School Year Resolutions

I was going to do a post like this anyway, but then I saw the link-up on Teaching Maddeness: 

I also feel like teachers' New Year's Resolutions come in August instead of January. I have a lot I want to change this year (and haven't finished all the books I was supposed to--oops!).

1) I want to use every minute of the day better. I start out doing this really well, and then we don't always keep up with it. I've been finding more songs, movement activities that we can weave into our day. Have more fun!

2) I'm going to implement facets of Conscious Discipline. I don't know if it's the fact that I'm getting older and therefore less patient, or if the kids are just coming in more mischievous-but every year I seem to be getting more and more gray hair from the stress of kids' behavior. This year I will go in armed with some new strategies. 

3) I'm going to be better at creating and tracking assessments. This is good teaching and will also be required for our evaluations. I've been reading Understanding By Design, which is all about backwards design and creating more effective assessments based on what you are supposed to be teaching.

4) We're going to do yoga! I already bought some ABC yoga books and a posters. I'm going to incorporate it into my workstations. Just FYI-you will NOT be seeing pictures of me trying to demonstrate those moves-luckily it's hard to embarrass yourself with 5-year olds.

5) I'm going to also try to implement facets of a flipped classroom. If you are not familiar, it's using lessons you have recorded or websites with videos assigned to kids for differentiation.

6) I'm really going to try to communicate with parents better. I always thought I was good at this but had several unhappy ones :( this year. I'm going to use Remind 101 and some other new techniques to try to keep communication at it's best.

That sounds like a lot! I'm actually starting to get anxious about going back in a few weeks. I've enjoyed vacation and it's not that I want more lazy days, it's just I don't feel like I've done enough to prepare yet. Oh well-it will be here before we know it! :)

Read-Alouds for Teaching Multiple Perspectives

I find myself making lots of lists this summer. Our curriculum is changing so I can't do a lot of actual planning yet by objectives; but I can sort out the books I'm going to use to teach concepts like Depth and Complexity. One of our icons is Multiple Perspectives-we use this one quite often in Kinder. So often, in fact, it's hard to break them of the habit of beginning a piece of writing with: "if I were a....".  :)

 Here are some that I use:

One of those I found totally by accident. I was already reading the book to the kids one day and realized, it's told from the perspective of a house. Lots of things matter to that little house that wouldn't matter to us, but some of it's worries are the same.

Told from the perspective of the pea--not fun to be stuck under a bazillion mattresses!

I know you've probably already heard of this one, but included it anyway-fairy tale told from the wolf's side.

Perspective you may not think about often-a tractor living on a farm. He has a happy life until he's replaced by a new state-of-the-art version.

One of my favorite chapter read-alouds. Every child wonders what their stuffed animals do when they leave the room. These characters misunderstand things all the time because of their perspective.

Told completely from the point of view of the dog who is trying to find his boy owner. Lots of references to how things/people smell-not exactly how we usually describe people.

A perspective of school from the class pet. Fire alarms, homework--all a mystery to this little hamster. It's a series, so if your kids like the first one....

Yes, I know gross title (which probably means you will get the kids attention right away). Life from the view of 2 cats-from the moment they are born they see the world differently than we do. Humans are very strange to them.The title comes from a "game" they hear the kids in their family playing when they are fighting over a toy. "It's mine", "is not", "is too", "s'not", "s'too". You get the drift.

Any of these titles are a great model for putting yourself in the shoes of someone or something else and thinking about what that perspective would be. Especially with little ones, that's a hard task because you know the world revolves around them-they haven't had to think that way before! :)

First Day Jitters Blog Hop

I am so thankful for all these cool link-ups because I'm running out of ideas of things to post! :)

 Fierce in Fourth  is hosting a blog hop where we can commiserate on our fears for the upcoming 1st Day of School!

