First Ever Five for Friday...And I'm Already Late

Y'all.  I can barely believe that it's Saturday.  Actually, if we're being really honest what I really can't believe is that I made it out with friends until 1:00am last night.  Or, this morning, I guess?  When we left I really thought we'd be home by 11:30 at the latest.  Suffice to say I'm beat today.  But it's okay because today is college football kick-off so I'm just catching up on all the things that got shoved off this week.  I'm also linking up with Doodle Bugs for Five For Friday.  Except I'm a little late.  Oopsie.  :/

Here are my 5 things.  Unfortunately, I only have 2 pictures, per some phone drama.
1.  This is honestly the best parent information form I have ever received.

  I love that this little girl's favorite thing to do outside of school is shopping.  I laughed out loud when I read this after school one day.  Watch out for this one.

2.  I love how quickly my little loves are buying into everything this year!  They're already giving the kids who are picked for line leaders silent cheers every day.  So sweet!  Yesterday, during Choice Time there were 3 girls at the art supply table and I could hear them playing school.  One of them said "Now pretend like it's your first day off the chart and you get a plus on your behavior calendar today.  Oh, yeah!  Woo hoo!"

3.  Yesterday, we worked on our hopes and dreams.  It literally took us almost all day to finish them, between having an assembly in the morning, teaching them each step of the project, plus embedding in lessons on how to use scissors and glue.  I mean, we really did hopes and dreams and read to self yesterday.  That was about it.  I snapped this picture of 2 cute littles working on their self-portraits.  The best part is that NONE of my kids wear glasses, but since I drew myself in glasses about half a dozen of them put glasses on their faces, too.  Love them.

4.  This first week back was NUTS!  I was so happy I planned the whole week over the summer; I had so much going on outside of school!  I had to 2 parties and a fantasy draft.  And really all I wanted to do was go to bed at 8:00pm every day.

5.  I'm so excited about college football coming back, and having a long weekend to recover that I'm going to put my TpT store on sale through Monday!  Take a look and snag some planning/organizing materials at a discount for back to school.  If there's something you'd like to see that's not there let me know!  =)

Have a great weekend, friends!
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Did that just happen??

Y'all, if I hadn't really just lived that first day I really wouldn't believe that it had just happened.  It was SUCH a whirlwind.  I was feeling so nervous about not having a special on our first day, and it ended up that even without a special we still didn't get to about 4 different activities!

I have about 20 of the cutest first grade nuggets you've ever seen.  So sweet and so eager to learn.  (And so buying into my crazy need to sing everything at the beginning of the school year.  LOVE!)  One of my cute little ELLs today just kept repeating things over and over again to himself in Spanish, then in English.  "Bathroom.  Bano.  Blue.  Azul."  So sweet.

I wish I had some first day pictures to share with you, but my phone was stolen last week and between trying to get ready for school, leaving town for 4 days, working with MPD, and Verizon I just haven't had time to get to the physical Verizon store yet.  (Cross your fingers no parents were trying to call me tonight.)  I'm hoping to cross that off the list tomorrow.

I hope you all had a great first day!  I have one more project to finish before I can hit the hay.  Hopefully, I'll be back with pictures later this week.

Take it easy.  =)

Fast and Furious

Hi, friends!  I know I've been a bit MIA this week, but between (attempting to) get my classroom set-up and making a surprise visit back to the Midwest for my FIL's birthday I've been so busy!  Tomorrow is our first day back (eek!).  I'm feeling so nervous!  Also, I just wanted to let you know about this fantastic give-away hosted by a smattering of lovely bloggers.  You have 2 days left to enter, so head on over and try your hand!

Good luck to anyone who's starting tomorrow!  And keep fighting the good fight if you're already back!  =)

Mid-Day Update

Friends!  Are you totally LOSING your mind getting ready for back to school, or is that just me??

I finally yesterday put every last stinking book into a book bin and I honestly think at this point if I find another unsorted book I might just throw it away.  That was such a never ending project! I'm 100% making that a kid's job during the school year.  Handling it from the end of the school year over the summer was plenty for me. That is one job I will happily pass off to a kid.  Now I'm just feeling nervous because my room is covered with random mess and we're in teacher meetings all week and I'm heading out of town this weekend.  Yipes!

My lunch break is over and our afternoon session is starting, so I just wanted to let you all know that I finished my guided reading planning templates.  You link directly to my store here to check them out.

Keep on keepin' on, friends!  =)

Short and Sweet

Hey, y'all!  I hope everyone's weekend is off to a great start!

