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

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

Sale Time, Y'all!

Hello, friends!

Unless you don't follow any other blogs, I'm sure you already know that there's a HUGE Teachers Pay Teachers sale going on right now.  In most stores you can get almost 30% off.  (To be honest, the math confuses me a little.  Tpt gives 10% off with the code, and most teachers put their store at 20% off, but for some reason it only shakes out to 28% off.)  But still.  A discount is a discount, yes?

So if you're in the shopping mood, and heading back to school shortly allow me to make a few suggestions.

I use these data folders weekly, usually starting after the first six weeks of school.  I send them home on the same day each week (one year I did Tuesdays, and one year I did Wednesdays).  Students create a graph to show their scores on a quick weekly check-in.  I used assessments that monitor fact fluency, because that was a first grade power standard in my school, and a quick Fundations check-in for whatever unit we were currently studying.  I also had students write a note to their families about their work that week, and I had parents sign a sheet saying that they had looked over the folder with their students.  They also had to make a comment, which ultimately showed whether or not they had actually looked over the folder.  

I also have several bundles of math tasks in my store.  Math tasks are basically really open-ended word problems, but they usually have multiple correct solutions.  I've blogged about math tasks in the classroom here, here, and here.  But even if you're running a more traditional math block these tasks still definitely can be used to push your kids' thinking.  I have some tasks that focus on place value, as well as addition and subtraction.

This is the last product I'll highlight today.  This is a quick, informal check-in that I created for students struggling with rote-counting and number sequence.  I used it with first graders who were below grade level, and I definitely think it would also be helpful for kinderbabes as well.  It assess rote counting, number id (to 30), and 1-to-1 correspondence.  I would give my strugglers this assessment every time we finished a targeted unit to see if they were picking up the skills I was hoping for/making progress towards those fundamental skills they needed to shore up.  It was also helpful data when I took them to student support team meetings.  With the sale it's under $1.00.  It's a win-win.  =)  

One last reminder--during the TpT sale you can also use your credits that you get for reviewing products.  So if you've recently purchased items make sure you go back and give feedback to those sellers today so that you can use some credits towards your purchases during the sale.  

Have fun filling your cart!

xoxo

August Currently

Y'all.  How can it be August?!  I literally feel like June 24th (my first day of summer break) was just a few days ago.  This summer was so busy, with a week long visit from our nephew and a 10 day trip back to the Midwest that I refuse to believe that it's almost over.  For the first time in I don't even know how long I have not been to a pool or a beach all summer long.  That's a shame.  A damn shame.  As I generally take up residence at the pool over the summer.  But, it just didn't work out that way this year.  C'est la vie.  Well, I don't want to spoiler alert anything, but I'm linking up with Farley for the August Currently.  The design this month is super cute.

We got a new puppy almost 2 weeks ago, and she's so dang adorable.  I just want to play with her all the time.  Except that puppies are like babies, so after like 2 minutes of activity she wants to sleep for like 20.  It's so nice that she's gotten along with basically every other creature she's met, and she loves kids.  She's just been such a love bug.  Tonight, I took her to a grill-out (the reason this is a evening post, and not an afternoon post) with a bunch of friends, and a few dogs.  It was great!  Everyone had a great time.  I definitely am putting off a few things until tomorrow that I had planned to do today, but I figure that I'm allowed to have a fun evening with friends, yes?  

One last thing, friends.  Tomorrow (well, technically I think in an hour and a half) starts the TpT Back to School sale!  I'll be back with a more detailed blog post tomorrow, but I just wanted to let you know that I am participating and everything in my store will be 20% off, plus you can get an extra 10% off with the code BTS14.  I was wondering if anyone would be interested in a Fundations bundle?  I don't have my units bundled now, and I know that not all of them are out, but I was thinking maybe bundling by 5s for now, and then I could also offer a 10 as well, once I complete more.  Is that interesting, or a waste of time?  

Thanks for stopping by!  Enjoy the waning hours of summer.  =)

xoxo

May Currently...WHAAAAAAAAAAAAT?!

I canNOT believe that it's already May!  The Derby is already past and tomorrow is Cinco de Mayo.  How can that be?!  And while everyone else in the entire world is counting down until they are out of school I'll be in school all the way until JUNE 21ST!  Yikes.  Serenity now.

