Learning How to be a Better Teacher

Even though I have completed my Master's degree, and was recently re-certified with my Advanced Professional Certificate, I am still taking classes. Well one class anyway.

A few of my old teammates and I all signed up for this class together so we could better keep in touch over the summer and beginning of the school year. Since all 4 of us will be teaching at different schools this year, that was my primary reason for singing up.

I am currently in the middle of "Studying Skillful Teaching' which is helping me re-examine my teaching practices, planning, and beliefs. I had heard it was a horrendous class ans was super hard, but I am actually enjoying it. Our instructor is great, and that truly makes the difference of 'participating because I have to' and 'wanting to go, learn, and participate'.


Also, this was my test run for leaving Kate with my mom while I went to work. I dropped her off around 7 and was on my way by 7:30.  It was hard leaving her the first day and I thought she was in the car with me (but was so quiet she must have fallen asleep) on the second day. She also drank all the milk I left for her and needed the emergency formula on the second day. Overall she was happy, ate and napped well, and I actually liked getting out of the house and doing something work related for a few hours. I'm still going to enjoy my summer with Kate, but maybe going back to work won't be so bad after all.

beach baby

1st Grade- in Boxes

Tuesday was the last day of school. I was planning to go in for the end of year luncheon, say goodbye to my coworkers, and begin to pack up my classroom. The plan was to start packing up Tuesday afternoon, continue on Wednesday (the professional day) and then recruit family members to help me remove everything on Saturday.

Well, Tuesday I read an e-mail that says Reminder, because of summer cleaning the third floor will be unavailable after Wednesday. If I didn't get my stuff out by Wednesday it would be stuck until August. I was in shock, and upset. There was no first e-mail, so I don't know how this counts as a reminder. So the plan quickly became who can help me get all my s*** out on Wednesday? Thanks to my dad everything was boxed up by 10:30am. And thanks to two friends (who were able to check out of their school that morning) and two co-workers (who watched Kate as we used the elevator to move everything) all the boxes were in my mom's CR-V and my friend's CR-V by 1:00.

Everything came home- since my school will be moving to a holding school in December, I didn't want to take everything and then move it again in a few months.

Then it came time to find a place to store everything.

Luckily, Kate doesn't have too much so we were able to commandeer her closet.

Everything else went to the basement.

I will need to go through all my books and activity books to figure out what will come with me in the fall, and what can stay behind until the spring. But I am ready (in theory) to start the new year. I already have tons of ideas, and lots of things to print from pinterest.

A Peek into the Future

Next year I will be teaching at a new school. It is extremely close to my mom's house and, since she will be watching Kate in the fall, was the perfect choice. I interviewed at two schools and ultimately chose this one because of its location and similarity to my current school.

I stopped by today to take a look at my new room.

A mess. But it is the end of the year and I will be able to completely gut/change the room in the fall. Anyways, it will only be my room for the first half of the year. The school is going to be torn down/rebuild in December and I will be in a holding school for the rest of the year and for the following school year as well.

Lots and lots of changes coming. It's a little scary. It's a lot exciting. Now to scour pinterest and get ideas for the fall!

New Opportunities

I loved teaching Head Start so it was a shock to learn that I wouldn't be able to do so this year. Instead I was moved to First Grade. It was definitely a big change, with a lot more pressures for student performance. But in the end I love what I do and ended up liking the students' capabilities and different skills I was able to teach.
That said, I  had decided to try and change schools for next year. I loved my team, but more than half of them were also looking to change schools for various reasons. That, along with having a new baby, encouraged me to apply to other schools. The only problem was that the job fair (where you can interview with many different schools all in one place on one day) was the week after I delivered Kate.  I had 3 schools want to schedule interviews, and after explaining that I was in the hospital and wouldn't make it to the job fair the following week, two schools offered to let me interview later in the week at their schools (but couldn't believe I had just had a baby and was up and out a week later).

These two schools were completely different. One was brand-spanking-new. It had just reopened in January with new everything- we're talking promethium boards and five touch screen computers in each classroom. The families of this school were more affluent than the population I taught for the past 5 years.

The other school was more like my current school- low(er) income families, many English Language Learners, and a building that was very old with not many perks.

