The past three years I've been blessed with the opportunity to grow as an educator...in the form of very difficult students and a lot of escalating classroom drama.
So this summer meant a nice break from teaching in the form of complete disconnect.
I didn't sub. I worked on long range plans for about two hours a week, but only with a friend. I read a few books but they were ones I wanted to read. I spent a lot of time thinking about who I want to be (and a lot of time with Netflix).
As a result, I'm headed into August feeling excited about a new year. (Exhausted, but excited.)
One of my new things for the classroom this year?
Less colors.
While bright colors are welcoming and create a warm environment, I think they had an adverse effect on some of my students and only heightened their dramatic personalities.
This year, I'm going with calming grays and blues. I'm strongly leaning towards a nautical theme, so I see hints of red and white dispersed throughout the room.
I'm headed into my classroom on Thursday (after a planning meeting with the other coaches) and am excited to get started. I will also need to be very honest with myself because I'm still healing from surgery and will not get everything done in one day.
Something else that's new?
I'll be co-teaching with the GATE teacher. I won't have any SPED students (except possibly speech) and instead of my students leaving for GATE (Gifted & Talented Education), they'll receive their extension services as a push-in model.
I also just finished this:
I borrowed it from our counselor. The teacher version has been on back order for what seems like forever, but Amazon tells me it will be shipped out soon. Some of the stuff wasn't super applicable to the classroom, but there were some good ideas for shifting my instruction.
The biggest take away was choice. Giving students the opportunity to choose between two options (both of which I'd be okay with) and allowing them to feel control over their classroom and life.
The second big take away was to get away from the savior complex in which I'd want to solve all of their conflicts. In doing so, I deprive them of the opportunity to grow and practice creative problem solving. I'm hoping by setting the norm that I won't be interfering with their small problems will eliminate me hearing about most of their small problems. This doesn't mean I won't listen, this doesn't mean I won't care, it just means I won't fix their lives for them. Larger problems, like those involving administration or CPS will definitely be addressed quickly and respectfully. But I don't want to have anymore hallway conversations about the theft of pencils. It was draining and I don't want another frustrating year like last year (hopefully).
I also saw this book floating around the message boards of my PLN (Professional Learning Network):
So I tossed it into my Amazon cart. From the reviews, it seems to be just what I need!
As I {previously shared}, I'm in charge of social studies long range plans.
I thought I'd just be able to reuse what I made last year, but after I looked at it again with fresh eyes, I decided that I needed to just start over.
I wanted to focus more on the landforms of each state so students could see how regions were geographically similar. I wanted to include vocabulary that they'd hear in the FOSS Landforms Kit (which is being taught in humanities). I wanted to be more consistent with each state including the same information (images of state flag, state quarter, state seal) and the same basic layout.
This, unfortunately, is a massive undertaking but all the fifth grade classes are not only using it, but enjoying it as well.
Last night, many, many hours after my contract time ended, I finished the introduction and Intermountain region powerpoint. Coming in at 119 slides, it took quite a while to upload to Dropbox and TpT. I designed it to be a ten day unit, with the first being an overview of what defines a region and how they're created. The next eight days focus on the eight states in the Intermountain region, with one day at the end for a test. I zoomed in on Yellowstone National Park, so that could be a day within itself.
You can snag it {here}.
I designed the lessons to be about 15-20 minutes per day, since that's all we seem able to squeeze into our schedules.
This weekend I'll jump into the West Region with an additional topics on volcanoes, the Northern Lights, and tectonic plates. From there, I think the Great Plains and the Midwest will be the next two regions, followed by the South, New England, and Mid Atlantic. After all the states are covered, we'll be working on Native American Indians, Exploration, Plymouth, Colonial Times, the American Revolution, and the foundation of our government. The year will end with a civics and government unit.
Hopefully this year (lucky #7) will feel like the last year that I have to keep reinventing the wheel and working so hard to create curriculum for my students. There will always be tweaks and trying new things, but I feel like a first year teacher all over again. It's a little rough this year. But at least it's Friday!
We are sharing our planning responsibilities as a grade level this year and I get to take the charge on the social studies (government, civics, geography, and economics) plans.
This is how I feel:
My undergraduate focus wasn't education, it was pre-law. However, you can't major in pre-law, so it was Political Science with a minor in Global Studies and certificates in Civic Education as well as Philosophy, Politics, and Law. However, I didn't end up in law school and thank goodness for that!
I do hold a master's degree (and thirty additional credits) in education, so I have a pretty good idea what to do in the classroom. (Seven years' worth of experience helps too!)
I'm excited to get to synthesize my extensive background knowledge into a cohesive, scaffolded introduction to the social sciences.
We are starting with {What is Geography?} and the {5 themes of geography} before we move into different types of maps, including this {sort}. From there, we'll dive into regions utilizing Mystery Skype and the map.
You know, the map:
After that we'll move into Native American Indian Research Projects and have them write a fiction story based on their research. They'll create diaries as a member of a Native American Indian tribe. This will tentatively be happening as our culminating writing project in November, thus integrating social studies and writing.
From there, we'll review colonial history before moving into branches of government. I plan to embed economics into each region (in addition to land forms to pre-teach the FOSS kit they'll be doing in humanities).
I hope to have all of this fun wrapped up around winter break, but know I have a much larger window if needed. I know GATE is focusing on multiple perspectives in history this year with a focus on the colonial period, so that's exciting to have that built in extension for my students.
As I finalize products and plans, they'll be available on TpT! Stay tuned :)
