Prophecy yet because he'd like to read it.

The libraries don't have it yet and he is eager to tackle the next adventure.   Wooed by his puppy dog eyes and eagerness to read, I gave in and said he could borrow it next Wednesday at open library.  He was thrilled (as were his parents).

I'm currently on chapter five (page 43ish) of a 400 page book...so I've got some reading (and note taking) to do.

Sorry, Teach Like a Pirate, we're taking a break in the name of making a kiddo happy.

Marching Onward!

Out of no where, March appeared.  It's gearing up to be a busy month.  It's the fifth and I've already crammed a lot in.

First, we conquered {Reading Week}.  5 spirit days, 2 assemblies, 1 guest reader, 1 field trip, 3 lunches outside, and lots of reading time.  As a school, we also hosted a book drive to collect books for Spread the Word Nevada, a nonprofit.  We collected almost 2,500 gently used books in a week.  (100 of them are from my class!)

We also received our first box of new books from our {Donors Choose} project.  We made thank you cards for our donors and dived into reading.  Look how cute they are!

Second, fifth grade was in charge of First Friday treats.  Each grade level has an assigned month and we bring in treats for the rest of the teachers.  

I went to Costco for several dozen pastries, but picked up fruit and juice as well.  We put down butcher paper (it makes for easy clean up) and I raided Sunshine's closet for some decor.  (One of the perks of being co-chair is that I can borrow decorations whenever I need as long as I bring them back in a timely manner!)

I bought a little too much food (I went to Costco hungry), but still came out pretty close to our budget.  We split the cost between the five fifth grade teachers, so it was only $12 each.  Considering all the teachers (plus some substitutes) had happy tummies, I call this a win.  We're also off the hook for 11 months.

Third, I'm sick of this being my weekend:

So I made a change. I've stopped working from home and on the weekends. Yes, I'll continue to work on materials for Teachers Pay Teachers (because it doesn't feel like work). But unless it's a special occasion (report card comments), this work stays at work.  

I'm reclaiming my nights and weekends.  If I'm at work from 7-5 each day, that's enough. That's 3 hours unpaid work every day.  It's still not enough time to get everything accomplished, which is beyond frustrating (but also the life of a teacher).  Nights and weekends are for things that fuel my soul: couple time, pet time, friend time, family time, and/or nap time.  A week in, it's going fairly well.

Fourth, I'm making slow and steady progress through Love and Logic.  My goal of a book a month isn't quite on track, but January's book was nearly 500 pages (and this one is 300), and I'm taking copious amounts of notes, so it's okay.  

Up next? A book for Battle of the Books, then perhaps another teacher book.  I've had a few recommended during trainings, so my  Amazon cart keeps getting new additions.  (I'm saving receipts because it's tax deductable.)

This month also brings an in home party for Lularoe and Lipstains (co-hosted with our school's librarian), a quasi-bachelorette party, traveling to Anaheim for a conference, a GATE training, and preparing for two showers at work in April (a wedding shower and a baby shower).  We also have the SBAC (standardized testing) starting soon, and with that means a pep assembly...and assembling 200 green troll headbands.

We'll also be having our new cabinets dropped off.  We had custom built ins assembled, but I'll be staining them myself (so not only will they match the other cabinets I stained, we'll save a little in the process).  Our next home improvement project is replacing the flooring in the bathroom and doing the backyard.  We hope to have both completed by December.

A Day in the Life Of...

Ten days in and I'm finally having a chance to catch my breath and join the {Blogtember} conversation.

If you're new here, hi and welcome!

I'm in the midst of the beginning of the year chaos that always happens when I have three dozen ten year olds in my cozy classroom.  (Okay, there's only thirty five, but close enough!)

I'm also in the middle of wedding planning, so my blog is a combination of education and life experiences.

Today's challenge is a simple one:

Saturday, Sept. 10: A day in your life! Take us through it 

with you by sharing a photo each hour of the day.

 Thank goodness it's a weekend because I need a break!  (The beginning of the year is rough y'all!)

8:18 am:

B's off golfing and the house is quiet.  I have the gentle hum of a fan next to me, the puppy snoozing on the floor, and our two cats are curled up on the bathroom floor, enjoying the sunlight.  