I was offered Kindergarten at the first school, and First Grade at the second. So which school did I choose?

The second school that was more similar to where I was teaching before. Why? First- it is literally 5 minutes from my mom's house. She will be watching Kate next year and cutting my commute time was a huge reason for wanting to switch schools. Second- The principal basically head-hunted me. She e-mailed me, then called my school, then called me (when I was still in the hospital) to schedule an interview. She basically offered me the job on the spot (even though she couldn't officially offer the job until the following day). Also, I like working with the population. These families (in my experience) are so appreciative of what teachers and the school do to help their children learn.

You may be asking 'But what about all the new technology in the other school?'
Well- good news. My new school is scheduled to be re-built next year. So while I will have the inconvenience of being in a holding school for a year (which is luckily located only about 10-15 minutes from mom's house) I will be rewarded with a brand-spanking-new building with all the perks of the more affluent school.

I am so excited to start the year in a new school. It's a fresh start and the staff seems so nice/welcoming.
Now I just have to coordinate packing my old room and sending supplies to my new school.

The Big Reveal

So today was the day! I told my students that I'm having a baby.
I first started by asking them to predict what my surprise is- I got a bunch of responses that it would be about my cat (or a car or a puppy) and none of them said baby! The aid that works in my room came by to see their reaction, so she graphed their predictions.

Of course she didn't  write "It's a baby!!!" until after I read that part in my book. But the kids still yelled "I knew it!" and I showed them that- no, they didn't, they thought my surprise was my cat.
Anyway, they were really excited and asked a bunch of questions like I thought they would. There was no questions of "how do you get pregnant" or how do you have a baby" which I was very thankful for. But they did talk about how it would come out, and that it hurts, and having to go to the hospital.
One of my boys kept saying "I'm glad I'm not a girl"
Then that asked how i knew it would be born in April, and if it was a boy or a girl. So I explained that it takes 40 weeks for the baby to grow and the baby has been growing for 25 weeks already. Then we charted if we think the baby will be a boy or a girl.

Apparently baby Stybs is a boy because it kicks me- as one girl said "when my mom had me I didn't move, but with my little brother he moved and kicked a lot"

But the funniest comment by far was when they talked about the heartbeat. I said that the doctor had a machine that could let us hear the heartbeat, and they started asking about what would happen if the heart beats so fast... and then the baby comes out running... and then what if it comes out so fast it starts flying around the room like Superman...
I couldn't tell if the kids was serious or joking, but when he drew the picture I burst out laughing.

The best part of the day was at dismissal and all the girls were saying by to the baby and rubbing my belly, then as one girl left she yelled back to me "Take care of the baby!"

I love these kids. They are so funny sometimes.

Christmastime is Near

As I prepare for our winter rotation tomorrow (where I get to teach about where chocolate comes from, and the kids get to enjoy hot chocolate) and count down to 3pm on Friday I am still don't believe Christmas is this weekend. All the shopping and wrapping is done, but I have yet to make any cookies. :( I am looking at all the Christmas cards coming in, but we didn't send any out (again!). Sorry. But at least it will be a nice break and I can spend some (more) time preparing for baby.

While we can't celebrate in school, almost all of my students are telling me that Christmas is Sunday, and talking about Santa and what presents they are getting.

On Friday I will finally be spilling the beans about my little bean. This week I finally got some of the girls saying "you look like you have baby" but I've just brushed them off. I wanted to read "Our Teacher' Having a Baby" by Eve Bunting, but it is out of print. My school library does not have it, and the public libraries don't have it either. To order it at Barnes and Nobel would cost me $40, and on Amazon it costs upwards of $90! So while it was the perfect story (I mean, the students are in First grade! That's not a coincidence!) it was just not in the cards for me to use it. Instead, I'm making my own book. I still need to put it all together, and print it out, but here's what it will say:

Mrs. S---'s Surprise

My name is Mrs. S---. 

And this is Mr. S---.

We met in College and even graduated together!

We got married in 2009.

This is our cat Grover (he thinks he is a dog!).

There are just 2 people in our family… but I have a surprise!

I am going to have a baby!

