You have small groups. Now what?

Hi, friends!  Happy Tuesday!  I'm sure that most of you are teaching right now, or maybe on your way to school still, but I'm sitting in the living room with our Christmas tree on and the twinnies are napping sweetly nearby.  I'm going to hit this hard and fast so we can be done before the boys wake up and I need another cup of coffee.  =)

If you've been following along at all, you know that I've been blogging lately about making small groups.  (I'd like to call it a series, but these posts have been so random and intermittent that I think series is too generous.)  In my last post here, I talked about how I made small groups.  So now I want to talk about what the heck you do with these small groups once you have them.  I think the obvious answer is that we all make small groups for SGI (small group instruction), so that you can give kids more targeted instruction, whether it's for reading or math.  What's less obvious is the best way to plan for SGI and actually run those small groups.

There are about a thousand ways to organize for SGI; most of them involve some type of work station, whether you're using Daily 5, Cafe, project based learning, or something else.  (To be honest, my previous literacy coach always pushed upper grades to do SGI during independent reading because she felt that was more authentic than work stations, but I think that's a little impractical in early grades, mostly because their stamina for independent reading doesn't match the amount of time you really want to spend with small groups.)  So, assuming you're balancing SGI with work stations the first thing you should decide is how often will you do SGI?  (For the record, I'm using SGI to refer to both guided reading and math,although I realize the process might not be the same for both.  We'll separate them out in a later post.  Fear not!)  Here are the three SGI schedules that I encounter most often.  I've used two of them myself.

SGI Plan 1 (this is what I used teaching first grade):  SGI occurs daily in reading, and almost daily in math.  Teacher sees all groups at least once a week, strategically choosing groups who might need extra sessions to see teacher multiple times.  Student rotation groups go to each work station once/week.  Pros to this style are that teachers see every single student at least once weekly, so you have a good feel for student progress, challenges, etc.  Cons:  If students are out the day you see them  you miss them for that week.

SGI Plan 2 (I used this teaching kindergarten):  SGI occurs daily, and 3 times/week in math.  Teachers see all groups daily (in reading), and each student within a week (math).  Pros:  Students gets lots of instruction targeted specifically for them and generally make pretty significant growth as a result.  Cons:  high work station churn; very difficult to run without 2 teachers in the classroom.    

SGI Plan 3 (I have never used this myself):  SGI only occurs several times per week (2-3), and teacher prioritizes students with highest needs.  Pro:  frees up classroom time for other aspects of instructional day.  Con:  students with high needs don't get as much targeted instruction.

I'd love to hear about which SGI lay out you use in your classroom.  I'm hoping to be back before the end of the week to talk about how I actually plan for SGI.  Have a great Tuesday, and don't forget to check out the TpT Cyber Monday & Tuesday sale!  Everything is 28% off until midnight tonight!  Start your shopping here!

Stay dry!
xoxo

Making Small Groups

Hi, team!

I hope you're having a great weekend!  I can't believe it's already been 2 weeks since my last post; I didn't mean for so much to pass since my last post, but well, babies.  Those poor guys get blamed for a lot.  Most of it is their fault.  =)  I'm just coming to you tonight with a super quick post about how I make my small groups.

In my last post, I talked about how I have all students in two groups--their rotation groups, as well as their teacher table group.  I don't know about you, but I'm pretty visual.  When I was in the classroom, I always had a set of name sticks that I used all the time every day.  I made them at the start of every school year; I wrote the kids' names on the big popsicle sticks, and I kept the sticks in an empty Crystal Light jar.  (Seriously, if you're throwing away the Crystal Light jars you're making a mistake.  Let's talk.)  Alright, so I'm making two sets of groups. so I go through this process twice.  The first thing I do is think about students that absolutely cannot be in the same group together, for whatever reason--they talk too much, they distract each other, they're mean to each other--whatever.  I start my piles with those students, separating one into each group.  After I separate out those nuggets, I go back to the sticks that are still left.  I essentially then fill in students around those who had to be separated, trying as much as possible to have all ability levels in one rotation group.  (I talked about why I feel that's important in this post, but basically it helps students use other students as their main resource during SGI, rather than you.)  When I'm done with this process, I'll grab a piece of paper or draw a quick table in my notebook so I can remember who's in which group.  It will end up looking something like this:

Then, I use a combination of my name sticks and my data binder to make teacher table groups.  These are obviously the groups that students will be in when they come to my table for guided reading or math SGI.  These are not the same as their rotation groups, and these groups are generally more homogenous, ability level wise.  I then make the same chart for their teacher table groups.  I'll share more in a future post about how I plan for all of my small groups, but one last thing--the only set of groups that I post in my room is the rotation groups.  Those are the only ones on the chart.

