August Adventures

I was chomping at the bit to get back into the classroom after summer "break," as my hallway was one of the last classrooms to be cleaned. I knew that I couldn't just sit in the room and work without moving furniture or adding bulletin board paper.

But the day came, and here are the before photos:

My first goal was just to get paper on the walls, and then I could fill in the details later. I also set out to start one project, and then finish it; start a second project, and then finish that one.... well..... apparently I've got "classroom ADD" so of course, that plan went out the window and within a few hours, I had 12 projects going on in various areas in the classroom. Don't judge - you've all been there with me ;) I feel for my new co-teacher, who is very streamlined and got overwhelmed by my "projects" every time she walked in my room. Bless her heart ;) 


Well.... you saw the before... now here are the afters: 

The photo to the right is a fun little bulletin board for my outside hallway. I've been telling people that I give credit to Pinterest for the idea, but take credit for the execution.





Honestly, I have to give crazy amounts of credit to Pinterest. I had been bored by things in my classroom for a while, and this summer I discovered so many amazing teachers with so many amazing ideas! 

This is my Word Nerd wall, courtesy of Jennifer Maschari on TPT. I've already had a few kids working on adding words to the board; they seem to be really exited about it! 

My absent folder wall: I was FED UP with trying to keep track of my 75 students and if, when, and for how long they were absent. I don't know about you, but that is just crazy hard to keep up with! I was at a tech conference and saw a teacher's classroom there and she had something similar. My students are trained to write the absent student's name on any papers they receive and to put it in the appropriate folder. It's been a fantastic system that has really put responsibility into the hands of the students (and that is my ultimate goal!!!!)    

A few years ago, I started asking my students to be responsible for knowing their own specials/unified arts schedule each day. One year, my students were rainbowed (split up amongst the other classes for specials) and there was absolutely no way for me to know which students were going to which specials each day. It started a trend with me, so I post the monthly calendar with each specials day written on it, as well as other various announcements.

And the kids know now, too... don't ask me the date; check the calendar!! :D

Okay. I am, by far, incredibly excited about this part of my classroom. I teach with the CAFE framework for Reading, and in the past, I had everyone crammed up near my Smart Board, all squished together in a teeny space. I mounted my dry erase board and a bulletin board that someone was throwing away (REALLY?) to the wall, made a double-sized teacher bench (with storage inside for my teaching texts, sticky notes, and markers), and put down a large rug that my co-teacher had just taken out of her dining room (love love love free stuff!). 

The rug isn't my style and doesn't really fit my classroom, but again, it was FREEEE! The rule for our carpet time is that every child has to be sitting on or be able to to touch the carpet. This ensures that my usual suspects don't hang out in the back, unengaged.... I'm so sneaky. 

As a shameless plug, if you like the cute little bird CAFE headers, head on over to my TPT store and check them out :)

My kiddos turn in work at this table. Behind the table are the drawers that I purchased in order to keep all of my small group and intervention materials organized. 

Pinterest also gave me the great idea to use a dishrack to hold file folders, so my kiddos can get copies of these amazing journal pages from there to put directly into their binders. There are a few notebooks for kids to write in as a group journal. This is new for me, but I'm excited to see how it works! 

My prized project from this summer is my crate chairs! I watched a tutorial from Miss Kranz and kind of made them work for the size of my fifth graders. They have been great to store books that my kiddos will read with their Book Buddies throughout the school year.   

Mrs. Ranz has a college corner in her classroom, and over the past year, I've started collecting pennants from various colleges. My sisters go to two of the schools up there and I went to Marshall, so almost everyone in the family is represented (I'm still holding out on my brother to get me his!). 

As most schools, we are required to post Learning Targets for each lesson that we are teaching. I have enjoyed working through these targets with my students, and helping students to see how the targets fit into the essential questions for Langauge Arts. I typed up and laminated the targets to post each day (even though we're switching to the Common Core next year and it will ALLLLLL change!). 


Thanks for stopping by! I hope to post a bit about my first week soon! 

Plans... Ah geez.

As I got to making my to-do list for the school year, I realized that I probably should have started my list a few weeks ago :-/

I spent a couple of hours on my
yearlong planning, and by the time I forced myself to take a break and go for a run, I had *sort of* finished planning through December. I was exhausted! I've never done specific and strategic planning like this, but there is so much I want to do this year, I felt as of I needed to give planning some very specific attention.

I've been reading The Book Whisperer, by Donalyn Miller, and she has really shown me the power of the read aloud versus teaching a whole-class novel. Over the summer, I've made a list of books that I want to do as read-alouds this year:

- Wonder, by R.J Palacio. The narrator is Auggie, who has a severe facial deformity and is starting 5th grade in traditional school. The story shows his classmates' struggle with accepting him. This is the perfect book for the start of the school year, as bullying is a heavy issue in most schools. A book about kindness and acceptance could be just the background knowledge that my students need.

- Hatchet, by Gary Paulsen. This is traditionally taught whole-class at our school, but I think we're just going to enjoy it for the sake of it being a fabulous book. The students always love this book, year after year, and it's a great book to read around the time that we go to Fifth Grade Camp.

- Skeleton Creek, by Patrick Carman. If you haven't read this, it is an absolute MUST! The book is written from one character's point of view, and there are videos every few chapters made by another character and are available online.

- Savvy, by Ingrid Law. The story centers around Mibs, whose family gains a supernatural power at the age of 13. It's great for teaching student that wet one has their own savvy, or special know-how.

For all of the ELA teachers out there, do you think it's reasonable to do one read-aloud each month? Or am I setting my sights too high?

Welcome!!!

Welcome! I want to thank you for stopping by! Here are five fun facts about me and my background in teaching:

1. SIX YEARS: 2012-2013 starts my sixth year in teaching. I graduated from Ohio University in 2007, and Marshall University in 2011. I've been fortunate enough to spend all of my career in the same lovely little school :)
2. CAFE: This is my second year implementing CAFE and The Daily Five. Things progressed slowly last year, but I feel that it always goes that way the first time around. We only have 90 minutes for ELA, so I can't implement it quite the way it's intended, but it works! I really like CAFE for the framework that it provides for me, a teacher without a textbook. Don't get me wrong - I'm incredibly thankful that we don't have a textbook, but it made my first few years of teaching very unorganized. I was clueless! (aren't we all???)
3. TECHNOPHILE: My classroom is thankfully equipped with a Smart Board. I've had several years to love on and become friends with it. I can't get enough of tech stuff, whether it's reading blogs or going to trainings for tech that we don't own yet; I love it. My principal bought an ELMO doc camera... I can't wait to get my hands on it
4. APPLE: I'll admit it, I'm a huge fanboy... er, fangirl? My iPad is my favorite, my iPhone is the best boyfriend. Hehehe. The blogging app for the iPhone means that you'll all get to see some great photos!
5. FITNESS: Okay, this last one has nothing to do with education, except for the fact that my addiction to fitness has saved me from some very stressful days. At the start of last school year, I set out to lose some weight & add some awesome, and was able to do that... 39 lbs later! I may post the occasional smart (smart=healthy) food find or workout routine. 

Thanks again for stopping by! Check in again for more posts!