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

Sunday Round-Up

Well, I don't know about you all, but that first week back felt like about 100 years.  Especially Wednesday when I was at school for 11 hours.  That day was not a joke.

I mentioned in my January Currently that I'm really working hard to find balance in 2015.  It's really important to me to get better at working smarter, not harder, this year and, for me, part of working smarter is being organized.  I also mentioned in my January Currently that I finally finished reading the book The Together Teacher, which I HIGHLY recommend to anyone looking for tangible organization strategies.  The author goes through literally every single imaginable aspect of organization--calendar, checking emails, managing papers, managing projects, tracking to-dos and projects.  I mean, there was honestly a point where I thought to myself, "what else can we REALLY talk about organizing?!", but it really was a super helpful book.

I'm here today to share with you one of the most central tenets of The Together Teacher, which they call Weekly Round-Up.  (I call it Getting My Act Together So I Can Actually Spend Time with The Hubs and The Pup time.)  When I do my Weekly Round-Up, I make sure to have my planner, my phone, and my laptop.  It's likely you'll want similar things, but maybe you don't share my affinity for physical planners and you'll only need electronic items.  I generally sit on my couch to do this, but maybe you're a table or desk sitter?  In any case, it's likely to take you probably 20 or so minutes when you start.  That's what I'm currently averaging, but it's really worth it in the time I make up throughout the week.  So once I have all my materials here's what I do.

1. Cross check my calendar app on my phone with my physical planner and make sure that everything I have on one calendar is on the other.  (Sometimes when I'm on the go I add events/meetings/commitments via my calendar app and I forget to write it on my actual calendar.  Hence, the round up.)  I'll also take this time to take a quick glance through my email to make sure that I'm not missing any one time events that should be on my calendar.  
2. After my calendar app and my physical calendar match, I start typing into my week at a glance.  There are lots of different formats that this can take; I've included a picture of how mine looks below, but really whatever works for you.  Your week at a glance should show the time you're teaching and when you're not, as well as any meetings you have and commitments outside of school--even something as mundane as going to the gym should be on your week at a glance.  
   
3. Add in any upcoming events (from the next 7-10 days) that you'll need to keep at the top of your mind this week.  For me, I wanted to remember to plan my husband's birthday shenanigans and an alumnae board meeting I had this coming week.  My personal favorite feature of this week at a glance format is that the top few boxes are for your priorities of the week and there's a section for classroom, school, and personal priorities.  

The idea is that after you finish this round up you'll have a really clear picture of what time you have free this week, and what your obligations are.  And then you add this sheet to your clipboard/binder/organizer and you keep it with you everywhere you go.  In the book, they say you should even take it when you walk to the bathroom in case you run into someone who wants to talk to you.  Personally, that's a little much for me.  And if I'm going to the bathroom during the school day I'm generally running like a madwoman there and back.  Like I said, this takes a bit of time (20-30 minutes), but I have to say that so far it's been really helpful and I'm definitely into it.

What do you do to stay organized?

Have a great week!  Stay warm!
xoxo

Mid-Day Update

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

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

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

Keep on keepin' on, friends!  =)