Time to Revive this Blog

I haven't posted in what seems forever. This last school year I got pregnant and had a baby just 2 months ago. My life has now been consumed by caring for an infant and not giving teaching a second thought. In September, I go back to work and will be teaching Kindergarten. I'm sad I'm leaving first grade but it will be a nice change. Maybe I should think about changing the name of this blog but who knows what grade I will be teaching in 2015 since I'm a SPED teacher and I can be bounced around in my school. ICT's depend on numbers and this upcoming year we have a lot of K special needs kids and two ICT classes. First grade only needs one ICT class so I was the lucky one to get bumped. I think it was because I was on maternity leave when reorganization happened and it was easier to move the teacher who wasn't in the building because she wasn't there to bitch lol. Oh well, I love my co-teacher for next year.

This past school year was extremely difficult for me. Between being pregnant and a new teacher evaluation system I was always on edge. Basically I'm observed 6 times during the year and my principal and assistant principal can walk in at any time and sit down for 20 min and observe my lesson. It's awful! One observation my principal didn't think was well planned and I was pretty much told that not so nicely. It was a Math lesson teaching addition strategies doubles plus one and doubles minus one. Google that if you don't know what it is. I've never taught a concept like this before and Go Math was brand new to me. I went to some PD's for it and was using concepts taught at those PD's and she didn't seem to agree with them because everyone else was doing the same thing except me. My reply to her was "Well they got the lesson by the end." Isn't that the result we want regardless how we teach it? She stated to me "They're six. Of course they'll get it!" I really didn't know what to say. That was the most ridiculous answer an administrator has ever given me. You can't even argue that. Needless to say she made me cry and feel like an incompetent educator. Ten years I've been teaching and NEVER had a bad observation. She had not one positive thing to say to me. But she didn't count it and observed me another time. Still, I will never forget that day and how she made me feel. I definitely have a different outlook of my school after that. But that's a different post for a different day. Are you being evaluated by Danielson's Rubric? How is it going? Any NYC DOE teachers out there dealing with it? I think we as teachers know our students better than anyone else academically. I have a very hard time when someone walks into my classroom and from one glimpse tells me I'm doing something ineffectively. Hoping for a better upcoming year.

Teaching Manners

Every month our principal chooses a book of the month. Every other month we have to submit a classroom writing response to it. Then the book is sent home with a child everyday accompanied by a notebook for both parent and child to respond in. This months BOTM is "Do Unto Otters" by Laurie Keller. I've never heard of the book but when I read it I just thought it was the cutest book ever! The characters are adorable and the way she displays the text in the book is so unique. After reading we created a list of manners that rabbit spoke about. We also discussed the way rabbit said these things using speech bubbles! Our response to the book was creating a poster using speech bubbles. Students wrote in the manners they thought were most important. I wanted to have them write why they thought that manner was important but due to lack of time it just wasn't possible. I got the idea from rowdy in first grade. If you need a book that teaches good manners and is engaging then I suggest you check this book out. I also found these these awesome resources on picture book lessons blog. I really need to start remembering to take pictures of the work we do.

Classroom Management

Now that my students are starting to settle into the class I've noticed they like to chit chat a lot on the rug. This is one of the behaviors I want to really work on this year, as well as, staying seated during independent work time. I find managing 24 students behaviors to be exhausting and not to mention sometimes they truly just don't care. This year I've been using ClassDojo and WOW what a difference. I am able to reward multiple students at the same time and it's up on our Promethean Board all day. We check it after every period is concluded and we go over any behaviors we need to work on as a class. There is a visual graph to show the class what areas they excel in and where they need to improve. I've had most of my students log onto the website and create their own avatar. They can also check in to see what their classmates have done to their avatar. I had a parent ask me today about her son's behavior because she got an email alert from ClassDojo saying he did not follow directions. WHOA! I almost didn't know what to say. My co-teacher is totally in love with Dojo. We talk about earning Dojo points all day. At the end of each week the student with the most amount of points earns a reward. We let them shop in our prize box or take a DVD for the weekend. Slowly they are starting to fall into a routine. I think this year is going to be a good one after all. If you haven't checked out ClassDojo I highly suggest you do. It's really a helpful tool to have.

