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

Whaaaaaaa?! A Blog Update and It's NOT Friday?!

I have really great intentions every week of blogging more often, but somehow it always seems that all of the sudden it's Friday and I'm linking up with Doodlebugs for Five for Friday.  But today?  Today, friends, I'm coming at you on a WEDNESDAY!!

Previously, I blogged about how we use Responsive Classroom structures is in my school.  One important aspect of RC is that you take the first 6 weeks of school to establish routines and procedures, and then after your routines, expectations, and procedures are established you can generally move forward throughout the year focusing on instruction.  We're in week 4 of the first 6 weeks right now, so we're practicing our routines and structures daily, steadily incorporating more each week, and moving towards small group instruction and independence in 2 more weeks.  So far, we're kicking independent reading's tush, and  we're dominating Fundations.  This week, we launched partner reading, and I'm really surprised with how well it's going.  They l-o-v-e it!  So much!  We've really just been practicing sitting hip to hip, knee to knee, balancing our book, and taking turns as they read each page.  If I was better at remembering to photograph my nuggets I would insert a picture of partner reading here.  We've also launched writing workshop, using our new writing curriculum.

Another structure that I've started this year is calendar math.  It's something that I've never done before.  Right now, we've been adding the date on every day and tracking the days we've been in school, but that's it.  In October we'll start keeping a tally chart of the weather and using the tally chart to make a graph.  Is that all you do during calendar math, or do you do more?  (If we're being totally honest I feel like I always hear about calendar math, but that everyone does it a little bit differently.)  I'd love to hear about the way you do calendar math.

Have a great Thursday!  =)
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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Did that just happen??

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

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

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

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

Take it easy.  =)

Taming the Wild

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Fear

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

First Week Plans_Blog Version by mrs_wilser

Responsive Classroom, Anyone?

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

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

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

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

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