Alright, team; I hear those babies moving around, so I'm out.  Have a great weekend, and I'll be back before the end of the month with a post on how I plan for small groups.
Happy Sunday!
xoxo

Five for Fraturday

Hi, friends!

I hope your Sunday morning is as beautiful as ours is here in DC!  It's the first truly cold morning of the fall, but I'm almost done with my first cup of coffee, I have a load of laundry in, the sun is streaming through our kitchen/living room windows, and all the boys (hubs included) are taking a nap, so I'm the boss of myself for the next 45-ish minutes.  Since I'm already 24 hours late, let's just get right down to it, shall we?

I live in DC, but I grew up in Cincinnati.  I love, love, LOVE Cincinnati, in a way that I don't think most people love their hometown.  I am also a fan of all Cincinnati teams, including the Bearcats.  Both of my parents went to UC, so we were raised as Bearcat fans.  The biggest struggle about living in DC is out of market games (thank you, DirectTV for NFL Sunday Ticket), so last night I was super stoked to watch UC play USF.  I thought it would be a close, competitive game, but that UC would win. Whomp, whomp, whomp.  Was I ever wrong!  They were down 21 in the first quarter, and it didn't really get any better at all ever.  Finally, at halftime, I had to give up.  The hubs and I watched shows off the DVR instead.  It was bad, y'all.  The final score was 65-27.  Yowza.  But, on the upside, I unloaded the dishwasher, did all the dishes, and did two loads of baby laundry because the game was so bad.  Everything has a silver lining, right? 

Can you BELIEVE Thanksgiving is next week?!  I'm sure those of you who are in the classroom can, and feel like it can't come soon enough, but I feel like it's sneaking up on me out of nowhere.  We still don't even have a plan for Thanksgiving.  We used to always do Friendsgiving, but most of our friends we did that with have moved back to The Good Land.  Last year, we went to North Carolina to have Thanksgiving with my cousin and her family, which was really nice, but we still haven't committed to anything for this year.  It feels like Thanksgiving is still 3 weeks away.

True confession:  I am on day 11 (eleven!?) of the 21 Day Fix, and I STILL want to eat crap all the time.  I mean, I'm not because of said Fix, but whoever said that you just stop craving things is a liar.  Or, in my true soul, I'm just a fat kid.  I'd honestly say both are equally probable.  I used to think the hardest part about dieting would be giving up the booze, but since I was pregnant last year that's not enough it.  It's the delicious, but terrible for you food, like burgers and nachos.  

Based on some Scopes that I've rewatched recently (because I can't catch a darn thing live.  Babies.), it seems like people are interested in planning materials.  It's my goal to have a Scope up by Thanksgiving on how I plan (#crossyourfingers), but I'll add my materials as freebies to my TpT store regardless by the end of the weekend.  To answer some base questions, no, I didn't have to turn in plans, no, we didn't use a reading series, and no, I didn't plan with my team.  We planned units together, but our daily plans we did on our own.  Here's a shot of what a week of plans looked like.  N

Normally, there's more typing and less handwriting, but this is just a general glance.  Time of day goes down the side, Day across the top, and I usually put in the teaching point and any important reminders in the box for that day.  

One last true confession for y'all.  For about two weeks now, I have been working my tail off to NOT listen to holiday music.  And, at the same time, Pandora has been working so hard to get me to listen.  They suggested a Michael Buble Holiday station to me (which I should probably create), and they keep telling me about how they've added new content to my already existing holiday stations.  I also realize that I might have too many holiday radio stations.  Is that a thing?  Can you have too many?

This time next weekend I will certainly be listening to at least one of those stations.  =)

Have a great weekend, and a happy Thanksgiving!

xoxo

Shuffling Those Small Groups

Y'all.  Can I just first say that I get abnormally impressed with myself when I blog twice in one day?  Like it's probably a little ridiculous.

From my excellent IG and Twitter creeping, I can tell that many teachers are preparing for their first round of Parent/Teacher Conferences (PTCs), or just recently made it through.  If you just made it through, way to go!  Self-five!  You did it!  Conferences can be hard, but you nailed it!  If you're still preparing, you've totally got this and you're going to do a great job!