Anyway, I figure it's okay to be tardy to the party this month, considering how crazy my April was.  I mean, really, that month literally just zoomed by.  And every dang month I swear I'm going to blog more and then it's the next dang month's currently.  I really don't understand how this keeps happening to me!  =)  I'm going to try and blog once a week this month.  Without any further ado, here is my May currently.

Honestly, I think most everything in my Currently this month is pretty self-explanatory.  I would just like to encourage everyone to check out Fabulous in First.  It's the first blog I ever read, and I still love to check it out.  I also love her TpT store; she has so many incredibly helpful products.  

Happy Cinco de Mayo, y'all!  

xoxo

Super Focused

Okay, y'all.  The entire month of April has been super crazy--my parents came out to visit, it was spring break, we went to NYC, the twinnies moved to North Carolina, it was Easter, I turned 30 (ack!), and my siblings-in-law came out for my birthday.  Then, it was May.  Seriously.  So pardon the dust that is gathering on the blog.  We're going to kick it off today.

First, I'm here to tell you about an AMAZING giveaway going on at the Primary Chalkboard.  (By the way, if you don't follow them you should.  It's an amazing collaborative blog.)  They're giving away $35 to TpT right before the next sitewide sale.  Great timing, right?!  You can enter the most amazing contest on the face of the planet right here:  you get a giftcard, you get a giftcard, EVERYONE GETS A GIFTCARD!  Sorry--I couldn't resist doing my best Oprah impression.  But seriously.  Go enter the contest.  I'll be back later today after Jillian Michaels kicks my hinney and I go to Eastern Market to share real classroom things.  =)

xoxo

So late to the party

Hello, sweet friends!

This is a super late entry to say that a) I can't believe TpT has THREE MILLION TEACHERS!!! That's so crazy; I don't even really understand that number. Three million!? Really?! Even though I have a hard time comprehending the enormity of that number, I can tell you that I feel proud to be part of a community of such motivated teachers who are working hard to help their own students as well as other teachers on a daily basis.  And b) I am participating in the sale. Because my life has been so crazy outside of school lately I do not have any new products for the sale. :(  However, you can get most of my products under $4 during the sale, so that's a mini-win, right??  And if you're waiting for more products, stay tuned--I have several ideas rolling around in my head and as soon as we get the interwebs installed in our new domicile I'll be able to get cracking. :)

Thanks so much for sticking with me!

Xoxox

I'm nothing, if not a woman of my word.

Even though the Cyber Monday sale was literally a week ago, I just now finished my unit 3 word work activities.  As promised, they are 20% off in my TpT store today and tomorrow.  You can grab them by clicking right here!  I'll also give it away to the first 2 people to leave a comment with their email address.

Happy (faux) snow day!
xo

I have the best intentions.

Happy Sunday, friends!

Really, I have great plans every week to NOT just blog on Sunday nights, but then it seems that things constantly pop up during the week and then suddenly it's Sunday night again and I haven't blogged since the last Sunday.  :(  Whomp, whomp, whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa.

Did you get lots of great stuff during the Cyber Monday sale last week?  I cleaned out my wishlist (mostly) and then made 1 impulse purchase.  (Darn you, Cara Carroll and your cute fonts!)  I'm really jazzed to start using this next week with my little nuggets who are struggling with their number sense.  This packet is chock full of superb activities designed to help littles identify number words, numbers, and the quantity that corresponds to a number.

I actually think that this RTI pack will tie in really nicely with this assessment that I created last week.  

I know that my assessment goes to 30, but as it's a baseline assessment (and I actually teach first, not kinder) I think that it will still match up and give you an accurate idea of what your firsties need to focus on.  Or, if you teach K you can just stop your assessments at 20, instead of going all the way to 30.  In fact, since it's the holidays and I've never given anything away before ever I'll give away this assessment to the first 4 people to comment on this post.  That's the way this works, right??  =)  Just comment and leave your email address and I'll send the assessment your way.   

I'm off to lay in bed and watch football.  I somehow pulled a muscle in my back.  Which is ironic since I haven't been to the gym or gone running in over a week.  Have a great start to your week, everyone!  (And if you're on the East Coast stay warm and safe!)

xoxo

Cyber Monday is TOMORROW!

Hello, friends!

I hope that everyone had a safe, delicious, and relaxing Thanksgiving.  I know that I definitely did.