I got to sleep in this morning.  My alarm(s) go off starting around five during the week, so sleeping in until eight was a treat this morning.  I enjoyed the last of the blueberry mini muffins for breakfast and tried to enter grades, but the server is having difficulties.  Darn, I guess that work will have to wait until Monday!

The rest of the day consists of relaxing, most likely a nap, going to finalize wedding flowers with our florist, the grocery store, and a nice dinner date.  My brother and his lovely girlfriend got me a gift card for my birthday to the Cheesecake Factory, so hooray for date night!

Tomorrow we're doing our first painting class (a "design and wine" one with mimosas) where B and I are painting Harry Potter inspired wine glasses:

(At least that's the goal of what they'll look like!)

We're also taking a friend dinner tomorrow because she had major surgery yesterday and feeding herself and her kids should be the last of her concerns during recovery.  The meal train was organized by Sunshine committee at work (where I'm co-chair) and it's just another reason I love where I work.  We look out for one another and it's such a welcoming, caring, and loving environment.

Our weekend will end with me yelling loudly at the refs during Sunday night football when my Cardinals take on the Patriots.  I'm hoping for an injury-free game and a Cardinals win!

How are you spending your day/weekend?

A dash of professional reading

I'm in the midst of another graduate course, so I've been doing a lot of professional reading lately.  I'm a life-long learner (as I think educators should be) and wanted to take a minute to share two articles that have been rattling around in my brain this week.

Article {One}: Boo the Long October

Preach it, iTeach Fourth!

I feel like I could have written this article myself.  I liked it so much I took the time to comment, instead of just trolling through and remaining anonymous online.

Basically, October is a long, weird month.  Students are out of the beginning of the year behavior honeymoon, meetings seem to be multiplying, and first quarter grades are due soon.  I'm almost a fourth of the way through the year, how did that happen?!

Instead of griping about this, the article focuses on a cute Halloween tradition of "booing" your fellow teachers.

Images are all over TpT and pinterest, but one person starts by secretly leaving treats in another coworker's mailbox.  That coworker has a limited time (usually 2 days) to reciprocate by "booing" another colleague.  Ghost or pumpkin dicuts are usually put in mailboxes to indicate that one has been booed, and a witch or goblin could be posted if someone does not want to participate.

It's a fun little way to add some festive fun into the month of October.  Plus who doesn't love surprise treats?!

I'll be starting this round of boo-ing at work this week (ssh...don't tell my coworkers!)  I've got two black and white polka dotted tins (obviously) from the dollar section at Target (again, obviously).  I'll fill them with candy and print some boo instruction sheets. 

What fun fall traditions does your school have?




Article {Two}: Rip those behavior charts off the wall and burn them

While this was written with a tad too much angst in my humble opinion, I agree with the underlying message.  The traditional "clip" or "chart" system no longer serves a purpose in classrooms. 

 I will be the first to admit that yes, I used this system for way too long.  I started it my first year as a teacher because that's what I thought I was supposed to do.  I thought every elementary classroom needed some sort of (very public) way of displaying behavior.  I thought this truly kept kids accountable for their choices and was a motivating factor.

But then I realized how wrong I was.  This isn't really motivating, it's demoralizing.  {Last summer}, I decided to discontinue the use of this system and I haven't looked back.  I know there is some resistance, especially in lower grades, about getting rid of this trusty security blanket.

What good does this behavior tracker actually do?  Almost immediately, your eyes zoom to those kids on red.  We all know what red means.  Tsk tsk Max, Jared, and Brendan.  

How demoralizing.

Did they truly make poor choices all day long?  Or did they simply have one or two "oops" moments throughout the seven hour school day?  Chances are, it's the latter of the two scenarios.  To be fair, what human goes all day long without making an oops moment?  

If a child is truly struggling to make appropriate classroom choices, how does this reinforce doing the "right thing"? 

...It doesn't.

This article goes on to state that as educators, part of our job is preparing students for coping with future demands.  This includes helping them take responsibility for their actions and utilize techniques to cope with mistakes.