This is a picture of my baby. We do not know if it will be a boy or a girl. We will find out when the baby is born in April.

I'm going to include pictures of Grover, Adam, and the baby bump. I wonder how many of my students will say "I knew that" when I read this book. I also wonder how oblivious they are to my big ol' belly....

I mean- REALLY?!- You don't notice how big it is? Or you just think I'm fat.. which I totally get.. but come on- that's a baby!

Exhausted.

I swear I'm still alive, but with the start of school, learning a new curriculum, and working 10+ hr days, I am just plain tired. As soon as I get home from work I eat (if I haven't picked up something on the way home and eaten it in the car already) and then try my hardest not to fall asleep until at least 9 (but am usually in and out around 7).

I will say I like first grade. It is so completely different than Head Start. The kids are older, more capable of doing different tasks, and (!) they can already write their names and answer questions. It's like jumping ahead to the middle of the year with my little 4 year olds. But even though they are capable of so much more, they still have those little kid quirks- chatting all the time, running in the classroom, forgetting to write their name on the paper after I gave the direction at least three times. These are things I didn't necessarily think I would have to deal with in this grade, but I am definitely able to respond to their needs and lay down the structure for their learning. Head Start gave me a lot of patience and it looks like I'll need to be using it this year.

My classroom is looking more and more like a normal room. The bulletin boards are still empty to display student work and name plates need to be added to the tables, but I'm pretty happy with how it turned out.

This is what I started with:

And here's how it looks now (well as of last Friday, before the kids started):

I have so much to do over this long weekend (scoring, writing plans, prepping materials) in addition to the housework and errands that are a normal weekend occurrence. I just hope I don't drive myself crazy.

Busy Bee

I've been working in my classroom almost every day this week. The former teacher was a hoarder, and after she retired in January the long term sub spent hours cleaning out a lot of the crap that was left behind. Well, with A LOT of help from my friend Liz we spent Thursday and Friday cleaning out a lot MORE crap. Thursday we left 4 giant bags of trash and 2 bins of recycling. Today we left another big bag of trash and more recycling. I also left a bunch of not trash givaways in the hall (on top of the big desk I'm getting rid of).

So while not completely ready, the room is looking more like a real classroom.

my room on Monday

my room on Friday

There's still more to do- I bought two Ikea rugs for the whole group area (the old was was NASTY, seriously, it looked like it had vomit stains on it); posters need to be hung; books need to be organized and sorted in the library; and, oh yeah, I need to plan for the first week!

I also brought home the lamination I had completed this week. I cut it out while watching Tangled on Netflix. Grover was very happy that I decided to bring this work home. crinkling plastic is one of his favorite things.

So I'm hoping to relax a little this weekend before jumping into the new school year with a staff meeting bright and early Monday morning at 8:30!

I Made It In

I finally got to go to my new room today. And it wasn't nearly as bad as I was expecting it to be.

My tiny new first grade room

I was pleasantly surprised to find the floors clean and sparkly, furniture to one side of the room, and not a bunch of crap everywhere. BIG relief. I was afraid I was going to have to spend hours sorting through stuff in the room before beginning to tackle the closets (which are stuffed full... ugh...).

I only spent about an hour/ hour and a half in there today. I put up my fabric on the bulletin boards, took inventory of the furniture, and dropped posters off for lamination. Unfortunately my large blue fabric that was the perfect size for the hallway bulletin board is missing. The other fabric I have is not wide enough. I don;t know what happened to it, but I guess I have to go rummage through mom's crawlspace for a new (wide) piece.

I'll probably go into my room every day this week. That way I can figure out furniture placement and sort through all the materials in the closets and shelves. Then during our professional week I can spend time planning and labeling kids names and making little last minute things I forgot to do. What still boggles my mind, though, is how I'm going to fit all the furniture (and students) into the room. It is so much smaller than my previous classroom.

my extra large Head Start room

Oh how I'll miss that room.... sigh....

Next Week Better Hurry Up and Get Here

I am going NUTS not being able to go into school. All I think of is the mess of a classroom I need to sort through and clean out and organize. I can't go in until Monday (and even then I have to call first to make sure the room is accessible) because our principal wanted the building service workers to have 2 weeks of uninterrupted cleaning. I'm hoping this means the room will be SPOTLESS when I go in, but I know it won't.

