Adventures!

I have not been keeping up with my blog at all lately, and I am so sorry! I have some new adventures that I am embarking on....one of those is that I am working with a teacher intern this semester. She is WONDERFUL. It is nice to feel like I can sit back and relax (a little) as she begins to take over responsibilities in the classroom. I am learning so much from her, and I hope that I teaching her a thing or two :)

My second adventure is that I will be moving to Japan this summer! My husband is a Marine, and although we had planned on him retiring soon, we were offered the opportunity to be stationed in Iwakuni, Japan, and we jumped on it! We are so excited, but the move planning is extremely exhausting. My life outside of the school day has involved paperwork, appointments, more paperwork, and more appointments. The fun part is yet to come, as we will need to rent out our home here in NC, sell our car & truck, and organize all of our possessions into things we want to move with us, things we want to store, and things we want to sell/donate. Such fun!

My world travels so far have consisted of visiting Canada, so I am ecstatic that I will have the chance to see other places and meet people from different cultures. We will be about 30 minutes from Hiroshima and only 6 hours, by train, from Tokyo. There are many trips planned to places like South Korea, China, and Taiwan. I have a feeling that we are going to LOVE our time in Japan. I am so excited that my children will have experiences that many people never get to have! I am hoping to teach for the DOD school on our base, but that will all depend on if they have positions open. No matter what, I hope to keep up with my blog :)

100 Followers!!!

I am so excited! I have finally reached the 100 follower mark! I have not been keeping the blog updated, and I apologize! This has been a very busy, stressful year for some reason. I hope that everyone is having a WONDERFUL year!

Since it has been forever since I last posted anything, I guess today is a great day to start again! Yesterday, I attended a short training about guided reading. I was curious to find out what some of you do for guided reading. Do you have specific skills you are supposed to work on? Do you use "real" literature or materials provided by your school? How large are your groups? How often do you meet and for how long? What are the other students doing?

I have struggled with guided reading this year because my class is larger than in years past, and my students struggle with working independently. However, I continue to try to work out the kinks so that my students can get a great guided reading experience. Right now, I have been focusing in on the skills/strategies introduced in our basal (Reading Street). I have been focusing more on the leveled readers than the basal stories for guided reading. Honestly, I am not "feeling" either of these. I was blessed with really good readers this year, and I am just not sure that these materials are the best. I am hoping to use a "literature circle" or "book club" approach to guided reading in the near future. We don't have a set format for guided reading, so I am hopeful I can adapt my lessons to include some good books that the students will truly enjoy.

I am using a modified version of the Daily 5 for the students working independently. It has been somewhat successful, but like I said, my students have moments when working independently seems impossible for them.

Feel free to share how guided reading looks in your classroom! 

Back to School Whirlwind!

I went back to work a week ago for 3 days of meetings/room prep, then our students arrived on Thursday. I feel like I have been going non-stop since then :) I have a great group of 4th graders this year. Almost an equal mix of boys and girls, a nice variety of personalities, all different levels. So far, after 3 days, they all seem to get along pretty well too. I have started introducing the Daily 5. It is such a new concept for them, and I think it will take some time for them to really appreciate the independence it will build. I can tell that my students will need a lot of help learning to work on their own. Sadly, it always seems that they come from tiny classes in 3rd grade (last year was about 15-16) to larger classes in 4th and 5th (25-28). It really takes time for them to get used to things.

I had some bad news right before school started that sent my motivation and good vibes for this school year down the tubes. Our 4th grade team had four members. About 2 weeks before the first day, one teacher found out that she was moving to 3rd grade so that a 3rd grade teacher could move up to do a 4th/5th multiage class that is required due to our lower enrollment in the intermediate grades. Then, just a week before school started, another of our teammates found out that she was being moved to 1st grade. They found a sub to open that classroom. Then, after spending a week working with the sub (who was so great), they hired a teacher on Friday, and she started today. She seems wonderful and I think we will get along great. However, I cannot help but be angry that my teammates got moved. Our grade level had the best test scores in the school. We worked together so well, and 3 of us spent the summer planning, creating, and sharing ideas. I really think that my principal did the best she could with a really odd situation, but I still feel really sad about it all. Why, in education, does it seem that the hardest working folks are the ones who end up having to be extra flexible, extra responsible, and extra understanding? It is frustrating!

Ok, enough boo-hooing! It will be a great year, and I am excited for all of the awesome activities I have planned. I will be getting in touch with everyone who expressed interest in my Regions of the U.S. activity very soon!

Me, Crafty?!?!?

Well, since Pinterest has changed my life (it really has...LOL!), I decided to try to make some of the things I have pinned this year.

First up, my Teacher Toolbox! Thank you to Hedrich's Hive for the great labels! The only issue I am having is keeping the labels clued into the drawers. I tried hot glue, but they are popping right off. Oh well, it still looks great!

