Five for...Sunday?!

Friends.

This weekend REALLY got away from me.  And even though I'm yawning like crazy I refuse to accept defeat and go to bed without linking up with Doodlebug's for Five for Friday.

 

This week really whipped my butt, which is extremely ridiculous because we only had 1.5 days of school.  So without any further babbling here are my Sunday five.  

Even though we were off on Monday for the holiday, and we didn't have school Tuesday or Wednesday, we definitely had an Arts for Every Student field trip to see a play of Miss Nelson is Missing.  I'd be lying to your face if I told you I was excited for this trip before we went.  Honestly, I thought the play would be campy and just kind of an unenjoyable field trip, but it was fantastic!  The play was so adorable, and really funny.  The kids loved it; they remembered having read the book earlier this year, and they were so into how they knew that Miss Swamp is Miss Nelson.  This picture is the worst (ugh; stupid cell phone pics), but it was adorable how excited all the kids were.  

It really worked out that we had two days off of school because that's how long it took me to get home from a family funeral on Monday.  I literally felt like I stuck in some bizarre, real life version of Planes, Trains, and Automobiles.  Here is a sampling of the melange of tickets, boarding passes, and receipts from those 48 hours.  It was certainly not the ideal travel experience.  

Is anyone else watching the Grammys?  Sara Bareilles and Carole King totally just killed it.  I'm so into funky duets, and I really loved Brave.  To be fair, though, I generally just really like that song, so it's possible that I'm biased.  =)  What was your favorite Grammy performance?

 Last week we had an early dismissal on Friday for records keeping, but I wasn't really read to do grades yet, so I used that time to plan for this week.  It was so nice--I planned almost my entire week in those few hours, and I really was able to enjoy this weekend.  In fact, I got so much done on Friday that the hubs and I spontaneously stopped by to play with the twinnies on Saturday afternoon.  It was great.  I wish we could have an early dismissal like that every Friday!

I'm hoping to try and figure out how to put this on my Facebook page in the next few days, but I wanted to share this with you via picture now.  This is how I track my conferences during the week; I know that a lot of people plan their conferences by day, but I just basically cycle through and hit kids where I can.  This generally means that I hit the kids at the beginning of the alphabet with writing conferences on Monday, and progress through.  I generally try to change highlighter colors daily so that I can try to keep track of when I hit kids, but like I said, I'll start at the beginning and go through the alphabet.  If I'm having an insanely efficient week and get through all the kids before Thursday I'll start back with the end of the alphabet kids, so that I might have two different conference with one kid in one day.  But really that doesn't happen very often.  I've tried scheduling kids for days, but the reason I prefer this way is that I feel like it gives me freedom to conference flexibly and if something comes up where I can't conference on one day for whatever reason those kids aren't lost for the week.  I usually keep my notes from conferences on address labels and then stick them into the appropriate binder later.  I do keep a few notes on my conference sheet, as you can see, but the bulk of them go onto sticky labels.  Just an idea, if you're having a hard time tracking conferences.  =)

Okay, friends.  I'm sure that alarm is going to go off waaaaaaaaaay too early.  Have a great night!

xoxo

The drought ends here.

Hello, friends!

Well, as I'm sure you can tell, 2014 is not playing around.  These 20 days have been incredibly busy; we went right from the holidays into weddings, birthdays, and apartment hunting.  Currently, I'm back home in the glorious Midwest for a family funeral.  I have to email in my sub plans for tomorrow, but I REALLY hate writing sub plans, which is why I almost always haul my butt into school if it's at all possible, but since it's not possible tomorrow I'm taking a break to revive my little blog.

I'm here today to share with you 2 quick tips, if you can call it that.  To be perfectly honest, I generally feel that I'm not a very tricky teacher, and I sort of feel that organizationally I'm not really dazzling anyone, but just in case you're looking for new ideas here are two things that have been incredibly helpful for me this year.