The First Two Days

So, it is official. We are now into our third day of school tomorrow. So far it hasn't been all that bad. This year we are on a new schedule since our school day changed. We used to have two days where we would support struggling students after school in ELA and Math. We really found that the extended day wasn't helping the struggling students because they were exhausted by 2:40. We now changed our day from ending at 2:40 to 3:05. We built the extra help into our daily schedule and now all students are serviced from 8:20 - 3:05. It's been a very difficult transition especially for our new first graders who had lunch last year at 11:00 and now because of the schedule change they have to eat at 12:30. That's INSANE! As a parent I'd be furious. Especially since we are not allowed to give snack. Basically from 11:00 - 12:25 I have a very whiny class who really isn't learning much but how to complain for 90 minutes. We are going to get through this week but if this continues to happen and they do not adjust then I'm going to push to have a working snack for my students where they can work and eat. How can I be upset with them when I'm starving by 11:00 and I eat breakfast. There is absolutely no food in the classroom which stinks that I can't munch on pretzels or something. I'm not sure what's going to be done but all the first grade teachers are experiencing the same issue.

Anyway, yesterday we read First Day Jitters, had Jitter Juice, wrote about ourselves in writing and then graphed how we felt on the first day of school in Math. I did this lesson last year and I really liked it. I gave my students circles and they drew how they felt on the face. They had to choose from happy, sad, angry, nervous, and excited. I think they really did an awesome job. For the most part they were all happy and they all came back today so I didn't scare them off. I do have one student who I can see already is going to need a lot of help staying on track academically and behaviorally. I hope we get him a para ASAP because I'm realizing I can't take my eyes off him for 2 seconds.

Today in writing my students worked on drawing about themselves. I taught them that good writers choose topics to write about (people, places, things). This month our mentor author is Joy Cowley. I think she gives students amazing ideas of topics to write about. She has great humor and such cute characters in her stories. I've really grown to love her in the last year. I gave my kids a blank t-shirt template to draw pictures about themselves. Tomorrow they are going to write about one thing on their shirt that is special to them. This is going up on our bulletin board this month. I will take a picture when it's finished. Hope everyone had a great first few days back. Summer is just around the corner.

Tomorrow is the 12th anniversary of 9/11. I have this amazing view from my couch that reminds me what an amazing city I live in. I'm truly fortunate.

Qualities of Effective Close Reading

On Wednesday we had our first PD of the year on Close Reading. We started to implement this into our classrooms early this past spring and we modified it to 30 minutes three days a week. This year we are jumping right in first thing in the morning everyday for 30 minutes. Students will arrive in the classroom drop their bags at their tables and get right down to decomposing unfamiliar complex texts. I'm not sure how I feel about it right now but I'll let you know in a few weeks. Anyway, here's what I learned at our PD. I hope it helps you out.

Qualities of Effective Close Reading

1. Selection of a brief, high-quality, complex text.  Limiting the length of the passage allows students the opportunity to apply new skills and strategies through multiple readings of the text.
2. Individual reading to the text.  Students unable to read the text independently might engage in a partner read or a group read in lieu of an independent attempt.
3. Group reading aloud.  A group read aloud might be teacher-or student-led.  This practice supports the engagement of all students, especially those who struggle with reading the text independently, and reinforces the primacy of the text throughout Close Reading lessons.
4. Text-based questions and discussion that focus on discrete elements of the text.  Questions and discussion may focus on the author’s word choices and repetition, specific sentences, literacy devices, academic vocabulary, or particular passages containing information that is key to the curricular objective. 
5. Discussion among students.  These discussions, either in small groups or across the whole class, will ensure that the text-as opposed to personal reflections-remains the focus as the reader explores the author’s choices.
6. Writing about the text.  Students may be asked to reflect on the knowledge gained through Close Reading in short or long written passages.