I know some people are back in school already, but here in DC teachers go back on Monday.  I've already firmly vowed to myself that I will NOT go up to school this weekend...even though the mess I left in my room yesterday is threatening to give me an anxiety attack.  The weather here is beautiful this weekend, and I'm enjoying my last weekend of freedom.  =)

I just wanted to let everyone know that I'm participating in the huge TpT sale starting tomorrow, and with 20% off my store you can get several items in my store for under $1!

I think that  my next TpT project is going to be some guided reading planning materials.  Would that be helpful, or do you think that market is pretty saturated?

Happy Saturday!  =)

Teacher Tips

Two blog posts in under 12 hours?!  I know, I know.  However, if we're being totally honest this less represents my extreme commitment to Teacher Week and the fact that in preparation for PD next week I refused to allow myself to get back into bed after the hubs left for work.  I even made the bed so I wouldn't get into it!  But no one will be at school to let me in until 8:00am.  Which means that I have about an hour and a half to fill.  So you're getting a bonus blog post!  Once again, I'm linking up with Blog Hoppin's Teacher Week for their last day--teacher tips and tricks.  

Now, if we're being totally honest, I don't really consider myself a really tricky teacher, but I suppose I have learned a few things over the years.  I'm coming at you today with a really cool trick I learned last year from another teacher--data folders.  Previously, I blogged about my school's partnership with the Flamboyan Foundation in DC.  (You can check it out here if you missed it.)  Flamboyan has really been working with us on how to engage parents AND how to meaningfully share data with them. 

Last year, I went to a workshop after school hosted by Flamboyan about sharing data with parents and left with a ton of really great ideas.  The one that I liked the best and put into practice in my classroom almost immediately is data folders.  Here's the basic rundown:  You decide one day each week that these data folders will go home.  (I would not recommend Fridays because you really want them back the next day.)  I always do mine on the one day that we don't have a special because that gives us a little more time in class to get the folders ready.  So basically, you're selecting 2 goals that you're monitoring on a weekly basis and you're sending the data home to families each week, giving them information on how their students are progressing.  This is a little different from just sending home weekly assessment scores because you're really trying to track growth over time with these folders, so you're trying to assess the same skill (or group of skills) every week.  For example, last year I tracked my students' fact fluency scores because we took a fluency test each Friday and I also tracked their Fundations check-ups.  (I would give them a quick check-up, even if it wasn't in the plan for that week.)  Then, I can either grade them during a planning period or over the weekend and sort all the tests by kid so that they're reading to the put in the folder.  

There are 3 other really important pieces to the data folder that really bring this picture home to parents.  The first is the graphs.  You make a graph for math data, and ELA data.  You add in the benchmark line (where you want the kids to be; this is almost always 80% in my class) and then you have kids color in the graph to show their score.  This makes it really easy for parents to see where their students are, in relation to where we want them to be.  The second piece is the signature tracker.  Here, you're going to make a sheet with 3 columns.  One will be the date for each week when you send the folders home, the next will be a box for a parent to sign that they went through the folder, and last (and super important) is a comment box.  Parents MUST make a comment on the data.  They can really write anything in here that shows that they went through the folder.  I usually put a few suggestions at the top, like "So proud!" or "Way to go!" or "We need to practice short vowel sounds".  You just want to see by reading the comment that they went through the folder and looked at the data.  And the last piece (and the reason that I always do this on my no-special day) is that you have each kid fill out a form letter to their parents about their data for the week.  It's nothing fancy, just a little "Dear Mom/Dad/Grandma, I am feeling ____________________ about my tests this week.  Next week I want to ___________ (do better, do as well, study more, etc.) so that I can ________________ (get a treat, be smarter, know more math facts, etc.).  Love, ___________".  This whole process definitely takes some time to get rolling, but after the first few weeks this goes much more smoothly.  

Here's why I love the data folder:  you're sending home consistent information every week, so parents can't act surprised/won't be surprised when report cards come home.  I also love it because you can send extra information, like a note about increasing reading levels, but at the baseline they're getting weekly updates about the progressing their child is making in school in a really clear and easy to read format.  

Now, I've heard that there's a giant sale on everyone's favorite website this weekend, so I'm going to try really hard to have all the forms for this data folder up in time for this sale.  I wouldn't look for them before lunch time tomorrow, but that's the goal.  Have a great Friday!

