Red, White and Blue Made It Monday

I spent all last week setting up my classroom.
I will post some pics next week, hopefully!
I am SO excited about it, but it isn't picture perfect yet.

I also (finally) had some time to participate in Made it Monday.  My first one!
(Grad school delayed my craftiness!)

Ok, so I totally HATE open shelves.
Those of you who are organized, probably love them, but I am a stacker, so they don't work for me.
So my first project was to make some curtains.

Before pic

After pic!

Another shelf before pic.

I use tension rods to keep them in place.

Ok, I know this is not a shelf.
I just think the sink area looks so plain!

Much prettier!

Then I decided to get started designing some new book bin labels. (Tara, great minds think alike!)
They aren't quite ready yet either. 
(Gee, I sound kind of like a slacker!  I should get off Pinterest and create a little more, I guess.)

My personal Made it is more like a Made It Grow, my flowers.  They have thrived inspire of 100 degree weather!  I am so excited about that.
I love finding plants each year that I have never tried to grow.  Here are a few of my treasured plants:

red chenille or fire tail

'Rock Star' astromeria

Portulaca or desert rose.  The only thing that is meant to grow in the heat!

Enjoy your week of creating! 

EmilyK

Daily 5 Book Study Intro Our Thoughts

We were so eager to participate in the Daily 5 Book Study through

We are both going to be writing on this post.
Emily's thoughts will be in purple.
Antoinette's thoughts will be in blue.

I was introduced to the Daily 5 through our district professional development classes. 
Our school was one of the few in the district still using the basal.  I was going into 3rd grade, and didn't want to use the basal anymore.  So the Daily 5 was a great gift to my teaching.
In the Introduction of the book I found these points to be meaningful:
-Because we had asked our students to do those "things" we certainly had to look at each one and at least mark on the paper. -pg4 
           I have thought this too many times!  I have to give them a grade, so I have to look at it.  The same boring answer a bunch of times, if you are using a basal.
-Yet the rest of the children in the class are working by themselves, completely independent.
           Yes please!  I was hooked after this sentence.  Independence is essential to owning your learning.


When I was a teacher in the Kansas City School District, we used reading and writing workshops.  You can imagine my surprise when I came to a new school which was still using the basal.  It was complete and utter torture!  I tried to keep up with the fast paced themes using a workbook which I felt dumbed down the curriculum.  I survived my first year and decided there was no way I was doing that another year. lol  The next year, I tried to incorporate some of the basal into a reading workshop style of teacher.  AND... there was no way I was using that workbook.  My third year, I ditched the basal all together.  That year, I too was introduced to the Daily 5 through a professional development class.  I had never read the book, but incorporated my own version of Daily 5 into my classroom.  I like the routine it created and how much easier it was to interact with a small group because everyone was busy working.  I've always been interested in reading the book thus was very excited when I stumbled upon the summer book study on Pinterest.


So here are my thoughts on the introduction:  I totally relate to the authors of Daily 5 when they discussed how they evolved as teachers; starting with worksheets and classroom management issues and then moving to Daily 5.  My evolution was different than theirs though as I started with workshops for the first six years, went to a more traditional style of teaching with tons of worksheets, and ended with workshops and my version of Daily 5.  My workshops in the past few years have been better managed as a result of using some components of Daily 5.


Two things really stuck with me from the introduction.  The first was when they talked about how at the end of the day they mentioned something wonderful that the students accomplished that day.  So this would be what I call one of my duh moments.  It is a routine that my students and I tell each other good bye each day.  I always say something like have a great evening or see you tomorrow, but I never thought of telling them something amazing they did.  What a great way to make each student feel special.  The second was that the students cycle through their choice of the Daily 5 component and they are responsible for ensuring they have accomplished a different component each period.  WOW!!! Scary yet fascinating at the same time!


We would love to hear your thoughts on the Daily 5.  Have you read the book?  Do you use this structure in your classroom?  Any helpful tips for us or other teachers?  We are so excited to hear from you. :)






http://www.wereadweblogweteach.com/

Another Door Opens

As Emily mentioned in her post about switching classrooms, I am moving out of the one she is moving into.  I too have moved quite often.  In my thirteen years of teaching, I have moved out of four classrooms.  One move was from the Kansas City School District to North Kansas City.  In my five years at NKC, I have moved three times.  Crazy!!

Well, as Emily also stated, as one door closes, another one opens...  My new door opens to a completely different position.  I will no longer be a classroom teacher which I never thought I would do.  Leaving the classroom was a difficult decision to make, but in the end I felt this new door will give me access to helping many classrooms of students; not just my own.  My new position is a Teaching and Learning Coach which is similar to an Instructional Coach.  I am very excited but also growing more anxious as the school year approaches.  I will unfortunately not be working at the same school as Emily, but know we will still keep in touch.  She has done an amazing job of keeping this blog up and going and I know she will be successful in her new roles.

As a Teaching and Learning Coach, I will be an instructional resource to classroom teachers.  That is where I hope you all can help me.  Do you all have any advice for me as I move, yet again, from working with students to working with adults?

Thanks

Antoinette

Student Teacher Linky

We are joining up to Every New Beginning's Student Teacher Linky Party.