I've been teaching for over 12 years years now and I still get major anxiety before the 1st day of school. I have nightmares where I can't find my classroom, I envision all the worst case scenarios. The kids get such a kick out of the fact that teachers get nervous too! :)

1) The one difference this year that terrifies me a bit is that 50% of my year-end evaluation will be determined by student test scores. Yes, I teach Kindergarten! The part that is really scary is that no one knows what to use as a measure. Some basic tests won't show growth in advanced kids, yet you don't want it to be too challenging for those that struggle. If we use a test from a research-based curriculum, we have to also use the curriculum-in addition to the ones we already use. So it will be interesting to figure all that out. We will have to start assessing the first few days, so we'll have to figure it out soon!

2) The other difference this year will be that my GT Kindergarten class will only have 6 identified GT students in it. I taught a "regular" class for years, so it won't be too much of an adjustment, but I am worried about keeping those kiddos challenged while still being able to cater to everyone else's needs.

3) My last fear is that the group coming up was just notorious in Pre-K! We had experienced, seasoned teachers in the hallway on a regular basis needing to count to 10. When they walked anywhere it looked like they needed a herding dog to keep them altogether-they would be like a mob fighting, crying, walking around in circles. I mean Pre-K kids were being written up and sent to the office-for some pretty serious offenses. Let's just say I am really, really studying that Conscious Discipline in preparation for this year.

It will all work though, it always does. One thing I love about teaching is that every year is different-I'm thankful that it never gets boring!:)

Critical Thinking Even in Transitions

One of my goals this year (and I feel like I say this every year) is to use every minute of the day better. I feel like we waste time between activities or waiting for everyone to do what they are supposed to be doing. We only have so many hours each day and I know those wasted minutes add up.

So I've been thinking about things I used to do during transitions to still make it an effective use of instructional time-to make them think as we are moving to the next activity.

* One of my favorites is to give the kids examples of things; they have to not only figure out what the category is, but come up with something else that fits in with that list of things. For example I would say: button, plate, clock and I go around the group asking for more objects that fit with that group. They don't name the category, but if they say "sun"-they can go line up. Eventually, everyone usually figures it out. If I have to tell the last few what the category is, I still expect them to give me an example that fits.  My favorite part of this activity, is sometimes they come up with something I didn't even think of! 

* Another is to have them copy your pattern. You can clap your hands in a pattern and they have to mimic the same pattern but using different gestures-this is a good one when everyone is returning to the carpet after cleaning up, etc. So if I clap fast fast slow-AAB, they would snap or move their shoulders or shake their heads in a way that also shows and AAB pattern and we would continue until everyone was sitting down. This way the ones who are already on the carpet have their hands (and minds) occupied instead of just sitting and waiting.

*Using vocabulary. For example-we may be talking about animal life cycles in science. I will yell out an animal: kangaroo and whoever says "joey" first can line up. We would continue with other baby animal names until everyone was in line.

* When kids enter in the morning I have a large dry erase board and printed their names on magnetic paper. I have a question of they day for them--who was your favorite character in the Wizard of Oz, what is your favorite lunch food, did you read a book last night? And they move their names to their choice. When we begin our math segment of the day we have data to do a very quick little graph or t-chart. They also learn quickly that they have to be able to back their choice with a reason why they chose that one as well, because I will ask.

My Teacher Story Linky

I'm linking up with a new blog that I found: Tales of Frogs and Cupcakes to write about my journey to becoming a teacher. (Beware it's a kind of long and windy one)!

Mine is pretty boring actually-I'm a bit of a late bloomer. I never wanted to be a teacher growing up. I wanted to be a freelance photographer or a private detective. Seriously, even in high school-those were still my ideal professions. My sister was going to be a teacher and I definitely didn't want to do the same thing she did. I went to college and ended up majoring in psychology-which I really loved. I am fascinated by how our brains work and how people can end up so different. My mom tried to convince me to get certified then anyway, as a back up, but of course, I didn't listen--I was not going to be a teacher!