Taming the Wild

Okay, y'all, I'm attempting my first link-up here, so in anticipation I request your patience.  =)  I'm linking up with Blog Hoppin for their Teacher Week soiree.

Today's theme is all about taming the wild.  Or classroom management.  Now, I want to be 100% real with you--if I did not have an excellent classroom management system I wouldn't even make it through the first day.  I absolutely LOVE my school, but it can definitely be a little rough around the edges at times.  So every summer I spend a fair amount of time thinking about how I will manage the behavior of my incoming little love nuggets.

The first 2 years I taught I did more a token economy system, where kids were earning classroom dollars and then cashing them in for prizes worth different amounts.  I liked it, and it was okay, but the first year I was in first grade I really didn't love it.  So I figured why stick with something I don't love.  Last year I tried something brand new--well, not really brand new, but brand new to me.  The clip chart.  Y'all.  I canNOT tell you how much I LOVE a good clip chart.  And if we're being totally honest, I was a big time clip chart doubter.  I thought there was no way it would ever work, and it was such a crazy idea, and it would never manage the behavior in my classroom.  But seriously.  I. LOVE. IT.  It's one of the best classroom decisions I've ever made.  (If the idea of a clip chart is new to you, you can read about it here.  Or you can just google "clip chart" and do your own research.)

Here's why I love the clip chart:  it moves the responsibility of tracking behavior from me to my kids.  (This is also why I love the book Have You Filled a Bucket Today?)  The basic tenet is that good/positive actions clip you up, and negative actions clip you down.  I definitely add extra incentives into my clip chart, like class-wide bonuses if no one has their clip below the morning starting point--Ready to Learn.  I also clip my kids "off the chart" if they're having a great day.  "Off the chart" means that you were on the top chunk of the chart, and you were asked to clip up again.  Those students get their clips, give them to me, and I wear them on my lanyard for the rest of the day.  If students continue to clip up even after they are off the chart they get stars on their clip and when their clip is full of stars I paint it after school.  It starts red, and they can move through every color of the rainbow until they get the coveted (and extremely rare) rainbow glitter clip.  The first time someone gets a red clip it's a huge deal!  They all marvel about it when they come in and see it on the clip chart in the morning.  It's generally a pretty adorable moment.

In addition to the clip chart, I use LOTS of really specific positive praise for small groups, whole group, and individual students.  I always joke with the hubs that he probably hates the first 6 weeks of school because I come home and give him the same type of praise that I give my students--"Wow, honey.  It was so helpful of you to empty the dishwasher.  I really appreciate that you did that and now I don't have to."  Oops.  We also start a compliment chain every year to help with hallway/out of the classroom behavior.  The way the compliment chain works is that every time another adult in the building gives the class a compliment we get to add a link to the chain.  When the chain touches the floor we get to have a compliment party.  The compliment party is a HUGE deal.  You can really make it whatever you want; last year, I asked my kids what they wanted and they wanted to paint, have a dance party, make posters to hang in the hallway so other kids could get compliments, too, and have milk and cookies with the principal and AP.  Are you kidding?!  Done and done.

Just as I have really specific procedures in place for praising positive behavior, I also am very clear with my students about potential negative consequences that could arise from their choices.  I always tell my students that I can only give them good ideas; they will ultimately make their own decisions.  You're the boss of you, if what I tell them all the time.  And frequently what I ask them when we're having a conversation and they say that someone else told them to do something.  As soon as they say that I always say "who's the boss of you?"  The first consequence, obviously, is for students to clip down.  If they've already clipped down and they're still acting out then I'll ask them to sit in our naughty seat.  This is a seat that's generally away from the rest of the class.  They're usually going to be there 6-8 minutes.  After that, I'm either going to have a quick conversation with them and invite them back to class, or if they're still being disruptive I'm going to ask them to either take a few books or their work with them and go to another classroom, again for probably 6-10 minutes.

I blogged earlier this week about Responsive Classroom, and one aspect of RC is logical consequences.  Basically, logical consequences means that you're matching the consequence to the action.  So if a kid colors on the table you're going to have them clean up the table, not miss recess.  I do like the idea of logical consequences, but I'll be honest:  it's one of the RC structures that I have the hardest time with because I feel like sometimes there isn't necessarily a logical consequence.

I hope I haven't bored y'all to tears.  If you're still with me I'll end with this:  I think the bottom line of any classroom management system is creating a community where students know that you value them and you'll listen to them.  If kids know you care they'll do almost anything for you.

