3rd Quarter Slump

Whelp, I hate to say it, but I'm exhausted. Actually, no, I don't hate to say it. Like a lot of other teachers out there in the world right about now the kids are feeling antsy. Spring Fever is starting to set in. It only gets worse after they come back from Spring Break because they've tasted the last bit of long term freedom before the school year ends.

I've been pretty discouraged lately. I've had some challenges in my classroom that I continue to struggle with & work on. I've been seeking out my administrator, but we keep missing each other & both of us are heading in opposite directions. I'm constantly on the run getting things taken care of so I'm prepared for class, plus obligations & compliance pieces in addition to the normal everyday tasks a teacher needs to be on top of. So when I have time to seek my admin out, he's doing the same thing.

This is also the time when the kids have to start learning new concepts which can be & are difficult for a good many of students. Which means grades start to fall, it never fails.

Well Friday afternoon as I was leaving school, I saw one of parents on his way to pick up his son. He waved & I waved back. He then began walking toward me, so i walked to meet up with him. He told me he was sorry that he wasn't able to make any of the conferences with his wife due to his work schedule. He then went on to tell me how much he appreciated working with his son, his wife & him & how much his son had changed since the year began.

He continued to say he sees how hard I work with his son & the other kids and that he's now able to see another side to his son's personality, which has helped him have more patience with him at home.

I gotta tell ya, after the past few weeks I've been having, that 20 minute conversation totally made my month. Any validation from your bosses is always nice, since they're the experts in your field, they've been there where we are. But when you get validation & affirmation from a parent that's the best.

Bring on the next 2 weeks, I'm as ready as I can be!!

I'm in Love....

With Class Dojo. What is Class Dojo you ask? It's a behavior management application.

During my holiday break, yes I rested, but I rested so much I found myself venturing over into Pinterestland. That blackhole of teacher crafting & time wasting, I love it.

While I was enjoying my time there in Pinterest, it's never boring, nev-ur. I came across an link for this mystery Class Dojo app. So as always I went fishing....Oh My Gawd!!!

I came into this year using my same behavior checklist sheet & had last year. Basically an excel file with a column for my students' names, praise/sticker column, warning column & a place for me to make notes. It served my class last year pretty well especially when I was keeping track of my kids' behaviors, or when I had to call parents for whatever reason.

If it ain't broke, don't fix it. I started using my checklist with my class this year. It was working pretty decent. After so many weeks I hand off the checklist to a line/class monitor as one of my class jobs. Toward the end of the 1st semester the checklist wasn't being as effective as before. I was going to continue using it after the break. Most kids rest & get that break & come back in January refreshed.

Enter Class Dojo. I devoured all the information on their about, love, share, & stories. I immediately signed up for an account, uploaded my kids, installed the app on my phone.

Before I even began using it & figuring out how I was even going to use this & flesh it out for my classroom I was already downloading the videos to share with my coworkers.

Then I realized I need to figure out how exactly this is gonna work in my room with my group of kids the rest of this year. In addition to my behavior checklist each student had a sticker chart. They earned stickers for being on task, prepared, timely transitioning between subjects. For each completed sticker chart students would earn tickets that could be traded in for prizes, rewards, etc.

As I use Class Dojo, the kids are earning points for the same things they were getting rewarded for before. I imputed my class behaviors & expectations to their already decent list of basics in each category: positive & negative. Each day & week you can get reports & percentages of each student's behaviors. What I've decided to do is each week based on what their percentage is they can earn those same rewards from before without the tickets.

Class Dojo even tracks how the whole class does each day/week. I'm going to give the whole class a reward, like maybe extra recess, which they always want :)

Go check it out & save on paper checklists, behavior charts & stickers, put that $2.99 back in your wallet!

Data/RtI Binder

 
Small Group forms one of our CIS's made for us. Makes it hard to keep anecdotal information separate from each student. Guess that's where post-its are gonna be helpful or I may just need to find a new form or way to document individual information.

 I have my students use their mailbox numbers for everything. I found these numbered tabs (1-24), not too many not too few, and behind each number, I have 18 kids, is there data, benchmark info, anecdotal records. I use the conference forms from The 2 Sisters.