After college I tried to get a job in counseling, but I was really bad at it. I'm too soft-hearted, couldn't deal with all the red tape. I worked as a tech in a drug rehab for adolescents and just saw case after case of these kids in really bad condition being released after 30 days because their insurance ran out. Or ones that were there because they were court-ordered and they would just start to make progress and be released because the case was resolved. Their stories were just so sad.

I ended up getting a job working in day care, because I did have experience working with kids when I was a teen. And I really loved it. The pay/benefits are ridiculously horrible (my parents really didn't like the fact that I was making minimum wage after they paid for college :(. From there I got a better paying job working in an office. It was sooooooo boring! I could do my whole day's work in 2 hours and when I asked for more responsibilities, my boss literally said, just stretch out what you have. Ugh! Same thing day after day was not for me!

I ended up going back and getting my teaching certification and finally becoming a teacher. My first job was in Kinder and I just adore that age group. I got certified in GT and have been teaching a Kinder GT class for several years now. I can't see myself doing anything else, I love teaching so much. Every day is different, it's challenging, but in a good way!

 By the way, my sister did become a teacher too-she's now a college professor (she sees some of the same issues in her kids that I do in mine-especially handwriting and grammar!). So we ended up with 2 teachers in the family.

Tell Me More Linky

So Step Into 2nd Grade with Mrs. Lemons is having a linky party :Tell Me More Linky

and after reading more about some of the other entries, I think I'll share a little bit about myself as well.

1) My ballet career was cut quite short by a bout of stage fright. My dance instructor and my mother (who spent so much on costumes/lessons, etc.) were just livid I wouldn't go on and perform. Still don't like getting up in front of people to speak. Give me 100 kids, I'm fine. Open House night with parents or presenting in a faculty meeting--- sweating profusely. :)

2) I love to cook. People don't believe me, but I've never actually ever eaten at a Taco Bell, Jack in the Box, etc. Right now I'm actually trying to eat a completely plant-based diet-the hardest thing to give up has been cheese!!!!

3) I love wearing hats (and not just because you don't have to do your hair).

4) One of my biggest phobias is driving behind people with something on the back of their truck that seems like it might fall off. Pipes, landscaping gear--I just picture it flying through my windshield-I have to move over. And those trucks carrying a bunch of cars---OMG! For some reason, I just picture one rolling off into my car.

5) I don't really like to read. I know that's awful for a teacher to say. I think I read so much for work that it just isn't fun for me. I love reading blogs :) and magazines. I get bored very easily, I've started a lot of books. I am actually very proud of myself, on book number 4 this summer (Catching Fire)--that's really good for me!

6) My nickname when I was a kid was "Froggy"-both because I was a really good swimmer and I used to save all the frogs at the public pool where we spent every day of the summer. The other girls wouldn't touch them, but I just thought of how bad the chlorine was for them.

7) Huge movie buff!! I have over 300 titles in my Netflix queue right now! I am one of those annoying people who will quote movies at inopportune times or the really valuable person you can call to settle a bet when people are arguing whether it's Corey Haim or Corey Feldman. I really think so much space is taken up in my brain with movies, that's probably the reason I couldn't tell you what I wore yesterday! :)

8) I only have one sister-that's her falling asleep on the very patient llama at the game preserve. She lives in Georgia, so I only get to see her once or twice a year (we get along much better now-as kids we fought incessantly. Every year my mom's only wish for a present on any holiday was for us to just get along!). 

9) This is my baby. Her name is Ruby and she is a little boogerbear but she makes me laugh every day! She is soooo super-smart, too smart for her own good sometimes! :) She was a rescue and I truly believe we were meant to find each other. She is very spoiled cherished.

This is how she sleeps-rough life, huh?

A Different Kind of Class Exchange....

I love connecting with other classrooms and giving kids an idea that there is a whole world out there beyond their little bubbles. With postcard exchanges, my big 'ole state of Texas is usually the first one taken and I've seen other cute ideas, like the alphabet one with Chicka Chicka Boom Boom but I never seem to get in on it in time.

