Meet The Teacher

First off let me say 

I now have 70 followers!!!!

Now on to my day. Have you ever had one of those days that started off just terrible and you could not get back on track no matter how hard you try? Well that pretty much describes my day today. 

It all started when my phone made a little noise this morning, a very quiet noise that normally wouldn't have bothered me but, thank you Lord, this time it woke me up. My first thought was "ugghhh I hate when I wake up before my alarm" which was immediately followed by "why is it so light out at 6:30am??" Then my eyes focused and I saw the time on the clock by my bed - it read 8:04!!!!! My alarm had not went off!!!! I couldn't believe it! I had 11 minutes to get up, get dressed, do my hair and make up and get to school before our 8:15 meeting which would be followed by our very first session of Meet The Teacher. I began to panic and scramble. I was brushing my teeth and putting my make up on at the same time! I literally ran out of the house at 8:20 thanking God that I only live 5 minutes from my school. I got to school at 8:25 and was relieved that the meeting had run late and hadn't started yet. Being SO stressed out first thing in the morning is NOT a good way to start your day because the stress just doesn't go away. 

I was relieved when they gave us out updated class lists and mine hadn't changed - that would have been all I needed was changes in my list after I had just finished writing names on everything. Then began our first session of Meet The Teacher. I had 7 of my 20 little darlings show up for our first session and all seemed to go well. Then later on our second session begins (at 4pm mind you) and the second student through the door is a student who is not on my list. Mom says she registered him that morning and that he was on the list they posted downstairs. So now MORE STRESS I am scrambling to get this child everything he needed, I was SO thankful that I had taken the advice of a fellow blogger and I had made New Student Bags which had one of everything in it so I was able to pull one of those out and have everything I needed for this new child. I had a short lull in the action so I ran downstairs to see the posted lists to make sure this student was in the right place and lo and behold there is his name handwritten on the bottom of my list AND there was ANOTHER name written under his. So not only had I had this student added to my list but another student as well. I was so glad that I had went down to check, I would have been scrambling again on Monday morning to have everything for her. Now when she comes in on Monday her name will be on everything just like everyone else's. I was so frustrated and I know that it was mostly because of the stress that had built up throughout the day. So anyway, I am now at 20 students, as are most of my team mates. Our state has a class size law that caps our classes at 22 students so if we keep adding students we are going to have to add another teacher to our grade level - and that's a whole lot more stress LOL All in all today started off terrible but turned out to be a pretty good day. 

I learned two things today. 

1. My class seems to a group of sweethearts, there are some really great kids, several that were really excited about the 40 Book Challenge/Requirement. I am looking forward to a great year with some really great kids!

2. If you want your alarm clock to go off in the morning and wake you up, you must remember to turn it ON before you go to bed LOL 

Feeling MUCH Better!

Tomorrow is Meet the Teacher so the craziness that is pre-planning is almost over. Then begins the craziness that is the first week of school LOL I look forward to September for 3 reasons #1 my son's birthday, #2 football season starts, and #3 school becomes routine and the kids are settled in.

Well after my last post full of me whining I am happy to say that I am feeling much better. Come to find out I wasn't the only person on my team who had concerns and felt the same way as me. Our problem was we didn't have an alternative. Well today one of my team mates came to me with a great idea for our intervention time. So now we are not going to be switching classes - Yay!!

I have been working on my lesson plans for the first week of school and they are all finished. The 2nd week (and beyond) has had me stumped though. Last year I felt like I was always rushed through my whole group reading lesson and barely had time to really teach anything. I didn't have time to really introduce the weekly vocabulary words or spelling patterns. SO after talking to a couple of my team mates I have decided that I am not going to do Daily 5 on Mondays. Mondays will be my whole group day where I will introduce the weekly vocab, spelling, story, and benchmark strand. Then on Tuesday - Friday my students will have Daily 5 rounds. I FINALLY feel good about my reading block. I finally feel like I know what to do in reading this year.

I am thankful that I have team mates that are so eager to share ideas with me and each other.