As a teacher, I wouldn't if a behavior chart was used to publicly broadcast my performance to the entire staff.  Oops, Ms. Vice left her copies on the machine in the lounge!  Uh oh, she forgot to take afternoon attendance and now she's on red.  (These are common situations for me.)

How humiliating to have one's behavior broadcast for the world to see.  

But instead of continuing to gripe upon problems, I propose a counter solution: Class Dojo.

It's by no means a new teacher tool since it's been available for several years at this point, but it's new to my classroom.  Seven weeks in, we're loving it.  (Bonus? It's free.  That's a must!)

I have the opportunity to recognize students for both positive and negative behavior.  It's easy for me to see if I'm reinforcing the 3:1 ratio (three positive interactions with every negative redirect) with every child...especially the ones that struggle with behavior.  Parents are able to see all the great choices their students make and it's a quick and easy way for me to communicate with families.

The behavior categories are editable, which means I can give more weight to behaviors that are desirable (like meeting a personal academic goal).  

My favorite part? I can send out messages to all the families at once and see who has viewed my message.  This has replaced the Remind app because it's already built in to what I'm using and parents don't have to download two different things to stay connected to our classroom events.

What are your thoughts on behavior charts? 

Our frame

So it's like three weeks late, but one of my first tasks as co-chair of Sunshine Committee was to make a frame for first day of school selfies.

I appointed myself this craft project and didn't really ask anyone's permission.  

I used a velcro dot to attach the first day star to the frame.  There are matching stars for the last day and the hundredth day of school.

Kyla is one of my work wives :)

So is Mrs. H!  Her hubby knows of our close friendship.

Teachers need to have fun too!

Fifth Grade Team

The frame was a big hit and all the selfies were uploaded to our school's facebook page.

What fun first day traditions does your school have?

Exciting Changes

It's almost the start of another school year and I'm excited.  I'm ridiculously, optimistically, enthusiastically excited about this school year.

 Yes, the school district's budget is awful and I'm still upset about taking a pay cut, but there's not really anything I can do about it so there's no point to dwell on it.  As teachers, we've made our disapproval pretty clear! So it's time to move forward.

I have an amazing school that prioritizes people first.  We take our jobs seriously, but have lots of fun while working hard!  This culture of support and fun spills over into our classrooms and I think that's important.  I enjoy going to work.  I want to be there.  I enjoy the people I work with. 

It's an awesome feeling.

So now let's zoom in on what top ten things are contributing to my excitement:

1) Long Range Plans

We have long range plans done before the school year has started.  I feel like I have direction and a sense of purpose.  Last year, we didn't have plans and as a natural result, some activities ran too long and we hit major crunch time in March.  Our long range plans, which we know are flexible, have all our standards addressed by the beginning of April.  That leaves eight weeks of flexibility for testing, reteaching, and shifting things around due to school events (field trips, assemblies, etc).  

2) My Planner

Continuing with the excitement of long range plans, I have already sketched out the year in my teacher planner and created my online planning calendar.  

I have my first week's plans done and many of the copies already made.  Mrs. H and I are going to go over the plans on the way to day two of our math training on Monday, then head to school after to do some more planning.

3) Balance.  

With a new puppy at home, I'm not staying late each day.  I will go in early because that's when I work best, but I am leaving each day as soon as the parking lot is clear.  I've voiced it to others to keep me accountable, but I am going to leave on time to spend time with B and our fur babies. 

I've picked one night a week to work on things from home (whatever night B has class), but that's it.  I'll be more proactive in planning and keep my door closed more in the morning so I can get my work done.  I'll just ask my coworkers to respect closed door means work time while open door means I'm willing to chat.

I've got an upcoming trip to Arizona planned in October for my mom's birthday (and buying a new computer because this laptop is eight. EIGHT. This laptop is a third grader.)  

I've got fun girls nights planned.  We've got date nights to look forward to.  Friends have new babies that I get to snuggle, then hand back when the crying starts.  I've got a full calendar and there are fun social events planned!

4) Sunshine committee.

At the end of last year, I started talking to Mrs. S more at work.  She was always friendly, but she intimidated me.  Not only is she like a walking Amazon (six feet of gorgeousness) but also appears to have every aspect of her life together.  She crafts, has three young kids that are all involved in sports.  Not only does she show up to their games, but she makes their jerseys and does their make up (for dance, not for her son's football team).  Plus teaches, is quite good at it, and runs Sunshine committee.  It's a little intimidating!