I know that when I was in the classroom, PTCs generally occurred around the same time as a data cycle, which means that generally when we were prepping for conferences we were also assessing like mad(wo)men.  And generally, when we have new data we use it to make sure that we're still grouping students appropriately and meeting the needs of all our kids.  I'm here today to briefly talk to you about how you go about creating your small groups.

Now, when I first started teaching I felt really strongly that students needed to be ability grouped and that the groups students used for work stations (LWS) had to be the same groups they used to come to my table.  If that's how you feel comfortable, great.  However, I want to tell you about how I group kids now that has totally changed the way I manage LWS.  The short version is this:  I put students into rotation groups but those rotation groups DO NOT match the groups of students who come to my table.  When I started as a teacher, I thought this was stupid because I was doubling the work of group making.  However, as an older and wiser (ha) teacher I am 100% in favor of having rotation groups and teacher table groups not match.  Let me tell you why.  First, when you ability group your rotations you're essentially putting your highs, lows, and mediums in the same group, so all the lows are together, all the highs are together, etc.  What I LOVE about having unique rotation groups is that you can mix up the levels of students within the groups, which is great because you can split any potential talkers/misbehavers, and you can also make sure to have some kids that others can ask if they forget what the activity is.  Second, having different rotation groups means that there's never a work station that's totally empty.  It also makes it more likely that students are getting to every work station in a week.  Lastly, the thing that's great about having rotation groups and teacher table groups is that you can call an audible and flex group students if the need arises.  So if you notice that there are 4 students who need work on answering two-part questions, but who might not be on the same level, you can call them to your teacher table without really disrupting the flow of your rotation groups.

When I ran work stations with different rotation groups and teacher table groups, I used pocket charts to indicate rotations.  I had cards with group names and members on it, as well as cards that showed the work station.  Here's an example of what the rotation group cards looked like.

And underneath the group card would be the 3 cards showing their work stations for that day.  So, for example, underneath pumpkins it might show word work, read to others, work on writing.  Here's an example of the work station cards.

I planned for this to be more concise than this actually was, but I just really feel strongly about having different rotation and teacher table groups.  :/  If you try it let me know if you love it, too.  And if you don't maybe I can help you regroup your students so you do love it.

Happy Novvember!
xoxo

Cobwebs and November Currently

Friends.  That October was really intense.  During October, we went to two weddings, took the babies on their first plane trip, had my parents in town, went home, went to a street festival, took the babies trick or treating, and hosted two parties in one weekend while hosting my best friend on our couch.  But, on the upside, we all made it through and we're on our way to enjoying a much more mellow November.  And now I have to get this Currently up quickly because I think these babies on the tail end of their naps.

Okay, are y'all watching The Voice, too?!  I really like it.  I sometimes pretend that I don't, but I finally just gave in and started DVRing it.  Now, I'm listening to it while also listening to the lovely sounds of construction as they renovate the apartment next to us.  #apartmentliving  So over it.  And baby #2 is up.  

I canNOT believe that it is already November.  I mean, I really love fall.  It's such a gorgeous time of year, and I love when it gets cooler outside, but where is the time going?  I mean, the babies are 7 months old.  What the what?!  They're teething and look like they're about to crawl any second.  Is this what it's like?  So fast all the time? 

I love Thanksgiving dinner.  Pie.  Mashed potatoes.  Green bean casserole.  Corn casserole.  I love a good casserole.  I assume it's because I grew up in the Midwest.  I mean, what are the downsides to a casserole?  Everything you already wanted combined into one handy dish.  So great.  

Okay, and last but not least, here's my gratuitous picture of the babies in their Halloween costumes.

Have a great week!

xoxo

September Currently

Twice in one day?!  This is what happens when the twinnies take marathon morning naps.  I'm taking a quick break from #TeacherWeek15 to post my September Currently.

Y'all.  The AC in our apartment runs SO LOUDLY!  Like when the hubs and I are watching shows in earnest we have to turn them up to hear them over the air.  We have to do it with the heat, too.  It's so crazy.  I don't know why it's a thing in this apartment because it's never been an issue before, but it's so loud.  

The twinnies are 5 months old.  What the what?!  How can that be?!  It's so crazy to believe, like when I think back to April 2nd it's totally surreal.  It was such a crazy week and a crazy day and it's completely unreal to me that the boys are growing so big, but they're regular baby sizes now and they can smile and hold stuff and they're starting to play.  I like to pretend that they like reading as much as I do because I make them read with me every day.  

If I'm going to commit to staying home then I need a plan.  Or at least some goals.  I can't just sit home with these boys.  As much as I love them that will drive me crazy.  