Here in DC, we only get Thursday and Friday off for Thanksgiving, so the hubs and I stay out here for Thanksgiving and celebrate with other orphans.  But this year, we celebrated Thanksgiving with my aunt, uncle, cousin, her husband, their adorable twinnies, and a friend.  It was a great time, and I always think it's nice to build new traditions.  Not to get too sappy, but holidays are a time to spend with your family--actual, or adopted.

Every year, the day after Thanksgiving the hubs and I go out to get our Christmas tree, since we have to take it down before we travel home for Christmas.  We go to this gardening center that's in our neighborhood-ish and found a great tree.  We got a Fir tree this year; I've never had one before, but I really like it so far.  We finally finished decorating the tree yesterday, so now I just have to start finding time to write Christmas cards.  With all that extra free time I have, right?  Ha.  I do really enjoy holiday cards, though.  Sending and receiving.

The main purpose of my post today, friends, is to tell you that tomorrow is Cyber Monday!  TpT is throwing a huge site-wide sale and tons of sellers are participating!  I definitely am, and it's likely that many of your other favorite sellers are, too.  I'm putting my entire store 20% off and if you use the code CYBER at checkout TpT will give you an additional 8% off.  I'm hoping to have my Fundations unit 3 activities up by the time I go to bed tonight, but I'm also trying to work in some more family time so we'll see what wins (it might be family time).  The Cyber Monday sale is a great time to clear out your wishlist!  I know that I'm planning several purchases.  =)

Enjoy your Sunday, sweet friends!
xoxo

What? Thanksgiving is NEXT WEEK?!

Holy moly.  I can't believe this is the last week of school before Thanksgiving.  That means November is basically over, y'all.  I can't even handle it.  I've been cooking up this post for a while, and I finally feel semi-organized before 9:00pm on a Sunday so I'm here to share some ideas with you today.

First, before I forget I wanted to let you know that I just made some table points trackers, if that's a thing you're into.  You can snag them for a measly $1.50 right here.  My littles this year are having a hard time seeing the big picture.  They keep getting caught up on fussing at each other, and if we're being completely honest it's driving me NUTS!  I'm a teacher, not a referee, yo!  So I'm hoping that this will be helpful to us.  I'll make sure to let you know how it all shakes out.

I also wanted to get in on the work station posts that everyone does.  When I started this blogging experiment I talked a lot about how I teach math in my classroom, but I wanted to take a break from that and talk about how guided reading and work stations looks in my classroom.  First, they look REALLY different from last year for several reasons.  1.) My kids last year had a crazy high stamina and were great at working together, so I frequently did 3-4 guided reading groups in one day.  And 2) my distract revamped their expectations for guided reading and literacy work stations (LWS), so I'm trying to fall in line like to good little worker bee that I envision myself to be.  =)  Basically, the way that we're doing work stations this year is that we have 5 different work stations--fluency, word work, independent reading, writing, and inquiry and investigation (otherwise known as the work station that keeps me up at night).  The activities in each work station are up to you, but you should have all 5 of them up and running and kids should cycle through them each week.  The big change that's been giving me the 1-2 punch this year is that we're only supposed to pull 2 groups each day.  That's right.  Just 2.  I've also been having a hard time balancing that because I also have a Fundations Double Dose group right now that's supposed to meet 3 times a week (M, W, F).

I will say one thing that has really helped keep us on track this year is a visual work station rotation board.  I always kind of scoffed at them and had never used one before, but I have to say that I really am on board for it now.  So helpful.  It's also really helped me shift responsibility to my little nuggets.  Plus, it's great for kids who transition back into the classroom during work stations.  They just get their folder, check the board, and then go to meet their group.  The other tool that I'm in LOVE with is our Scholastic guided reading library.  DC bought it for all their elementary schools last year and it is amaze-balls.  It has reading behaviors to teach at each level, and it has a matrix that lists each book, the level of the book, and what the book is designed to teach for word work and comprehension.  It makes planning for guided reading a snap.

How many groups do you pull in a day?  What resources do you use to plan?
Happy Football-watching!  (Who-dey!)
xoxo
Rachel

Spur of the Moment Sale!