However, she's also possibly one of the nicest people at my school.  I asked how I could help with Sunshine events next year without stepping on her toes.  She welcomed my ideas with open arms and we started talking.  Turns out, she lives maybe ten minutes from me.  She loves crafting, organizing, wine, and girl time as much as I do!

We've hung out over the summer under the attempt to plan Sunshine events (didn't happen) and she's become more than a colleague, she's a friend.

So next year, I get to have craft and wine parties with a friend.  It will be for school events, so it's legitimate procrastination.

5) DENSI 2015

I'm still in my glorious post DENSI bubble of happiness.  I signed up as an ambassador for my district, so I'll be hosting some PD in the coming months.  I'm still going through my notes and blogging about the amazing sessions I attended.  There are so many things I want to try, but I'm not going to overwhelm myself.  Two of the things I'm most excited about are notebook sketching and mystery skype.

6) Notebook Sketching

Also known as {embracing the doodling}, I'm excited to add more creativity into note taking with my students.  I know it will take some modeling but I'm eager to embrace something new.

Learn more about it {here}.


7) Mystery Skype

Our adventures with the map have been well documented.

The map is blank and ready for the next round of students.  However, this year we are stepping it up.  Last year we made powerpoint slides for each state, but didn't give students enough practice time identifying states and capitals on the map.  (That was quite obvious with the end of the year assessment.)  

This year, we're adding mystery skype.  Thanks in a large part to my tribe, the DEN, I am connected to educators in every other state.  We're going to call other classrooms and have students try to guess where each other are from, using geography clues.

For example:

1) Does your state border an ocean?
2) Are you closer to Mexico or Canada?
3) Are you east or west of the Mississippi River?

It will require some flexibility (time zones) but I think it will be a great learning opportunity for my students.

8) Engage NY

Last year, math was frustrating to plan.  We were pulling mostly from Engage NY's lessons, but didn't follow their pacing guide.  As a result, many of the lessons had to be tweaked.  After switching up planning roles, Engage NY was abandoned because it was too time consuming.  I didn't agree with the change, but I must remind myself of this:

This year, it was decided by my admin that all grade levels would be using this.  There are no excuses.  We've also split up the copying load so everyone has a role for each unit.  I think that it's important for all of us to be involved with the planning of all subjects.

9) Novels

I've picked the novels I want to do with students and am fairly positive I already have enough copies!  We'll start the year with The Lightning Thief, move into Esperanza Rising, and finish the year with Number the Stars.  It's a tad ambitious to do three novels, but I think we can do it.  All of the fifth grade reading literature standards can be taught with these novels and I think it's important to have students involved in longer, more complex texts.

10) Support

I'm not alone. I have a supportive grade level.  I have a great school.  I have teacher friends in other districts.  I have a (future) family member who is now licensed to sub, so I don't foresee having to worry about finding someone to watch my kids if I'm out of the classroom for the day.  I have my DEN tribe and know that I can reach out, virtually, for support and be overwhelmingly comforted by the advice of others.

I have a wonderfully supportive fiancee.  He's even willing to help me sharpen hundreds of pencils next week (because that's love).  People have shown their true colors recently and while that was a painful moment, I'd choose to focus on the overwhelming support and loving messages I've received from others.  

I'm in the midst of planning my wedding (no major developments) and enjoying this engagement period.  I've received lots of advice, some welcomed and some not, but it's nice to see people (for the most part) supportive of my choice to spend forever with that goober B of mine.  However, I want to remind them all that I was on student council, I was an RA, I'm a teacher, and I'm a ridiculously type A person.  I like logistics. I've got this wedding planning handled!

Monday brings day two of a math training and classroom prep.  Tuesday brings finalizing my room.  Wednesday marks the official start of training and next Monday will be my first day with students.  Right now, my roster is sitting at 31 and that's where I hope it stays!

There will be moments of darkness and periods of doubt.  I'm glad I've got support to turn to.  This year will be the best yet.  Thanks for being a part of it.