I want to start a different kind of exchange-one that will even save you the expense of postage. :)  Each class would digitally record a song, poem or story that they love and would upload it (still figuring out the details of how and where) and we could all easily view the recordings. The kids could even give some details about their state/country/school. It could even be a listening station activity. I think it would be really fun and could lead to many lessons of comparing and contrasting classes from other locations.

If your class is interested please e-mail me or leave a comment and let me know. Pass the word on to anyone you think may be interested. I'm not going to limit it to one person per state, etc.--we'll take anyone who wants to participate-any location, any grade. I'll do a master list and give everyone the final info before school starts. I'm so excited-I really wanted to incorporate technology better this year and this seems like one way to do it! I know the kids would love to connect with other classes too. :)

Books To Encourage Creativity

I am a huge proponent of encouraging creativity with students, particularly young students because many of them just don't know how to channel those creative juices. Very quickly they learn my stock answer when they ask "what color should I make the sky?" or "should I draw my hair curly?"--my answer is always "YOU ARE THE ARTIST!". 

My first year teaching, a master teacher observed my class just before Thanksgiving and was horrified that my kiddos were making turkeys of all different colors-purple turkeys, blue turkeys, even rainbow turkeys. She marked down on my evaluation that I had to teach them how to do it realistically. Of course, I took the criticism under advisement :), and I make it very clear during science if we are making observations that the illustration should be realistic. But if we are doing some kind of craft or art project---the sky's the limit, and I will vehemently defend that position. Where are the creative minds of tomorrow going to come from if we prohibit them from using their imaginations? What if someone told Steve Jobs that digital music was not realistic (they probably did, but he obviously didn't listen), or Ray Bradbury that the future worlds he wrote about were not realistic? Or Mondrian that he had to use more colors?

Anyway, I'll get off my soapbox and share with you some of my favorite read-alouds to model creativity for the kids:

Have you ever heard of Blue Dog? A New Orleans based artist name George Rodrigue created her many years ago. He drew the likeness of a his beloved dog that had passed away--Tiffany. There are hundreds of versions of his paintings, kind of a pop culture icon. This story is a great one on using various colors to get varied effects. 

Eric Carle of course if one of the most fabulous illustrators out there. I love to have the kids make an illustration like his. If we read the Cat in the Hat for example-draw him the way Eric Carle would....

I love this story because all the descriptions are unexpected. "Pink is the color of crows...when they have just hatched." The colors aren't matching with what we would expect-very creative.

A creative way to use space on a roof-the character turns it into a marvelously sculptured garden.

A true story of a Mexican artist Juan Quezada who used animal hair for brushes and mud/berries to create beautiful pots. It's in the same repeating rhythms as the House That Jack Built.

This is just a wonderfully cute story about kids who cannot stay clean. Again, refers to making different colors (for them it's the bathwater after mom makes them clean up). But you can talk about what the different colors can mean.

Beautiful legend about a painter who just can't capture the color of sunset.

It amazes me that kids come into Kinder not knowing what colors make mixed together (although sometimes they are even trying to paint with the plastic end of the brush the first time we paint!). I love to let them experiment with all the colors themselves to see what they can come up with. They'll say-what if I mix purple and white--try it and see! Of course their favorite is to mix them all together, but that's an exploration too.

Amazing true story of a jazz musician who was nearly blind. Talk about raw talent! The illustrations look like watercolors-just beautiful.

And of course, Duke Ellington. The author talks about the different colors we see when we hear different music. I always have the kids listen to jazz and paint what they see after we read this story.

What books do you use to inspire your creative minds?

I Love Donorschoose!