In case you haven't seen yet, TpT hit 100,000 followers on Facebook and to celebrate they're throwing a sale!  I'm joining in the fun!  Everything in my store is on sale until Monday evening--15% off.  If you use the code FB100K TpT will give you an additional 10% off.  That means almost everything in my store is under $2!

Happy shopping!
xoxo
Rachel

APTT & The *@!%$ Shutdown

Hey, y'all!  I hope you're as jazzed as I am that fall has finally come.  Here in DC today was the first cool, rainy fall day.  It really made me want to drink tea and spend the day curled on the couch ready.  That's pretty mutually exclusive with actual teaching, though.  =)

I wanted to share a few ideas with you, and promise you that I'm still chugging way on items for my TpT store.  The first thing I wanted to tell you about is APTT.  Say whaaat?!  APTT stands for Academic Parent Teacher Teams, and it's a really data driven version of parent teacher conferences.  (You can read an interview with the creator of this model here.  It's less lame than I just made it sound.)  It was created to be more meaningful in schools with high populations of low(er) income families to share data in a meaningful way, despite the education level of the parents involved.  If we're being 100% honest the first year I did APTT I HATED it.  (In retrospect, I think that's because I was putting a TON of time into the conferences, but not getting the return back.)  However, I'm now in my third year of using this conference model, and I absolutely L-O-V-E it.  Now, I want to be honest with you, it's the same amount of work as it was the first year, but now I'm working with other teachers to put on the meeting, so it's divided among a team, AND the turn out is so much better.  Let me tell you a few reasons I love APTT.  First, it only focuses on academic data.  (I know what you're thinking, but honestly, I find conferences to be so much more positive when we don't discuss behavior.) The basic gist of APTT is that as a teacher, you select one long term goal for the year in reading and one in math and then basically you measure each student's progress toward that goal every 60 days throughout the year.  The other thing that I really like about APTT is that these are group conferences and we share all the kids' data, with all the parents, but we share the data anonymously.  It's really powerful, because it give parents a clear idea of a) exactly where their kids are, b) where all the other kids in the class/grade are performing, and c) what the current expectation is, and if their child is above or below it.  One last thing--APTT was originally created to share data with parents in lower income schools/districts, but I don't think that's the only environment in which this model would be successful.  That's basically the quick and dirty version of APTT.  If you have any questions I'm happy to answer them.

In other news I have to take about 45 seconds of your time to rage about this stupid federal shutdown.  It's so crazy; I mean, really I can't even talk about it.  I mean, it's so ridiculous that yesterday our principal had to send an email out that we can't order any more supplies/materials until the shutdown ends/budget is passed, so we all have ONE PACK of copy paper until whenever it is that the shutdown ends. Whether that's 2 days or 2 weeks.  Also, after next Friday schools will (likely) have to shut down because DC's rainy day fund will be dry and there won't be money to run the physical buildings.  The whole thing is such a mess.  Not to mention that federal employees (like the hubs) aren't getting paid at all right now.  Okay.  I have to move on.

Last, I'm hoping to glean some knowledge from y'all.  So I have a group of about 7 boys this year who are really struggling to get on the classroom community train.  They're just garnering a lot of negative attention, and slowing down the learning of the entire class.  Two of them are currently on a behavior plan that, honestly, seems at times to be extremely helpful and at times a huge time suck.  I think I'm going to launch table points on Tuesday, but does anyone else have (relatively easy) any ideas to help them settle/simmer and successfully participate in the class?

That's it.  Thanks so much for sticking with me!

Just Another Manic Monday?

Hi, friends

This is a super short it's past my bedtime, but I really want to share post.

First, I'm SO jazzed!  We finally were able to squeeze in yoga today for the first time this school year!  Two  years ago I wrote a Donors Choose project to get 25 yoga mats to teach my class yoga to help them self-regulate.  Plus, it's a really great way to expose them to an organized activity that isn't aggressive like football.  (Or deathball, as I sometimes like to call the recess version of football.)

And second, I wanted to share this brand spankin' new product with you.  I'm really having a hard time building my nuggets' number sense this year, so I felt like I needed to take a step back and teach them how to extend the counting sequence using tools.  I taught this lesson today and got really concrete, usable data back.  I'm feeling really happy about it.  Also, if you checked out my store yesterday you'll notice that I knocked 50 cents off the price so now this lesson is only $1.50.  I think that's pretty reasonable.