 

Here's the binder together. That very first tab is a calendar of when benchmarks are to be administered & general information given to us by our district & campus.

10 Weeks Down, 26 to Go!

Almost halfway through the year & gawsh, I'm exhausted! I'm becoming a bit more adept at finding things to use for my organizational tendencies to improve & things to help make a tough year a bit more fun & interesting for my kiddos & me. Let's face it, if momma ain't happy, no one is, though we teachers do a pretty good job of hiding it. Anywho, some things I've found this past week that I'm going to be using, 1st one is a freebie! :)

Chevron Editable Binder Covers or for whatever use you feel the need to have a cover page for, designed by A Year of Many Firsts. I lurve the color combos she used. They work nicely with my already colorful binders I get from Staples :)

I also downloaded this to Ultimate Guided Reading Binder with forms & ideas to help me keep track of all my GR groups, from Lesson Plan SOS Teachers. It gave me the idea to start a Math Binder to keep track of all my GM groups too.

While I have Guided Reading & Guided Math binders to document during small group time, I have one catch all binder, my RtI binder. I'll post pictures of it next.

Hoping with some new colorful items I'll be more motivated to get done the things I need to get done!

It's just a few things, but totally worth it :)

Super Conferences & Newsletters

Really Good Stuff

To increase parent involvement this year, we're even more encouraged to up our communication with our kids' parents.

Last year I bought Parent Communication Journals from Really Good Stuff. My parents loved this last year, but budgetary issues prevented me from getting these again. Next year our admin says we'll probably get planners again like we used too, so excited!!! I miss those.

This year I got 2 pocket folders with brads (HERO Folders), I put a behavior calendar with loose leaf paper inside. My kids color in which color they landed on at the end of the day. Of course they also have the pockets for "papers to be signed & returned" & "papers to keep at home."

For the past 2 years our district has gotten rid of designated parent conference days. They used to have 2 early out days every semester specifically for teachers to schedule parent conferences with each child's parent(s). Well they still haven't designated those days, but our school has required us to have conferences this year. I created some notices & reminders for my conferences this year. Of course in keeping with my superhero theme I used a still from The Incredibles :)

As I'm doing conferences I had most of my parents say they love my newsletter. Well I have Mrs. Magee over at Teachers Pay Teachers (TpT) to thank for that. I bought/downloaded her Superhero Newsletter template & with the comic book fonts I got from 1001 Free Fonts I'm digging my communication files & apparently so are my parents. I used pretty her same section titles, but added my own twist. I do a Superhero of the Week, the kids can't wait to see who it's going to be each week. I kept her "What We're Learning" & that's what my parents love the most, they can always ask their kids about their day/week & they know what's being taught, so no surprises :)

I blogged about my data binder last time, since I'm only ankle deep in guided reading, intervention & math groups I'll be posting more on that later.

Keep sane everyone, the kids are getting frisky with the cooler weather & they know Halloween's-a-brewin' right around the corner :)

Data, AYP & Intervention Lesson Plans

So my school didn't do so well the past couple years. To be fair our campus has been in flux for about 4-5 years now & things have caught up to us.

What this means for every teacher is that we have to document, document, document & document that we're documenting what we're documenting.

A few weeks ago we began doing our usual round of yearly benchmark beginning of the year (BOY) testing. So now we're in the throes of getting small groups put together for interventions & such.

I already use the conferring forms from The Daily Cafe, the Daily 5 website by The 2 Sisters. I got the idea for my data binder, which is called a pensieve, yes like in Harry Potter, from here. Great idea, total common sense, but it made sense finally here & since then I've seen incarnations all over the web.

Whilst poking around pinterest, I made time tonight, I found this link to The Curriculum Corner that had some great forms for tracking data & record keeping for reading interventions & small group info.

So I'm off to grade papers & complete my plans for this coming week. Can't believe it's October already, before you know it Halloween, my favorite holiday, will be here!!

I'll be back soon :)

Some Beginning of the Year Freebies :)

Some of my Beginning of the Year (BOY) letters & forms I used this year!

**Please download then edit, so that others can see & manipulate the originals as needed. Thanks!!!

Meet The Teacher Letter

HERO Folder Labels

Writer's Workshop Labels

Behavior Note to Send Home