I love all of the "Welcome Banners" I have seen on Pinterest. I decided to create on of my own using Publisher. I think I could have jazzed it up with some contrasting colors or something, but it does look cute in the classroom. I am planning to add some bows to the sides where I have the ribbon tied to the hooks. 

Here is my Duct Tape Quilt. The little signs inside say "4th Grade Super Stars". 

My picture quality is horrible! I will replace these with better ones on Monday. This is my behavior clip chart. I am thinking that my green READY TO LEARN section needs to be a bit bigger :-)

 

School begins in one more week! I am excited about the year, but nervous too! Last year was the best year I have had in a LONG time, and I know it will be tough to top it. I need to stop worrying and just go with the flow!

Procedures and rules and expectations...OH MY!

Since I cannot seem to sit back, relax, and enjoy my final 11 days of summer break, I have been busy revamping my policies, procedures, rules, etc. A colleague shared an awesome handout to give to parents and students called "The ABCs of _______'s Classroom". It is an easy to use reference for classroom policies organized in ABC order. I will share mine once I have it finalized. Right now, it is full of highlighted sections and empty sections while we wait for final confirmation of our grade assignments for the year. I am hopeful that the parents read it over, but even if they do not, it makes great documentation of teacher-parent communication :)

Today I started working on my list of classroom procedures to teach to my students. I found some awesome ideas on Pinterest and TpT, but I cannot make up my mind about exactly HOW to teach about the procedures, as my list is VERY long. What are some of your methods for making sure your students really understand the classroom procedures?

As of this moment, I plan to use the same discipline plan as last year....which is turning "cards". I am adding a 5th card, BLUE, that students will get if they are having an awesome day. I figure I will have some small reward for the students who get to blue. I will explain to them that a "blue" day means they were on task all day, came to school prepared, helped other students when needed, did their very best on all activities, etc. I hope that maybe having the option to do even better than the "green" card will encourage some of the students to work even harder.

Regions of the United States Project

This year, I really need to do something to liven up my Social Studies lessons. While most 4th graders are busy studying their states, we are learning about the entire United States. The scope of our standards is HUGE, and I don't feel like my students get much out of what study.

In order to help my students get more out of Social Studies, I want to do something to connect them to peers in the various regions of the United States. I am still on the fence about exactly what to do. I have thought about doing a postcard exchange, but I really would like the activity to have a bit more depth. I am hoping to find classes around the country (at least 1-2 in each region we study) who are willing to do a few different activities with us throughout the year that aligns to our standards. I think the postcard exchange could be one great component, but I think I'd like to plan some other activities such a questionnaire or survey, letter-writing, and some technology activities. I want my students to have some ownership of this activity, so final decisions about activities will not be made until school starts. My hope is to have three or four high-quality activities to share with our sister schools that do not take immense amounts of time.

If you are interested in being one of the classes we connect with, please leave a comment with a way to contact you (blog or email would be great!) and what state you live in! I'd really love to work with 3rd, 4th, or 5th grade classes in the Northeast, Midwest, Southwest, and West regions. We are in Southeast region, but would love to connect with other Southeastern classes as well!

Map found on: http://lets-study-the-us.wikispaces.com/

Preventing Crazy Behavior :)

Today I wanted to share a few things that I do in my classroom (along with my 4th grade team) to keep the students' behavior on track. I was blessed with such an awesome class this past year, but I know that our rising 4th graders are very talkative and active, so I have a feeling I will get some major use out of these behavior ideas this year!

Whole Class: 

Behavior BINGO-The students earn "BINGO" numbers for various positive behaviors including all students staying on green on our behavior chart, all turning homework in, walking in the halls silently, etc. Each day (or every few days), we draw numbers and they mark them on the hundred chart we use as a BINGO board. When the students earn BINGO, they get to choose from a variety of whole-class rewards like class outside, extra recess, free computer time, etc. I might change up the BINGO slightly this school year, as it seemed to take a long time for the students to actually get a BINGO. One idea I have is to use a slightly smaller grid (maybe 8 x 8 instead of 10 x 10). The students loved the excitement of drawing the numbers,and they really worked hard so that they could enjoy the rewards.

Bucket Fillers-We use Bucket Fillers school-wide in conjunction with our guidance/character education. This year, I plan to have each student decorate their own paper bucket for use on a bulletin board. Students can write kind things about each other, and this will allow me to give students "Bucket Filler" slips which are used for a weekly drawing for a special seat at lunch, a certificate, and some other small rewards.

Individual:

Card System-I used to think that card systems were "babyish" for 4th grade, but after using one for the past 2 years, I really think it works for my students. It makes communicating w/parents about student behaviors much easier. Students can monitor their own daily behavior. Everyone starts on GREEN each day. The other card colors are YELLOW for a warning, ORANGE for a consequence like sitting out of recess for a few minutes, and RED which means a phone call home. I was fortunate to only have a student get to red twice all year this past school year! This year, I think I will add a form to the student binders so that they can mark their color for each day to keep track.


What are some of the things you do in your classroom to help keep things running smoothly?