I don't know about you, but fall is a lovely time of year. I love when the seasons change and all the colors of fall.  And the pumpkin flavored everything.  (Which reminds me that I should probably start thinking about some costumes for the boys.)  But it is so DANG HOT that I really can't mentally prepare for fall.  It's going to be 96 today and it's been over 90 every day this week.  Summer just won't let go.  Which is mainly a bummer just because it makes it tricky to take out our pup and the babes for a walk.  

Apparently, I have lots of needs.  Who knew?  I swear, these boys plot against me.  When M was sleeping through the night, T always woke up and now that T is sleeping through the night M is waking up.  Ay, ay, ay.  I feel like this is just #twinlife.  Yes?  

So, clearly, we've got some twins.  And clearly, when you have babies you gain some weight.  I mean, I'd love to lose all of the weight that I gained whilst pregnant, but for the first time in my life (seriously) the number on the scale isn't the goal.  I know these guys are tiny now, but pretty soon they'll be moving, and before I know it they'll be all over the place all the time.  My personal goal is to be fit and healthy to be a model for these nuggets.  I never want to have to tell them that I can't do something (play a game, run a race, etc.) because I'm out of shape.  I would say it's currently going well (see what I did there.  Currently.  Haha), and I'm feeling optimistic that I'll stick with this.  Cutting down carbs wasn't as hard as I thought it would be, and I think it's really helped me stay on track.  If we talk numbers I gained 40 pounds while pregnant and I've lost 24 so far.  Like I said, I'm trying to not get too hung up on numbers.  

And last but not least, I'm trying to not get too hung up on planning.  Our lease is up this February and we're currently (there it is again) trying to decide what our next move is--buy a house, move back home, rent again (please, no).  I just hate when things are up in the air, but this isn't something that I have a ton of control over, so I'm trying to be inspired by Elsa and Anna to let it go.  I'll let you know how that goes.  

Thanks for stopping by my corner of the interwebs.  I gotta go feed these babies; they're rousing from their AM nap.  Have a great long weekend!

xoxo

#TeacherWeek15: Sanity Savers

Hi, friends

So, I skipped yesterday's classroom tour link up because I don't have a classroom this year, and I never took enough pictures of my classroom to do a tour of an old classroom.  But I am back in business for today's Sanity Savers conversation.


I think as teachers one thing that is INCREDIBLY important is working smarter, not harder.  I mean, teachers definitely work hard.  But it's also important to work smart, or you'll never get anything done.  So I'm going to share a few of my work smarter/stay organized strategies that helped me stay organized and calm when I was teaching.

Number those nuggets.
Every year, I numbered my kids.  Generally, our list followed ABC order, but invariably we'd gain and lose some kids throughout the school year so it wasn't always 100% true, but close.  Here are reasons why numbering kids is a sanity saver.
1.  It allowed me to reuse materials when students came and left class, so I could get more bang for my buck.  Students could use the same folders, pencils, scissors, and crayons as the student who just left.
2.  It eliminated line up issues.  Students always lined up numerically, so there was no arguments about who was busting, or how someone cut in front of someone else.  (Line leader was a job in my class; that person would just line up in front of number one for that day.)
3.  It gave students a certain sense of anonymity.  While students did know each other's number as the school year went on, it let me organize data, conference notes, and assessments in binders by number and they didn't necessarily know whose it was.

Use pictures whenever possible.
Now, I realize that this is mainly an early elementary tip, but using graphics in my classroom was key.  Especially early in the year, and especially with my lowest nuggets.  For example, our work station rotation board always had pictures as well as group names and pictures as well as the written name of the work station.

This was part of our fall work station board.  Each group is clearly named, but also has an icon/graphic to go with it so that if you can't read the word pumpkin you still know your group.  

And here's just a quick example of rotation cards.  Station name underneath, with a picture on top.  

Organize your student data.

Okay, so I realize this is a terrible tip because obviously you want to stay organized.  I don't have pictures to go with this, but I am planning a Periscope in the next few days about this same topic.  (You can follow me at Whale_Tails_DC.)  I'm going to give you the highlights of how I organized student data.  First, and most crucial, was a grid that I created and printed weekly.  In the header, it had the week (Week of August 31) and then below was a grid.  It would have each of my students' name in a square, and beneath their name it would say "math, reading, writing".  When I conferred with that student, I would highlight the subject so that as the week went on I could see at a glance who I had met with and who I had not.  When I met with students, I would quickly jot notes on address labels.  Address labels come in lots of sizes, but I have big handwriting so I always liked to get the biggest address labels, but you can get them in any size.  I would just jot their number or initials, the date, and the subject (which I usually abbreviated--M, R, W) and then at the end of the day I would stick their label on their page in the binder for that subject.  I realize that pictures would be really helpful to this; hopefully, it will make a little more sense after you see the 'Scope, but I'm happy to answer any questions you might have about this method.  

