My desire to go to bed at five o'clock this evening should be a pretty good indication of how things are going at work.
(I know I've shared this image before...but it's still true. It's also tomorrow's morning meme.)
I got a new student this week. She's number thirty four (one already moved back to Mexico, so she replaces the empty desk). She's from a neighboring school and it appears her family moved, so luckily for me, she's already familiar with our school's Reading Rangers program.
I'm juggling planning social studies units with reading plans. I'm making some major tweaks to last year's region works, but I will happily share (on TpT) once they're done! I'm almost done with my beginning of the year tasks (setting up Class Dojo, getting everyone benchmarked, establishing procedures, setting up progress monitoring schedules, and so on and so forth). I'm hoping this weekend, when I'm not doing exciting wedding planning things, will provide a lot of time to catch up and get a little bit ahead (crazy concept, I know!). B is on call (extra money for the wedding), so I'll do my part in finishing up products.
I'm all caught up on my grading (for now), sent some positive emails to parents to try to build up that community, and tried to catch my breath.
Our year is off to a rocky start. One of my students had her iPhone stolen from her desk. Granted, it wasn't supposed to be in her desk and she was showing it off to her peers. It's unclear when the phone went missing because she claims to have noticed it gone right after lunch, but didn't tell me until the end of the day...on a Friday. I took witness statements and handed those over to administration (who in turn handed them over to school police), we advised them to file additional reports. Not the best way to start the school year. I feel so frustrated and violated because it happened in my classroom. It also brings back unpleasant memories of some of the issues we dealt with last year.
We also had another bombshell dropped on us today. It's not a secret the district is having money woes. The funds are there, they are just being extremely mismanaged. (Yes, still irritated that I got a pay cut, but new teachers got a $4,000 hiring bonus because the school district's focus is on "recruiting new talent" apparently with no regard to retaining the talent they already have.) Apparently, sometime before mid December, I have to attend an evening or Saturday clinic put on by the Teacher's Health Trust in order to keep my insurance for next year. The insurance that's included in my contract as part of my benefits plan. I don't know how they can mandate that we give up additional time outside of contract hours for what will clearly be a less than helpful training, but we shall see.
For the past few days, we've been in a school wide reading competition. Our students have been reading up a frenzy and the teachers were evenly split between the red reading team and the blue rangers team.
I take spirit days very, very seriously. Scarves, a red Gryffindor shirt, hair bows, a belt, and an Arizona Cardinals snuggie were all part of my attire at some point today. Twenty four of my students participated in today's red challenge.
After reading all morning (and practicing our grade level chant), we headed outside for the kick off. We had a dozen or so cheerleaders from UNLV, district employees, an author, and all of first through fifth grade outside.
Naturally, we seized the opportunity to snap some selfies! Kyla is one of my bridesmaids and I'm so glad she left our previous school and joined me at school two. We took a big leap of faith together!
They announced winners of the reading competitions and all the teachers were strongly encouraged to do the Nae Nae. Yup, I danced the nae nae in front of about a thousand people today. You know, just your typical Thursday as an elementary school teacher.
Luckily, tomorrow is Friday. I don't intend for there to be any dancing...but you never know with fifth grade.
Besides conquering both laundry and an exciting day at Chevy (recall on my car, nothing major), my other goal for the day was to get started on my first week lesson plans.
While emotionally preparing to open Curriculum Engine (the site where we make & store our digital lesson plans), I got distracted on pinterest by preparing for your first week articles. Most of them weren't that helpful, but I found this {one} that had some good points.
Here are my favorite take-aways from the article:
#1: "Set up your classroom in an active learning format"
Fingers crossed the rumors are true and my projector got ceiling mounted over the summer! I was spoiled with a ceiling mounted one for years and forgot how much I'd missed it. Not having a desk or table in the center of the room really clears up space. Not to mention I'd get to skip the daily (okay, several times each day) frustration of when a child accidentally (or sometimes on purpose) would bump the projector, causing the smartboard to need to be recalibrated. Without the desk and cord set up (hello tripping hazard), I would be able to teach from the center of the room and strategically move closer toward off task students.
#2: Starting the day off with something other than roll call
We have our morning procedures (unpack, papers turned in, backpacks hung up, pencils sharpened, etc) and class jobs (lunch cards, attendance) but then we do our morning meme.
Yup, we start our day off with a meme and it just sets everyone off on a good day. Laughter is always good thing! You can follow my classroom meme pinterest board {here}! Plus if you've got a funny classroom meme, send it my way!
#3: Make Up work:
I've done the orange "while you were gone" folders and I haven't decided if I want to keep it again. I already have them made, so that's a plus. (Apparently I don't have a picture, but it's a florescent orange folder that says "we missed you".)