First Day Jitters Activity

So the first day of school for NYC is upon us. On Monday I plan to read "First Day Jitters" by Julie Danneberg. I taught this lesson last year but I vamped it up this year with more questions for my students. I also found this really cute poem for "Jitter Juice" I plan to give my kids. I saw a lot of recipes that had soda in it and I'm not really comfortable giving that to them since we promote healthy eating at our school. So instead I'm going to mix lemonade or orange juice with seltzer water using equal parts. I created a powerpoint that goes along with the story using a venn diagram to compare how teachers and students got ready for the first day, leveled questioning and follow up activities to do in class. I believe this lesson can really be stretched out over 2 days if you really put some thought into it. You can find my lesson here on my TpT store.

Owl Decorating

 Today was our first official day back for teachers in NYC. Hooray! After our meeting about Danielson's Rubric for the morning we finally were able to spend the afternoon creating our classroom environments. I continued with my owl theme by making name tags for our door. I printed out my owls in different sizes and them laminated them. I then used a Vis-a-Vis marker and wrote each students name on the owl. At the end of the year I wipe off the name and I can reuse them next year for my door or something else in my room. The picture isn't the best because of the glare but you can get an idea. Tomorrow I will add the finishing touches and upload pics. You can find my Owl Labels here.

Writing Bulletin Board

Yesterday I went in to set up my classroom so I can have my two full days next week to plan and not have to worry about cosmetic things. Of course when I show up my classroom looks as if it went through a tornado over the summer. Everything was out of place and I made the mistake of not taking a photo before I put everything away. So with that I decided to move things around because change is good. I'm on an owl kick if you haven't noticed. Since I've gotten photoshop I started playing and I've created owls, hence my classroom theme for the year.

I just finished up my reading bulletin board and you can check that out on my previous post. So, today I spent the day creating my writing bulletin board where I hang up the 5 major elements in writing. This is what I teach my first graders throughout the year. There are 5 areas we focus on: focus, detail, structure, voice and conventions. After the first month of school and assessing where my students are they are assigned reading and writing goals. We conference together and talk about their strengths and weaknesses in writing and how we can get better. Students write out their goals and stick a small post it with their name on the goal they are working on. I actually thought this would be too much for my kids last year but most of them really understood what we were expecting out of them. It was nice to see a piece of writing they did and how proud they were when they met or came close to that goal. You can find my writing goals on my TpT store. Here's a sample of my writing goals. I printed them on card stock and laminated them. They look amazing. Next up are my owl labels for my classroom door. Stay tuned!

Tenure Portfolio

Table of Contents

It's that time of year. Tenure time! After blood, sweat and tears it's finally complete and I have a GREAT feeling about it. I've added my resume, teaching philosophy, formal observations, student work samples, unit plans, student photos, letters of recommendation, and projects outside of work. It took about 3 days of work, proofreading and reorganizing to finally make myself content. The binder is visual making it simple and clear to whomever is viewing it. I found this sample portfolio very helpful. Check it out!

Seperators

Conferring in Writing Workshop

This year I've been lucky enough to work with writing guru Carl Anderson. He's taught me how to not dread the conferring part of writing workshop. Let's face it, writing is just plain hard for some students and they dread the conference as much as you do. I had to take a step back and figure out why I had that dreadful feeling some days. The problem was me. I tried to do too much with a struggling student and I was the one overwhelming them making them dread me! I reorganized my teaching notes to have a clear teaching point for that day. I already knew where my students struggled so I knew to pick the most important area, whether it was focus, detail, conventions or structure. For one of my students I made her goal to improve her use of conventions in her writing (e.g. capitals, punctuation, and finger spacing). This is what we've been working on all year and boy have I seen improvements. She doesn't wince when it's time to conference anymore. I'd say all of my students now understand they have one clear goal to focus on in there writing. I think what we as educators need to understand is that our students already feel bombarded with information we throw out at them all day. Having a clear teaching point makes for an effective conference between teacher and student.

Qualities of Effective Teaching Points

1. We give clear, precise feedback to the student.
2. We should start the conference off by saying, "Something good writers do is....."
3. We name what we are teaching the student. For example: five finger rule in writing.
4. We give an explanation of what we are teaching (what is it? why are we teaching it?)
5. We give clear example of what we want the student to do by using mentor texts and our own writing samples.
6. We have the student give it a go by talking it out and telling them, "I'd like you to try this right now..."
7. We end the conference by linking the conference to the student’s work and reminding them to keep trying it in future writings.