The first thing that has been incredibly time saving for me is our work station rotation board.  Right now I only have one for literacy work stations, because those are the work stations I use daily.  (We generally do math work stations only about 2-3 times per week.)  Unfortunately, I'm going to have to just describe this work station board to you all since I don't have any pictures.  I'll write myself a note to take a picture and share it with you later.  =)

Basically, I have 5 groups and I give each group an icon (usually it's seasonal) and those are lined across the top.  Each card has the group's icon, the group name, and the names of each student in the group.

This is a mini-sample of how our group cards looked in the fall.  So these cards line the top of the pocket chart.  We only do two work stations each day (which was hands down the hardest adjustment I had to make in my literacy block this year), and I show the students which work stations they are going to by putting two picture cards underneath their group card.  We have 6 work stations in our classroom--word work, independent reading, fluency, writing, iPad, and inquiry and investigation.  Each work station has a corresponding picture card, which looks something like this.  

I made 4 for each work station so that 2 groups can go per day, plus there are a few extras.  So I stack the two picture cards under their group to show them where they're going.  What's really nice is that now, at this point in the school year, organizing the work station board is a job that I can delegate to more responsible kids.  I can generally have a kid organize the work station board during morning meeting.   What's also really nice about using picture cards is that kids who are coming back to the classroom during our work stations can find their group/activity much more easily than they could in the past.  It's really helped those students transition back into the classroom with minimal disruption.  

My other tip, in addition to picture based work station rotation cards, is picture based anchor charts with directions.  I'm part of a fellowship this year and technology is part of it, so I was able to receive a small group set of iPads for my classroom, which has been great.  As a school, we've been using 2 programs this year that I put my kids on during iPad time--Lexia and Reading A-Z.  We took time earlier in the school year to make anchor charts together showing the step-by-step directions for students to use both Lexia and RAZ Kids.  Adding small pictures to the anchor charts really helped kids integrate those directions into the routine.  My students know that they have the first 90 seconds of a work station to get their iPad and bring it to the Question Box to have it unlocked.  After 90 seconds they have to wait until I have a break in my group instruction.  Having the anchor charts has really helped the kids understand what to do, but it's also really helped me with redirection.  When kids don't follow the routine it's easy to point to the pictures and help them understand what the routine is.  

I promise to be back more this week with some peeks into my classroom, although this will be a short week--I'll be out Tuesday, with a field trip on Thursday, and an early dismissal on Friday.  

Enjoy the holiday!  =)

xoxo

Fitness in '14

Greetings, friends!

I know that I've been taking a lot of time off over break, but I'm finally starting to get back in the groove, and to prove it I'm linking up with Bloghoppin'.  (Hopefully for the rest of the series, but things just keep popping up!)

The hubs and I are still back in the Midwest and it. is. glorious.  It's so nice to see friends and family for such an extended chunk of time, instead of the 48 hours we're normally home for.  Today, we're babysitting the love of my life, my 3 year old niece.  Melt my heart.  She's so darn adorable!  We're all going to a wedding tomorrow, and then heading back to DC on Sunday.  It's so close, but it feels so far away.  I will say the one thing that I've been TERRIBLE about this year over break is planning.  It's like I thought that I was never going back to school or something.  I'm sure next Tuesday will be rough.  But the point of this post is fitness, so we might as well get down to biznass.

I have 2 major fitness goals for 2014.  The first is to lose 20 pounds before I turn 30.  I know that will require a lot of effort, and I think that I'm really prepared to put the work in this time.  In the past, I've been really committed, but refused to do certain things that could have pushed me over the hump, like give up the boozey booze.  However, I'm all in this year to lose 20 before 30.  My second goal is to beat my previous half marathon time.  I'd like to beat myself by 5 minutes, but I know that 5 minutes is a lot to cut off.  Honestly, if I beat my previous self by even 1 minute I'll feel happy.  So, those are my goals.  I feel like there are lots of smaller goals that make up those mega goals, but that's what I'm setting to do in 2014.

Good luck to everyone in meeting their fitness goals in 2014!  And if you're already back to school I hope your students are going easy on you.  =)
Happy new year!
xoxo