I like the idea of using a tub and putting a file in for each day in the month (1-31). All extras would be filed there (minus one for me to use as the master copy if needed). With this system, I'd only have to clean it out once a month :)
#4: Class Norms:
Preach! This is one of our first week activities with a gallery walk. I remake the class norms poster each year and have them sign it. It helps with our buy in and provides a nice link to the US Constitution (when we get there in social studies).
#7: Noise
We are near a kinder classroom. We do our best. Sometimes there is just loud shouting, crying, and other unidentifiable noises so I just shake my head, try not to laugh, and remind them that I teach fifth grade for a reason.
#9
We don't do questions stems per say, but rather accountable talk stems. I want my students to answer in complete sentences and know that it's okay for them to disagree with one another as long as they do it in a respectable manner.
It started like this:
But has evolved to this:
I have these in my classroom at the front of the room. They are color coded to help students know how to phrase their comments. Accountable talk stems also help students listen to one another because I expect them to give credit to one another for ideas.
#11: Encouraging risks
I want to do more of this, but I'm not sure how. Wheels in my brain are spinning, stay tuned!
#12: Self-reflection
I have them reflect on their learning throughout the day and we have class discussions after we try something new (particularly if it doesn't go exactly as I've planned). I don't know if my fifth graders could handle a written reflection daily, but I like when they reflect upon their learning (which should happen often).
#17: Blog
We've got a weebly and I hope I have more parent communication with it. I'll be doing class dojo as well to foster communication with families. I do want to turn some of the responsibility of blogging over to my students. I think it'd be a great venue for collaboration as well as authentic writing. They have an audience: their classmates and their families, so I think they'd do a good job trying to impress one another. It'd also be a great way to imbed those mini-lessons on technology that are so important.
#18: Class jobs
Again, amen! My first few years in the classroom, I tried to do all these things myself. But fun fact: kids want to help! Fifth graders are not too cool to be motivated by a high five or a sticker. They want to feel in control and help, so I might as well turn some of the smaller tasks over to them.
I have 36 different classroom jobs and it helps me stay sane. Obviously I can't have them grade essays, but I can have them remind me to take attendance, file nurse notes, lead the class in the pledge, pass out lunch cards and papers, and other small time-consuming tasks. I like to set aside the last five minutes of the day (during our "pack and stack") for class jobs and tidying. Another "negative Nancy" teacher has commented time and again that her students don't need classroom jobs and that things just magically get done. I like structure and I don't think that's a bad thing. We switch up jobs every month and I have students vote on their top five choices.
#20: Learning Styles Assessment
I try to shape my lessons to hit multiple learning modalities (auditory, visual, kinesthetic) but it's nice for my students to realize what type of learners they are. Most of them have never really thought about this before fifth grade, so it's nice for them to think about themselves as learners. I stress that it's okay to be a combination of styles. Knowing what "type" they are empowers them to take charge of their learning and that's never a bad thing!
What were your take aways from the article? Any "ah ha" moments?
Continuing the new ideas, simplicity trend, here are three more ideas for next year. I'm excited for small tweaks to make a huge, positive differences.
Idea 11: Beginning of the Year "I am" statement for writing notebooks
This would be such a cute first page in their writing notebooks. It'd be great for students to see themselves as multidimensional people and an easy way for them to get to know each other!
Idea Twelve: Clothespin revival
I've tried the push pin strategy with clothes pins, but I like this one for more permanent places:
Since I moved recently, I seem to have a plethora of extra command strips! I could easily decorate the clothespins to match my classroom colors (once I you know, determine those). Thanks Fifth in the Middle for the idea!
Idea Thirteen: Morning Memes
To be fair, this isn't entirely a new idea for next year. Last February, I started doing a morning meme to add some positivity in the morning. They were a great way to connect with students and reinforce various topics (rules, grammar, being nice, etc). The memes would inspire my students to talk with one another and start our day on a positive note.
I've been pinning ideas to my Pinterest morning meme board, which you can follow here!
What new ideas are you excited to try?
As I wrote about before, we've been doing morning memes. We start our day with a funny meme or morning message, like these:
We read these before going over our daily schedule. The humor creates a positive classroom environment and gets them talking first thing in the morning. Sometimes they need to explain the meme to one another, which emphasizes the importance of sharing ideas.
Since not everyone has smart notebooks, I decided to make a pinterest board with the memes I've been using. You can follow it here and use the images in your classroom as well! If you don't have smart notebook, use powerpoint instead :)
Hopefully your students love the morning memes as much as mine do!
In an effort to add some more joy in the classroom, I borrowed my neighbor's idea for a morning meme.
Instead of me nagging them about various things, I've decided to find memes to do the work for me!
So today, they were greeted by Ms. Beyonce:
They laughed and I got my point across. I'm super excited about our new routine!