Preplanning Stress Out!

Today was the first day of preplanning for my district. We began at 8:30 this morning and I have had a stress headache since about 9:30 this morning. I am just feeling so overwhelmed and stressed out by all the new mandates that are coming down the pipe. I just feel like it is all assess, progress monitor, assess, progress monitor, throw in some intervention, lather, rinse, repeat. Well if I am spending all my time assessing, progress monitoring, and intervening, when do I have time to actually teach them what I am assessing them on??

I feel this way at the beginning of every year, and this focus on assessment, progress monitoring, and intervention isn't anything new I just find myself wanting to scream "I HAVE TO TEACH THEM BEFORE I CAN TEST THEM!!!!"

Then on top of all that I am worried I am going to end up being the "bad guy" on my team because several of my team members want us to switch kids around during our school wide intervention/enrichment time. Sort of like ability group them for intervention/enrichment. I am not a fan of this idea. I have never liked sending my students to other teachers. I feel like my name is on their learning and therefore it needs to come from me. Now that my state has instituted a Merit Pay system that mandates that 50% of my evaluation rests on my students' test scores, I really don't agree with sending my kids to other teachers and them sending theirs to me. I am accountable for the students on my roster, not them. I know that we have awesome teachers on my team, I'm not saying they aren't great, I am saying that it is not their responsibility to teach my students, and it is not my responsibility to teach theirs. That may sound harsh or selfish but when it comes down to it I don't want my evaluation to be based on someone else's teaching and I certainly don't want someone else's evaluation based on MY teaching. It is a big enough responsibility making sure my students do well, but now I have to worry about other teachers' students doing well too? I don't want to do this but I also don't want my team to think of me as the outsider or the "trouble maker" I have no problem speaking my mind and saying no I'm not going to participate but I don't want to look bad :-( I feel stuck. Do I do what don't believe in and what I am not comfortable with just to make other people happy? OR Do I stand up for what I believe in and stand my ground no matter what other people may think? Ughhh why does this school year have to start out so stressful...

My Daughter's Classroom

I spent all day yesterday and most of the day today helping my daughter set up her 1st grade classroom. Her classroom is really tiny so it was a challenge to find a way to make it all fit and make it all work! She has only had 3 days to work in her classroom and she has Meet The Teacher on Tuesday! So she was in a bit of a panic after she spent most of the day on Monday just getting everything into her room. So of course mom had to make the 2 hour drive to go help her and calm her nerves. Below are some picture of her bright and colorful classroom!

View from the front door

View from her teacher table

the removable wall to the left of her door

Her calendar, job chart, birthday poster, and morning check-in

Another view from the door. 

her word wall and reading area

her reading area

Listening center

Her class rules

Bookshelf and Easel

There's my baby girl working at her desk

The view from the back of the room - That's my "baby" boy sitting at her desk

He came along to do the heavy lifting for us

an "aerial" view ( I was standing on a counter)

Another shot from the top of the counter - That's my girl sitting at her desk!

My Clickers are here!!!

At the end of last year I received a grant from Beyond Question for a student response set. It is basically a set of remote control looking things that the kids can use to answer questions I post using my teacher presentation station! It records their answers they give with their "clicker" and then it creates a grade report for me! Well the secretary told me today that they had come in!! I am SO excited!! The funny this is she was too, she wanted me to open it in the office so she could see what they look like LOL There is a receiver I have to attach to my computer, and some software I have to install and that's it, they will be ready for use. Hopefully there is a users manual on the CD because I have no idea how to set up the questions but I am sure I will figure it out! I can't wait to use it! I had to take my son to the doctor today so I didn't have time to do anything with it except to open the box and look at it. I am SO excited!!