Thanks for sticking with me to the end!  Those are my top 3 Sanity Savers.  And don't forget to check out Blog Hoppin' to catch other teachers' brilliant ideas.  You're almost to the weekend, teachers!  You can do it!

xoxo

#TeacherWeek15 Make Ahead Meals

Hi, friends

This is just a super quick post; the twinnies aren't feeling terribly cooperative today.  I'm obviously linking up with Blog Hoppin' for Teacher Week, and today is about make ahead meals.


I love using my crockpot during back to school season, but this is a newer recipe that I am legitimately obsessed with.  I would honestly make it every single week if I could get the hubs on board for it.  But tragically he doesn't love Mexican the way that I do.  So here's why I think this recipe is so great:  first, I feel like often 30 minute recipes really take longer than 30 minutes to make because you have to cup, chop, etc.  But there's no cutting or chopping in this recipe so it really takes 30 minutes (sometimes 25 if you're really organized and your meat is thawed).  Secondly, you only need one pot to make it so clean-up is super easy.  And, as a bonus, there are always tons of leftovers (lunch the next day, anyone?)  I could write a love story about this recipe, but instead I"ll just share the link with you.  Put this in your belly. NOW.

(For the record, it never looks this nice when I make it, but it's so dang delicious.)

xoxo

Five Fun Facts

Greetings, my friends

I hope everyone is surviving the back to school season.  Some people have already been in school for 2 or 3 weeks now, and some districts (especially near me) are just starting back today, and then, of course, there are those schools that don't go back until after Labor Day.  As a student and a teacher, I was always envious of those schools that don't go back until after Labor Day.  That really seems like the way to do it to me.  But I'm not in charge (which is really a shame), so I'll just keep plugging away with the school calendar we're given.

I'm so excited today to link up with Blog Hoppin.  Teacher Week is one of my favorite weeks of the school year, and I'm hoping to link up most days.  Cross your fingers on that one.  Without any more yammering, I'm going to jump right in and share my Five Fun Facts.

                                               

1.  I'm not teaching this year.  :(
This was an incredibly hard choice, but when this happened earlier this spring the hubs and I had some serious conversations about the best use of our time as well as money.

Out here, childcare is ridiculously expensive and we'd have to pay twice.  The amount of money I would take home after daycare just didn't seem worth the cost of missing out of some much time with these boys.  So this year I'm kicking at home on the daily with these young gentleman.  I miss classroom teaching, but I also feel really thankful that we have the resources to make staying home a viable choice.

2.  I have a muppet face problem.
Some people do duck lips.  Some people just do a regular smile.  I have an uncontrollable Muppet face.  It started as a joke in college, but I don't even remember what the joke is.  But it's a real problem that still occurs in my life on the regular.  Even at weddings and on honeymoons.

3.  I had teaching cold feet.

When I was a kid, I always wanted to be a teacher, but when I was in college I didn't major in education.  I got cold feet from Negative Nancies, and it didn't help that the education department was a bit of a disorganized mess when I was in school.  But after 1 year of office work, I realized I couldn't hack it long term as a worker bee.  Ultimately, I went back to school and got a master's in education and haven't looked back since.  

4.  I live here.  

I've lived out here for 6 years.  It was a really impulsive move, and when I did it I never imagined that I would go to grad school, have my first real job, meet my husband, and have babies all in the main nerve.  And while there are some down sides to living in the nation's capital, it is also pretty cool to be able to walk the babies and the pup past the Supreme Court, Library of Congress, and Capitol daily.  

5.  But, I grew up here.
                               
While lots of my most recent life events have transpired in other places, my heart still belongs in Cincinnati.  It's hard for me to imagine loving a place the same way I love Cincinnati.  I still have lots of family and friends in Cincinnati, and love going back there for visits.  If I were in charge of my own self I would move back to Cincinnati in a minute.

I can't wait to read your Five Fun Facts!  Don't forget to link up with Blog Hoppin' yourself and share 5 facts.  And if you feel so inclined (maybe you also have uncontrollable muppet face?  or you have twins, too?!), leave a comment below.  I love hearing from y'all!

Happy Monday!
xoxo

It's August already?!

Y'all.