So in an effort to not buy anymore stuff for my room, I have been using what I have bought and making some things from pinterest for my room. Mostly I have been focusing on the Daily5. This is something the teacher I observed last year said they were using and it worked very well. So I knew I would be implementing it in my room as well. I needed a rotation schedule and posters.

Daily 5 posters

 The center posters were originally from here. I thought they were really cute but just before I clicked print, I noticed each child was white. Considering I will probably be the only white person in my classroom this year, I knew I couldn't use them as-is. They just didn't reflect my students. So I opened each one in MS Paint (I don't have, or know how to use, Photoshop) and altered the skin/hair colors.

edited picture

I have small posters for the rotation, and larger ones for around the room. I still need to wait until I get into school to get some larger poster board/construction paper. And then get them laminated.

Daily 5 rotation

 I also made some pencil cups. Originally from here, I new I could make them cuter. I picked up these Dr. Seuss cups in the Dollar Spot at Target a while back and knew they would be perfect.

 

I printed the labels on card stock, glued them to some thin cardboard from old b-day cards, and hot glued them to the cups.

 I keep thinking about other things I want to get ready for my room, but there are so many ideas running through my head and most of them involve actually going into school. Ugh, I can't wait until next week!

The Buzz About Journals

I spotted this a while back, and finally pinned it.

Such a simple idea for a journal bookmark from What's the Buzz in First. I already had the materials so I decided to make them today.

Composition books are on our students' suggested school supply items but our county is not able to 'require' that students bring the materials, plus our population is very needy so I can't be sure any of the students will bring one. So I went on the hunt to Staples, Dollar Tree, Bog Lots, and finally Target. The books were $1.00 a piece (Dollar Tree, Big Lots) and over $2.00 a piece (Staples)! I couldn't spend that! But luckily Target came to the rescue with 65 cent books (with a limit of 25 per person). I picked up 5 in each color (except I could only find 3 black so I got an extra blue and green).

Then I chose one of the spools of ribbon I had left over from my Wedding DIY stuff, and luckily had just enough for all 25 books. I loosely measured all the ribbon to make sure it would have enough on the back to stay put, and long enough to hang out the bottom. 

Then I got to hot gluing. A few minutes later I was done!

This was such a simple idea but I'm not sure I would have figured it out without seeing it online.

Thanks, Jaime!

Box of Free Goodies

They're here! My vista print orders have arrived. I made two different orders and they were shipped together. And everything arrived in under 5 days!

What I got: 2 bumper stickers (which I plan on placing on binders or clipboards or something), 1 T-shirt, 2 mouse pads, 2 self-inking stamps, 2 pens, 2 mugs (one was for Adam so it's not pictured), too many business cards (to hand out to parents), and 2 sets of labels.

I'm most excited about the labels. Now I won't have to write my name on every book I buy. Although, now I'm thinking maybe I should have gotten a stamp with my name instead. Oh well, they're really cute.


Total spent, for everything, including shipping: $3.48

I think I'm going to order some more: key chain, tote bag, note pad/ sticky notes. Maybe I'll order that stamp too.

Want some free goodies?

• Check out offers here
• and here (I hope that works, it was from my e-mail)
• and be sure to go back to Clutter Free Classroom to get 25% off! the free shipping link expired :( 

F-R-E-E

Thank's to Clutter Free Classroom I scored a whole bunch of paper products for free!

Well actually $1.49, but still it is super cheap.

I got business cards (with my e-mail and school phone number to hand out to parents), a pen, mouse pad, bumper sticker, labels, mug, t-shirt, and a self inking stamp. All personalized. And upgraded to 7 day shipping- also for free!

"They may forget what you said, but they will never forget how you made them feel."

cute little owl business cards

To get the deal I had to do a bunch of clicking on links, especially to get the free shipping. Head on over to Clutter Free Classroom to get the links and score some free stuff.