I've had really good luck with them the past couple of years. I posted a new proposal for art supplies, and another for the books from our student book club list some time ago. I received the e-mail last week saying we only had a few more days left before they were going to be archived. And lo and behold----both funded today!!!!!!! I guess Starbucks funded a bunch of Texas projects that were on their last legs. So cheers to Starbucks (now I feel badly that I don't drink coffee-can you believe there's a teacher out there who has never been to a Starbucks!) and cheers to Donorschoose. It's like $700 worth of materials for the kids!

Seriously, it takes 15 minutes to post a proposal-especially if you already know what you are going to ask for. It's worth taking the chance and posting a request-it's an easy process and they walk you through it step by step.

My 2 suggestions if you are posting a request would be: 1) Use a catchy title-that's the hardest part for me, especially because I've done a bunch now and feel like I've run out of ideas. Make it rhyme, use alliteration-the one I called "Loco for Literature" was filled in a month or so.  2) Ask for $300 or less. Especially now with people distributing the gift cards around. One project had 19 different donors to get to $300-most were smaller gift card amounts.

http://www.donorschoose.org/teachers

My First Linky Party-What Character Would You Be?

So I read these cool linky parties all the time and thought I would dive in and try one myself-fingers crossed that it actually works. If nothing else I learned something new about blogging today! :) . 

There have been several about children's literature lately and it got me thinking: if you could choose one character from a children's story to describe yourself--who would it be? (I know, I'm making you think, aren't I?--now you know how my kids feel! :)

I think I would be Molly Lou Melon. I certainly am fumble-fingered (you should see how mismatched my dishes are because I've never been able to keep a full set intact!) and I do kind of sing like a frog. When I think about teaching, I don't always do things the way other teachers do, but I can stand tall and be confident in my way of doing things. 

So how about you? What character describes your personality? Please link up and let us know.

Rigor Journals

I know, I know-you're tired of hearing that 5-letter word! :) I am very passionate about writing in my class and have several different kinds of journals that we implement throughout the week-math, poetry, reading response (some years), social studies, science and what I call "Rigor" Journals. We ask for composition books in our supplies, but I have a hard time using them with the kiddos right away. Most are at the stage where they are drawing a picture and dictating their sentence-the lines in the comp books just don't match that skill. Plus having them copy the question takes forever and I really want parents and the students themselves to be able to go back and see what they were writing about; so I just type it out at the top of each page, print it out and make copies. 

For the "Rigor" part--since I use Kaplan's icons for Depth and Complexity regularly in our lessons, I make pages for each that we use in Kinder: perspective, patterns, ethics, over time and rules. Sometimes I ask them to write about one specifically (write about the rules for being a snowflake) or we will use a story/theme concept and write using all of them (over the course of a week).

For example, if we are doing monsters in October, over the course of a week: I would ask them to write about the rules for being a monster, ethics of monsters (how are they right/wrong), pattern in Where the Wild Things Are, their unanswered questions from the story, how monsters change over time (or how the monsters in the story changed) and to write from the perspective of a monster. I like being able to make those connections across a theme or book. Take patterns for example, many students come away from math lessons thinking patterns are just AB or red/blue--I want them to be able to apply that concept to science, social studies, art and reading. 

These are some pics I found of the ones from last year. I didn't take many for some reason, but it can give you an idea:

Plant life cycle as a pattern-applying the pattern concept to science.

Unanswered questions-sometimes coming up with good questions to ask is harder than coming up with answers!

Perspective of a groundhog.

Must-Have Picture Books Linky

The Teacher Wife is hosting a fun linky party (although reading through people's posts is probably not a good idea while I'm still on credit card probation from already buying too much school stuff! :).

My favorites:

The Dot-about a way to be creative even if you think you don't have it in you.

Duck and Goose is about two birds who squabble over the "egg" that they found. In their resolve to own the egg, they become the best of friends. Turns out it's really just a ball-oops!

Tooth fairies in training, the young ones set off for their first tooth/money exchange all by themselves.

An older tractor gets pushed aside for the new technology, but proves that newer isn't necessarily better.

Well, the title is pretty self-explanatory. What kid can resist something big and smelly? :)