I need to stop the presses for a minute.  Today, August 2nd, the twinnies are FOUR MONTHS old!  Can you believe it?!  I sure as heck can't.  I can't believe that 4 months ago we were in the hospital and they told us that we couldn't go back and that we were going to have babies.  This has been such a crazy and overwhelming journey so far, and these boys have come so far in just 4 short months.  I can't wait to see where they go next.  #NICU #twinmom  Okay, enough sappy stuff.  Here's what's Currently happening in my apartment.

Currently, T is sleeping in his boppy, and M is making sweet baby sounds right next to me.  Baby sounds are the best.  Unless it's emergency hungry feed me baby sounds.  Those are NOT the best.

I don't know how the weather has been where you all live, but it's been so dang hot here that we haven't been able to participate in lots of outdoor activities because of the boys.  But this past week we've had a mini-break from the crazy heat and we've been able to do some fun outdoor activities.  On Friday, I took the boys and our pup out for a 5 mile walk.  It was so nice out we just kept walking.  And we went to a 90s cover band concert that night.  So fun.

If you read my blog on the reg, you know that this year is the first year in 6 years that I'm not going back to school.  I'm staying at home for at least half the year with the twinnies.  It was mostly a fiscal choice, but it still feels weird to not be in that hyped up back to school mode.  Even though I'm not going back to school, I still feel so busy.  I always have these really ambitious daily goals about blogging and creating TpT products, but these boys take up so much time!  I mean, I love them.  But I don't love the hit my productivity has taken.

Next Friday, we're taking our first trip with the boys.  Just heading home for a friend's wedding, but it will be busy because so many people want to see the boys.  But I really hate packing, and now I have to pack for 2 extra creatures.  Blarg.  It will be fun though.

One last quick plug--don't forget to give feedback on your TpT purchases so you can get credits for the back to school sale!

Happy back to school!
xoxo

Parent Odds and Ends--FREEBIE!!

Hi, friends!

It seems like lots of people are getting ready to go back to school; DC doesn't start until August 24th, but I know that if I was going back this year I'd be getting ready.  Instead, I'm trying to bring you helpful and relevant back to school content.  (Hopefully, it's working.)  This is the last post in my parent communication series.  It's a mix of odds and ends, and I'm hoping it will be helpful.  I tried to post this yesterday, but the littles had different ideas.

So this last post is just a mix of other quick ways I communicate with parents.  The first way I want to share with you is Remind (it used to be called Remind101, so you might know it that way as well).  This should link to their website with directions on how to sign-up.  I used Remind every year I was in the classroom, and I LOVED it!  It's so easy to use; you give your parents a code to sign up and then you can easily text reminders to every parent who signed up.  You can also create groups within your Remind, so maybe you need to text just your chaperones, or just your parent volunteers.  You can do that, too!  Remind definitely saved me time every year, and it takes about 1 minute to set up.  Definitely worth the time.

Last, but not least, I added a freebie to my TpT store today of forms that I use to send quick notes home.  There are 3 stock notes included--a NUT note, a volunteer reminnder, and a number change form.  You can grab this freebie here.  I always taught in a uniform school, so when students came out of uniform I would say home a NUT note.  NUT stands for No Uniform Today.  Parents would sign it and send it back and I would keep track of them.  If students accumulated a certain number of NUT notes there would generally be some other consequence, but nothing too serious.  My personal opinion is that most kindergarten and first grade students aren't doing their own laundry or dressing themselves so they shouldn't have super stiff consequences for uniforms.  I also included my "oops" form; I used this when I tried to reach parents and couldn't because their number changed.  I think it's pretty straightforward.  Lastly, I included my parent volunteer reminder.  I would just fill this out and send it home with parents the night before they were set to volunteer.  With all of these forms, I would copy a ton of them on brightly colored paper at the beginning of the school year (each on different colored paper so it was easy to tell them apart) and just have them available to my in file folders that I mounted on the wall or on my bulletin board.  When I needed one of them, I would just pull it out and fill it out.  Generally, I would staple it to their student's homework for the night so that they were likely to see it.