Student Teaching and Observations are great.
They give you a chance to see if you are really cut out to teach.
I have never had a student teacher.  I keep moving rooms and grade levels!  My principal is nice enough to ask for volunteers, and I have never had the right scenario to feel comfortable volunteering.
Here are our thoughts on student teaching:

*Don't be shy!  It's ok to take a day or two to settle in, but after that, start showing the teacher and students your personality.  They want to get to know you and your style!

*Ask questions!  From the student teacher point of view, the teacher you are working with can't read your mind.  If you are the teacher, you have a chance to learn from your student teacher, why not pick their brain a little!

*Make a plan together.  If you are hosting a student teacher you have probably decided what you want to hand over to them, but it's just like working with your students, the student teacher will likely want to set some goals for themselves.  (The teacher I student taught with did this, and I truly appreciated it.  He asked me what I wanted to start teaching first, and how much support I was comfortable with.)

*It's ok to teach things differently.  This is a hard on teachers who have been incharge of their class, but remember you can learn from a student teacher, too.  They have fresh ideas, be open to them.  For the student teacher, you may see some great lessons, you might want to use, even if they don't fit your style.

*Work with the whole grade level!  Teaching is not a solo activity.  For the student teacher, think of all the ideas you can get from multiple teachers.  For the teacher, encourage them to be part of the team, they will soon be a teacher, and have to learn how to be a part of a team.  (When I was a student teacher, the teacher I worked with would arrange for me to observe another classroom once a week, it was an awesome chance to see different management styles.  He also had me attend all the meetings so I knew what I was getting into.)

Lastly, a lesson I learned from my student teaching experience. 
The teacher I worked with gave me this piece of advice.
Enjoy your last semester in college.  Don't spend all your free time doing teacher stuff.  You have the rest of your life to do that.  If you need to leave early one day for a job interview that's okay!  Your goal is to learn as much as you can, and to get a job. 

Do you have advice about student teaching?    What was your student teaching experience like?

EmilyK & Antoinette

Patriotic Room Theme

As I mentioned earlier this week, I am changing my room theme. 
I will be surrounding myself with Red, White, and Blue, a patriotic theme.

I have included some tips for how I set up a new classroom.  (Since I have done it 5+ times in my teaching career!)
I decided to set up parts of my room now, instead of waiting until August. 
With changing grade levels I have enough to think about then!
Luckily my building is open during the day for one more week, thanks to summer school.
Thanks for our custodians for cleaning my room early, too!

I decided to start with general decor and bulletin boards. 
Colorful bulletin boards just make me happier to set up the rest of the room!
Plus your bookshelves or other furniture can be pushed to the center, out of the way.

Here are my tools:

Plus my trusty digital camera, but I couldn't a pic of that!

Of course meauring is the first task. 
I like to mark what I think will work.  I will let that marinate in my brain over the weekend, and see if I like it on Monday, when I put up the bulletin boards.

Do you have any long bulletin boards?

I have some fabrics already, but I have others to gather.

Add caption

I think the red polka dots will be my curtains.

Plus I am a curtain jumkie.  I HATE open shelves! 

I love using plastic table cloths for bulletin boards.  (The kind with no padding.)

They are cheap and don't discolor easily.
The only thing you need to consider is some table cloths only have patterns around the edges, not the middle.  It depends on what look you are going for.

Here are the other general items I found:

I LOVE lanterns.  Banners are everywhere!  Thank you PartyCity.

Thank you Target $1 section!

I will post more pics soon!
How do you start setting up a new room?

EmilyK

(Grad) School is out for summer and changing my room theme

It has been a little bit, since we posted anything. 
I have spent the last month taking a Grad School class about Behavior Interventions. 
It was a great class.  Lots of resources to use with my ASD and non-ASD kids. 
It also clarified why I have to collect all that data about behavior.
The best news is... my class is OVER!
Now onto enjoying summer, and getting the teacher 'creative juices' flowing.

Starting with my room theme.
I have been the polka dot queen for the last 3 years. 

This isn't the best pic, but each of these fabrics is polka dotted.

I've loved this theme, and still do.



As you might remember I am changing grade levels, 5th grade!
I told myself if I ever went back to 5th grade (it's been 5 years since I taught it),
I would do a patriotic theme.

I am in the process to gathering red, white, and blue decor. 
Pre 4th of July sales are making this pretty easy. 
I will have pics of some of the items I collected in my next post. 

Anyone else changing room themes out there? 

Antoinette and I are having lunch on Monday.  
I can't wait!  Lunch with friends is a great benefit of summer break. 
We will be planning some future posts!

EmilyK

One Small Step for Technology, One Giant Leap for Us

This is our first post on a Mac.  Antoinette and I are sitting with our favorite counselor on our new (district provided) Mac books!!!!! (There are not enough exclamation points to show our enthusiasm!)  We LOVE them already.  Thanks to our community for recognizing how important new technology is!  It's one small step in giving us this tool, and one giant leap into learning something new.
We went to a 2 hour training, and have more training in August.
Mac users, any helpful tech tips?
Any teaching ideas that are great with a Mac?

EmilyK & Antoinette