Here are a couple pictures I snapped before I ran out the door - they are blurry iPhone pictures

~~~~~~ Cindy ~~~~~~

SCORE!!!!!

I have seen the book luggage tubs on several blogs and was totally kicking myself because I bought several of those type of tubs 2 years ago to store books in but I only bought like 10 of them. After using the corrugated cardboard magazine boxes from IKEA last year I knew I had to find a better way to have book boxes. I actually looked at those sitting on my shelf and thought they would be great but I knew I didn't have enough. THEN I started stalking, pinning, and blogging and saw how right I was about how handy they would be as book boxes! I went back to Wal-Mart, where I had found my original 10... No luck. So I started stalking more and came to find out that these were being found at the dollar store, so hubby and I ran out to the local Dollar Tree, they only had 2 left, I was so disappointed. Well today I decided that come hell or high water I was going to find those cute tubs and find enough to have a class set. I went to a total of 5 stores, I went to Dollar General (where they had tie on seat cushions on sale for 75% off so I bought a cute set - for $1.78- as a back up for when the ones on my new seat crates get icky), Family Dollar, and THREE different Dollar Trees. I finally found them at the very last Dollar Tree, I was out of ideas and was getting frustrated but I walked into the 5th store and there they were, I could almost hear the Hallelujah chorus when I saw them. I ALMOST bought ALL of them but decided against and just bought the 13 I needed. I bought some yellow ribbon and then came home and used my new found computer crafty skills and made luggage tags for each of them tied them on and now they are ready to go to my room on Monday and be filled up in my very first Book Frenzy the following Monday. I'm getting super excited about this year, and all the new "stuff" I have found on all these great blogs!! I can't wait to see what else I will learn as the year progresses!!
Here are a couple pictures of my completed Book Luggage (they didn't have enough in all the same color so I had to get a couple different colors.)

Another day in my room...

OK so it was really only about 2 hours in my room, not another whole day. I started off the morning stalking some of my favorite blogs and I knew it was not a good idea. I ended up running to Wal-Mart before school to pick up crates and seat cushions. I saw on several blog pages this summer about making the seats out of crates but I have to admit I am NOT a crafty person when it comes to stuff like that. I want to be crafty when I grow up but I just haven't gotten there yet. Anyway, I figured the crate/seats were just out of my league until I saw what Becky over at Fourth Grade Fanatic had done! She just took the crates, turned them upside down, and tied a seat cushion to them!! How stinkin' easy and cute!!!! I knew I could do THAT!!! Sooooo off to Wal-Mart I ran. and here's what I ended up with!

After I threw together 4 of these I adjusted my writing table height so that they would be a perfect fit and I added some writing related posters and viola my writing area was complete!

After I finished that all I had left to do was hang up my motivational posters, my genre posters, and the heading on my AR Incentive chart bulletin board

 Here are the motivational posters - I put them around the clock because they are always looking up at the clock to see if it's time for lunch or specials LOL

This is my job chart and my Comprehension Strategies posters

My genre posters above the white board

My Incentive Chart bulletin board

While I was there I kept looking at my Daily 5 bulletin board and it just wasn't speaking to me soooo I had to revamp it.

BEFORE 

AFTER 

Finally at the end of my time in my room, I went to the rooms of 2 of my kindergarten friends. Since I had taught Kindergarten for 8 years before moving to 4th grade last year I had a TON of primary teaching resources. These two wonderful friends stored all my primary resources in their classrooms (and of course they were permitted to use them as much as they wanted) so that I would not have to store it all at home. I didn't want to get rid of it becuase I wasn't sure how much I would like 4th grade AND my daughter had just graduated from college with her degree in Elementary Education and I didn't know what grade level she may get a job teaching. Soooo these wonderful friends gave up space in their classrooms for my stuff Well today, they got to get back quite a bit of that space. Since my daughter got a job teaching 1st grade I am taking her quite a bit of my primary stuff for her to use in her own classroom. The entire back of my SUV is FULL of stuff and it will have to stay there until Friday when my youngest son and I head to Port St. Lucie to help her get her classroom all ready for her little munchkins.  This is what the cart looked like that I took to my car

Well that's all I have for now. I am going to spend the rest of the day today, all today tomorrow, and all day Thursday doing NOTHING school related (we'll see how that goes LOL)

~~~~~~ Have a great day!! ~~~~~~

Cindy