Have a great night!
xoxo,
Rachel

Five for Friday. On A Saturday. Sigh.

Wow.  I'm with my friend Carolyn on this week--there is no possible way this week had just 5 days in it.  Something must have happened to the space/time continuum.  There were definitely extra days added to this week somehow.  But, the upside is that now it's the weekend and I'm sitting on our balcony enjoying some coffee and this beautiful fall weather to share 5 random things about my week with you.  

And I'm so jazzed that Jen from Hello Literacy designed these super cute number buttons for everyone to use!  (You can get them on her blog, on on Doodlebugs.)  If you teach reading and don't follow Jen's blog stop reading right now and add it your Bloglovin' feed.  She has brilliant ideas about literacy and intervention.   No more blabbering.  Here's my 5 for Friday.  (On Saturday.  Of course.)

I'm feeling so thankful for my K-2 team this week.  I had a moment of extreme frustration during a meeting this week and the next day one of my team members came up to me at dismissal and said that there's all times that we feel like that and we're here to support each other and help make each other great.  It was so sweet of her.  She didn't have to say that to me; she could have just let that moment be.  But it really helped to refocus me and remind that I am part of a team, and you can only get out of a team what you're willing to put into it.  I also really need to sing the praises of my real life friend and grade level special ed teacher, Kristin, who helped me cling to my last few shreds of sanity this week.  I have 2 particular little loves this year who need SO. MUCH. SUPPORT and Kristin was there every day after school to help me make behavior plans for them, to listen to me vent, and to give me a 10 minute break from them when I needed it.  Really, y'all, I know this sounds like a cheesy kumbayah moment, but I honestly just feel like sometimes I need to pause and reflect.

I do not know HOW this happened, but somehow the heat in our school kicked on this week.  Uh, it's SEPTEMBER still.  How is that even possible?!  I mean, if I taught in a state that touched Canada I might understand.  I would imagine that maybe at this time of year in Maine or one of the Dakotas or maybe even Minnesota I might wish the heat was on in my classroom.  But here in DC?!  NOT necessary.  On Thursday afternoon it was a pleasant 75 outside.  In my classroom?  A balmy 81.  It felt like the reptile house.  My poor little loves were melting.  At about 2:30 I decided to teach an impromptu origami lesson on how to make a fan.  

This week, I introduced my work station rotation board.  It helped us by 1,000%.  Now I just need to work out the best flow for our work stations and the location of each within our classroom.  I'm hoping to put up the work station rotation cards in my TpT store by the end of the weekend.  I went with seasonal group names--bats, skeletons, ghosts, broomsticks, pumpkins, and spiders.  I deliberately avoided monsters because I didn't want anyone to act like a monster.  ;)  

I'm so excited to take a field trip with the hubs down to Eastern Market today.  It's a fantastic outdoor farmers' market/art market/totally radical market in DC just a few miles from where we live.  I sold him on the idea by promising to be back in time for the Notre Dame game today.  =)  And by promising to buy Honeycrisp apples.  

My classroom printer and I are in a fight.  I'm 95% sure that the fight is over, and that I won, but you can never really be sure.  (Actually, you probably can be sure, but I don't have the technological prowess to be sure.)  To be on the safe side I will be printing most things that I need for Monday at home over the weekend.  I hate that moment of panic when I have to start going classroom to classroom to print what I need for the day.  

Enjoy your weekend, sweet friends!  

xoxo,

Rachel

It's past my bedtime. :\

Holy moly.  I can't believe my life/social calendar decided to explode at the same time as back to school.  The mess I leave on my circle table every day shames me until I get to school the next morning.  I am so exhausted; I feel like a little hamster on a wheel, just running and running in circle and never going anywhere or accomplishing anything.

I wanted to stop by tonight to let you know 2 things.  First, I'm working on (what I hope will be) a really great resource for anyone who does Fundations in their classroom.  And maybe even for teachers who don't use Fundations?  I'm hoping to roll it out unit by unit or several units at a time.  Look for the first unit to be up by the end of the weekend.  And secondly, once I can get my act together I'll be sharing the structures and routines that I've been setting up these last 2 weeks.  And maybe, maybe I can even get some pictures of my classroom together.  (As long as you promise not to judge my anchor charts!)

Have a great night, friends!  =)
Rachel

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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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!

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?