The Fear

Y'all--I have the fear.  Big time.  You can get THE FEAR here.  Basically the fear stops you from being productive, and I'm being productive, but I'm too scared to go back to my classroom.  I'm feeling like I will never be ready for school, but just to let you know that I'm not totally screwing around all the time you can check out my first week plans.

First Week Plans_Blog Version by mrs_wilser

Responsive Classroom, Anyone?

The end of summer is so close.  Yesterday, the hubs and I were at a concert and we took some drinks to tailgate and I was refusing to drink fall-y beers because I refuse to acknowledge the fact that fall and back to school are just around the corner.  I am tenaciously clinging to the summertime!

I know I briefly talked about home visits yesterday, but I wanted to discuss another structure that my school uses today--Responsive Classroom.  If you're not familiar with responsive classroom, you can read more about it here.  Responsive Classroom (henceforth abbreviated as RC, for obvious reasons) is really an umbrella term for a lot of different classroom structures, and I have to say that I'm pretty into RC.  One part of RC that I LOVE is Morning Meeting.  Morning Meeting is the first thing (or one of the first things) that you do in your classroom every single day in RC.  There are 4 basic parts to Morning Meeting:  greeting, sharing, a game or activity, and morning message.  I'm not going to lie--sometimes Morning Meeting can go on for a while, to the extent that I sometimes find myself watching the clock, but at the same time I really believe that it's an incredibly important time in our day.  The Northeast Foundation for Children, the group who established Responsive Classroom, has an entire book dedicated to Morning Meeting--how to do it, ideas for greetings, games, activities, etc.  I also own that book and really love it.  But what I really like about Morning Meeting is that it's useful in so many different ways--kids practice social conventions, like shaking hands, and making eye contact to speak; they learn how to take turns, and respectfully ask and answer questions; and through morning message you can build reading/literacy behaviors.  I could go on for quite some time about Morning Meeting, but I'm going to try and be brief.  I really want to highlight one part of Morning Meeting, which is the share.  I follow a whole mess of other teacher blogs, so it comes to my attention that a lot of early elementary teachers are interested in how other teachers structure and manage their share, so I wanted to share how I manage our sharing.

For the first week of school, every kid shares every day.  I will pose a question to the group and give them a sentence stem, and then we'll go around in a circle and every kid will answer the question, and so will I.  So that might sound something like this--me:  "Friends, today we're all going to have the chance to share.  We are all going to answer the same question.  Our question today is what is your favorite color?  Let's all take 5 quiet seconds to think of our favorite color" (silently count to 5, while ticking seconds off on fingers)  "Great, friends.  When it's your turn, please stand up and say "My favorite color is ______", and put in your favorite color.  Then you can sit down, and it will be your neighbor's turn".  We do lots of favorite during the first week, and then starting the second week I'll have a sharing calendar that divides the entire class as evenly as possible across the 5 days of each school week.  When it's your day to share during morning meeting, I'll call students' names, one at a time.  When I call their name they'll stand and say "Good morning, class" and then the class will greet them in return, "Good morning, _________".  Then, that student will share in basically this format:  "Today, I would like to share ________________.  Any questions or comments?"  Students are allowed to take 2 questions and comments--1 boy, and 1 girl.  Then, they sit down, and the next student shares.  I generally do not have my kids bring in items from home, and I also almost always make them share.  If they say they don't have anything to share I'll ask them a few questions to get them thinking, like what did you do after school yesterday, what did you eat for dinner last night, are you excited about something this weekend, etc.

Responsive Classroom has a ton of structures that I use daily (as well as some that I really need to get about--logical consequences, I'm looking at you)--morning meeting, quiet time, choice time, closing circle, academic choice.  They also have structures that you use on an as-needed basis to introduce new topics to students, like guided discovery and modeling.  If you're new to RC, or looking to learn more I would recommend their book The First Six Weeks of School.  You can buy it on Amazon, or on the RC website.

I use this book every year to plan my first few weeks of school.  (Ironically, not all 6, but it's still really helpful.)  Anyone else use Responsive Classroom?  Feelings?   

Home Visits & Parent Volunteers

I canNOT believe that there is only one more week of summer break!  In DC, teachers go back on August 19th, and our new little loves come to us on August 26th.  Literally two weeks from Monday I will be greeting 27 brand new first graders.  Yikes!  I don't know if it's been how busy my personal life has been this summer, or if the space/time continuum has really started to move forward at a faster pace, but this summer has really flown by.  Really, it feels like I just packed up my classroom last week.