I hope these forms save you some time!  Happy back to school!
xoxo

Positive Pictures

Hi, loves

Twice blogging in under a week!  Can you believe it?!  (Don't get used to it; I don't think the boys will always be this cooperative.)  This has been a great weekend; I went to a concert on Friday with my mom, the boys, and some friends, and then we picked the hubs up from the airport.  Saturday we took a family trip to some breweries down in VA, and this morning I had to take my mama to Dulles to fly home.  Whomp, whomp.  I told my mom the last time she was here that if I could afford her salary I would hire her full time to help me out.  #ishouldputmoreproductsontpt

Enough small talk.  My #backtoschool idea for you today is called Positive Pictures.  Part of my parent forms that I collect on the first day of school is asking them if they are able to (and would like to) receive pictures messages from me.  I track all the parents who say yes and send them Positive Pictures.  I try to really hit Positive Pictures hard early in the school year, especially the first month, but it's an incredibly useful strategy all year long.

The way Positive Pictures work is this:  basically, you see their child doing something positive and you snap a picture and send it to them with a quick caption.  "Look how neatly A wrote their name!"  "Wow, D is sharing so nicely with friends today!"  "T got an A on our math test!"  These captions always go with a picture showing the aforementioned activity, so if I write about neat handwriting I'll snap a picture of the work with the neat handwriting.  If they're sharing I'll snap a picture of them working with a classmate.  Positive Pictures has always been really well received by parents, and they're a great way to bank up positive communication so that if you do have to have a difficult conversation with parents they're generally more receptive.

I hope you all can use Positive Pictures in your classroom this year to set up for a great year with your parents!
xoxox

Fantastic Fridays

Hi, friends

I hope everyone is having a great week!  My mom is visiting while the hubs is on a business trip, and the weather finally broke here in DC and today was beautiful!  We saddled up the pup and the boys and walked all over the Hill today.  The weather was way too lovely to be inside working today.

I'm coming back at you today with the second part of my series on parent communication.  I think that we can all agree parents are a hugely important part of the classroom, even though they're likely only there for specific events.  Having parents on your team can make a huge difference in your school year.  Previously, I blogged about the parent forms and parent communication binder I use each year.  You can find that post here.  Today, I'm going to share a tip with you that I call Fantastic Fridays, but really you can use it any day of the week--Marvelous Mondays, Terrific Tuesdays, Wonderful Wednesdays...you get the point.

The way this works is that during Morning Meeting I would pick 3-5 student sticks from my jar (read:  old Crystal Light container that I had fancied up and repurposed as a fancy jar).  These student sticks went right into my clipboard, but they could really go anywhere that students can't see.  Their names would remain a secret all day long.  If your name was on a stick, your parent got called at the end of the day.  I called it Fantastic Fridays because the idea was for it to be a positive phone call (although there were definitely a few times where it wasn't so).  The greatest kickback of Fantastic Fridays is that students don't know whose name was selected, so everyone works harder so that if their name is on the stick there is definitely something fantastic to say to their parents.  Examples of things that I've noted on Fantastic Fridays are:  high quality work, intelligent answers/contributions to class discussions, showing respect to a friend, being a friend, taking care of our classroom, solving a problem, or helping a friend solve a problem, and standing up to a bully.  These certainly aren't the only things that you can note to parents on Fantastic Fridays; just some food for thought.

I hope you're able to use Fantastic Fridays this year to share some positive communication with parents!
xoxo

Reeling in Parents, Part 1

Howdy, y'all

It feels so weird to not be planning for back to school this year.  I'm not going back to school this fall; I'm going to spend at least half the school year home with our tiny nuggets.  But just because I'm not going back myself doesn't mean I don't have lots of ideas and feelings for you.  Last night, I shared my gigantic parent contact form that I always send home the first day of school.  If you missed the post last night, you can find the forms here in my TpT store for a paltry $2.  Basically, I'm going to blog about how I used these forms to hit the ground running with parent communication and track said communication throughout the year.  Even though I'm focusing on how I use one specific product, I anticipate that this will be kind of a long post.  You might want to grab some coffee/Diet Coke/wine now and settle in.  Whatever floats your boat.

The first thing you should know about me is that I love to organize.  Specifically, I love to organize in binders.  Few things make me happier than putting projects into binders with post-it tabs.  I'm feeling happy just thinking about it.  So after I get these forms back throughout the first week of school, I put them into a parent contact binder that will stay close to my teacher table for the entire school year.  Generally, I print out some type of cover sheet to look something like this.

Don't you worry, my pretties.  There's a page like this in the pack of forms on TpT, so that you too can obsessively label your binders.  Okay, so once I label the outside of my binder, I get to work on the inside.  Something else you should know about me (and something I'll talk more about later) is that I number my students every year.  They use this number all the time; it's in their cubby, on their folders, pencils, erasers, and it's also how they line up.  They get a number on the first day of school and it stays the same until they leave my classroom.  So the next thing I do with this binder is put forms in by number.  As students return their form, I hole punch them and stick a post-it label with their number on it at the edge, so that when all the forms have been turned in my binder looks something like this--full of returned parent forms, and numbered tabs.