Target Reading Support

Target has done it again, I got sucked in to the dollar spot for more of their super cheap teaching supplies. I picked up a pack of pencils and erasers to make pointers for reading. I can't remember where I saw this before, on one of the teaching blogs I'm sure, but I didn't save it to pinterest so I don't have the source.

All you need is a few pencils, erasers, and hot glue.

match the colors you want

Add a dot of glue to the top of the pencil

Place the eraser on top of the glue

And done! 

A full set of pointers for small group/ guided reading!

Very fast, easy, and cheap project for the beginning of school. If you know the source for this let me know so I can give credit.

Class List

I am getting SO excited for next year! Our school system has an online reporting program where you can see class lists, student profiles, assessment data, and intervention reports etc... I had checked last week to see if, maybe, my class was assigned yet. Nope. But as I was checking my school email this morning, and I thought well, I'll just check again quickly expecting not to see anything. But- It was there!

As of right now (things will probably change over the end of summer, with moves and beginning of year meetings based on summer school info) I have 21 students, 10 boys and 11 girls. I am beyond excited about this because I had 20 this past year, 5 boys and 15 girls. Thankfully the class is more balanced. I have a couple former students. I have 2 siblings of girls I had last year. And I have some 'problem' kids. Thankfully, since this is not their first year in school, I have previous teachers to go to with support on behavior management plans and tips on what worked best for the students.

I'm stopping myself from writing their names on everything (labels for cubbies, journals, etc) because I know the class list might change. But having a list makes it more real, I will be teaching 1st grade in a little over a month! AH! I have so much to do!

How Much Was All This?

I don't know what it is, but I have been focusing almost all of my attention on the upcoming school year. Maybe it's because I started blog hopping, or that I'm nervous about next year, or maybe it's because I am becoming increasingly bored this summer...

Whatever the issue is, I have been shopping like crazy for my new room/ grade. With Head Start, we were given money to spend at the end of each year to restock our classroom. So with the small exception of new posters books or something, I didn't really have to spend a lot of my own money. Since I am switching grades I lost that money AND I need new materials for older kids.

So over the past couple weeks I have hit up Dollar Tree (which always has awesome teaching supplies for $1 a piece) and the Target Dollar Spot (which kind of scared me that Target had school supplies out already- I mean it is only July...).

From Dollar Tree I picked up 6 new posters, 8 decals/ labels, 6 BINGO markers, and 1 beach ball. Total-  $18

 From Target I got 2 paper bins, 2 small pocket charts, 3 stickers, 2 BINGO games (NOT to be used with the BINGO markers), and 24 sentence strip white boards. Total- $18

Maybe the best purchase so far has to be the Staples 1 cent sale. It started today and (thanks to a coworker for posting on Facebook to remind me) I went in early. There was a limit of 2 for pretty much everything which was kind of a bummer. I got 2 packs of paper (with the rebate, cost me 25 cents each), 2 pencil cases, 16 pens, 8 glue sticks, and 10 post-it type flags.

 Not too impressive until you count the best darn thing about the 1 cent sale. Teachers can get 25 each of 3 items (glue, packs of pens, packs of pencil top erasers). I didn't need the pens or pencils but I did pick up 25 bottles of glue for 1 penny each! *Side note- You should have seen one customer's face when she tried to tell me there was a limit of 2, and then I said not for teachers I can get 25*

yes, this is what 25 bottles of glue looks like

Total spent at Staples (after paper rebate)- $3.77. AMAZING!

I still need to make a trip to IKEA for their magazine holders (the 1st grade teachers use them a book boxes for the students), but hopefully I won't be spending too much more. Although I do have that Lakeshore gift card to use...

Gearing Up for Next Year.... And a Blog Addiction!

I'm trying to prepare myself for my first year of teaching first grade so of course I have been looking around the internet for ideas. Well when one blog led me to another, and another, and another, and I just kept clicking 'follow' I realized I had an addiction. I'll most likely be adding more and more blogs to the teaching blogroll, but so far here's the best I have found so far.



















As well as:

• F is for First Grade
• The First Grade Parade
• The Teacher Wife

I love that most of the blogs have buttons to grab, and when I find more I'll probable create a teaching page with all the buttons and links in a nice, bright, colorful spot.

Until then- you can find me blog hopping for hours on end!