Over the past few years, my school has tried out several different parent engagement initiatives.  One of the ones that has been pushed the most intensely is the home visit program.  (If you're interested you can check out their website here.)  We partner with the Flamboyan Foundation to support this initiative, but the basic idea is this:  before the school year, or early in the school year, teachers go to visit the homes of all their students to build a relationship with the family.  There's obviously more nuances involved than that (you're supposed to take a partner with you; you schedule the visit, and call to confirm, etc.), but that's the basic core.  It's a very interesting program, and I feel like sometimes it really pays off and sometimes it doesn't as much.  I usually do my home visits with my grade level special ed teacher, since she's in my classroom often and all of my students will interact with her on some level.  I will say the one thing I like the most about the program is that it's really nice to already know and recognize kids before the school year starts.

One thing that I'm really working on this year is to have a small base of parents who will volunteer/support our classroom throughout the year.  I'm thinking that I'll start them out with preparation tasks, like prepping materials and work stations, maybe organizing the library?  But what I'm wondering is:  how do you get parents into your classroom?  What do you ask them to do?

Skipping Town

Y'all.  The back to school pressure is REAL!  My to-do list grows every day, and I'm not really sure I'm making any forward progress.  It's literally keeping me up at night.

However, said pressure is not stopping me from leaving my lovely husband behind for the next few days in DC while I hightail it up to PA to meet my parents and aunt.  I mean, really it's only 3 days.  And I promise to work on the train.  And I'll go into my classroom on Friday.  So this will be fine, right?

I don't really have a specific plan in mind today, but I did want to share 3 things with you.
1.

  I don't know if your Target will have the same deals as mine, but I got these binders for 99 cents EACH!  True confession:  sometimes, when I find really great teacher deals I turn into a bit of a hoarder.  Do I have any idea what I'm doing with 5 brand new binders?  Heck no.  But I hate when I feel like I'm a binder down in the middle of the year and people want me to pay them $4 for it.  So I'm preemptively striking this year.

2.

Last Friday was a BEAUTIFUL day out here in DC.  I mean, practically perfect--sun shining, low humidity, just a few puffy clouds in the sky.  And all I wanted was to go to the pool.  But instead, I powered through and loosely planned my ENTIRE first week of school.  I definitely feel like I need to go back and script out a few lessons to make sure my timing is right, especially for the first few days.  But it does feel pretty liberating to know that I have the majority of my first week back planned.  One thing I definitely need are crafts to introduce some new materials--I would like to find something where my kids are painting, cutting, and gluing all in one craft, but I have no idea what the one craft will be.  To the pins!  I'm sure I'll be able to find something on Pinterest.  Right?!  

3.  And here's the last thing I wanted to share with you.  This very interesting infographic from my adorable baby brother who works for an educational publishing company.  (They mostly target higher ed companies, so no freebies for this girl, but it definitely gives him a super interesting perspective on the pace/trajectory of education.)  I'm not 100% sure I share this vision for the future of education, but it's definitely an interesting picture that they paint.  I have a lot of reservations, but like I said it's very interesting food for thought.  

I'm going to finish this laundry and get to packing for my last mini-vacation of the summer!  Enjoy the waning days of summer break!  How many days do you have left?

No More Math...For a Little While

Hello, friends!

I'm quite confident that everyone thinks I only talk about math now, which is ironic because anyone who knows me in real life knows I'm a little bit of an idiot about math.  But I love teaching math way more than I ever loved learning it when I was in school myself.

There's no particular agenda here today, folks.  I did sort of wrap up my series of math products on TpT by posting a rubric to track your students' work, which you can check out here.

Is anyone else feeling the back to school heat?  Today marks 19 days until DCPS teachers go back to school, but it might as well be 19 hours.  I feel like I have so many projects to do, and I have no idea when they're all going to get done!  My numero uno job tomorrow is to finish planning for the first day...or to potentially abandon planning the first day and zoom out to the plan the whole week, and then go in to more detail for each day after I have the wider lens of the whole week.  There's just so much stuff that has to be done the first week!

Two books that I love, love, love to read during the first week of school are First Day Jitters, and Have You Filled a Bucket Today?  Obviously, I read First Day Jitters on the first day of school, and then we always do Abby's Jitter Juice activity that you can find in her packet Fun with Firsties.  Y'all, last year my sweet little firsties LOVED Jitter Juice so much that anytime we had a party they would ask if we could make it again!  It was too adorable.

What are some books that you love to read on the first day of school?  Or within the first week?