What you can also see in this picture is the pages I use to track communication I have with parents.  Unfortunately, that's not something I made so I don't have that available yet, but I can make something to share.  Before I had this handy tracker, I used to just put a few blank pages of printer paper behind each parent communication form to track our interactions.  I kept really close track of parent interaction for several reasons.  First, I like to make sure I have a balance of positive communication and constructive communication.  Tracking parent communication can also help me notice trends in behavior that I might not have noticed otherwise.  It's a little hard to see, but basically the way I tracked communication was by tracking the date, the way I talked to the parent (in person, via phone or text, sending a note home, etc.), and what we discussed.  If we were discussing a particular behavior, I tried to note our outcome so that I could follow up with them again.  It sounds a little aggressive, but it probably took me about 2 minutes to track, and I could do most of it while waiting for parents to answer the phone.

The last thing I keep in my parent communication binder is this schedule/calendar that I keep at the front.  It's just a quick overview of parents who are willing to come in and volunteer in our classroom.  I split it by AM and PM, and just put in parents who are willing to come in on each day and what they're willing to do.  Some parents say they'll do anything I need, so I don't mark tasks for them.  I only note if there are parents who have said they'll do specific things, like prep work stations or make copies.  I also make sure to put their phone number on the schedule so that I can quickly contact them without having to go back into the whole binder.  After I make it, I slide it into a page protector and keep it at the front of my binder for the year.  

Okay, friends.  Thanks for sticking with me to the end!  I'll be back 3 more times over the next week or so with more parent communication ideas.  

xoxo

Parent Communication Binder--Try it FREE for 24 hours!

Hi, y'all

This is going to be short and sweet; I'll elaborate more tomorrow, but for 24 hours (so until bedtime tomorrow) I'm going to have my parent communication packet up on Google Drive for free.  (After that it will be available in my TpT store for just a few bucks.)  If I understand the Googles at all, you should be able to download it here.  It's a really detailed form and I'll share tomorrow about how I used it in my classroom.  Please let me know if you try to download it and CAN'T.  And if you do download it and you wish that there was something more in said packet let me know; I can add it before I put it up on TpT.

Have a great night!
xoxo

Five for Friday--I'm back at it!

Hey, y'all!  Two blog posts in just under 12 hours!  I'm practically patting myself on the back over here.  The things that I can accomplish when the hubs has the day off and the twins are down for their morning nap.  So, here are my five random things from this previous week.

Are y'all following any teachers in Vegas?  I've never been to the conference in Vegas; it hasn't worked out for a variety of reasons.  This year, it's obviously the twinnies.  I'm hoping that next year I'll be able to make it, but I'm having major Vegas FOMO.  I mean, I get FOMO pretty bad anyway, but now that my IG feed is blowing up with pictures and people are using Periscope all the time it's some pretty aggressive FOMO.  Which brings me to number 2.

Are y'all doing this Periscope thing?!  It's so cool!  I haven't done any broadcasts myself yet; I kind of feel like I'm not sure what to say, but I'm really into checking out the broadcasts that others are doing.  Shroeder's Shenanignas in Second and Lucky Little Learners are doing AWESOME broadcasts.  If you aren't on Periscope you can learn about it here, but basically you download the app to your phone and then you can use it to broadcast yourself.  The broadcast is stored for 24 hours and then deleted.  It's owned by Twitter, but I'm pretty sure you don't have to have the twitters to use Periscope.  Like I said, I haven't 'scoped myself yet, but I'm so into the broadcasts I've seen.  I think my personal goal is to do a broadcast before next Friday.  I can update y'all next week in the Five for Friday.  =)  

                                                       

This is totally gratuitous, but here's a picture of how I've been spending my days lately.  With these two gentlemen.  

Next up in the TpT store is more Fundations units.  It's all very slow going, because as lovely as these gentlemen are, they don't really care so much about Mama's plans.  They just want to eat, sleep, and play.  Mostly eat and sleep.  

Next up on the blog, I'm thinking a series on organizing.  Parent form and communication, lesson/unit plans, calendars and to-do lists.  Is this something potentially helpful, or redundant?  Is there something else you'd like to see here?  I aim to please.  =)  

Okay, team.  That's it for me.  Nap time is almost over, and I can hear the gents starting to wake, so that's my cue.  Have a great weekend!

xoxo