Back to School Thoughts

Hello!

Today I am linking up with The Primary Pack to let you know my thoughts on Back to School time! While this time of year means a lot of things, the number one thought I have during back to school time is NEW! New school supplies, new clothing, new faces, new students, new schedule, new experiences. I just love that even though it may happen like clockwork, the start of the school year adds in a nice twist to life. I have filled out the form below which tells you all of my thoughts on Back to School!

Reminds me of... When I think about back to school, my first thought is back to school shopping. Every year when I was young my mom would take my 2 younger siblings and myself to Target. I LOVED the stacks of new notebooks, pens, notecards, scissors, erasers (and I still do)! I loved the changes in grades when I could finally buy locker materials, or the big kid calculator. I was definitely the kid that bugged her mom to get to the store the second the school shopping list came in the mail!

Makes me want... School supplies make me super happy, but back to school also means chillier weather. This is the perfect time of year to stock up on leggings, boots, scarfs, new jeans and more! I'm a complete dress girl in the summer (it's a rarity for me to wear anything else!) so I tend to need to make wardrobe updates during this time of year. While I want summer to last longer, I definitely want to be prepared for the chilly, Minnesota sweater weather.

Drives me to... With my love of school supplies comes the need to be the thriftiest person ever. Yes I go to Office Depot & Staples weekly from the first week in August until the first week in September. Yes I buy things that I may not totally need. But if I'm already there and pencil eraser tops are 1 cent, you know they are in my basket. I typically try and spend just near the minimum to get the deals, but some weeks I get carried away. I continually tell myself that I'm saving myself money 7 months from now when school supplies are not on sale and I'm running low. My credit card will probably be put away until holiday shopping starts.

Makes me need... More sleep is a must this time of year. For some reason, not getting much sleep in the summer really doesn't hurt me too much. Even nannying during the day is manageable on a small amount of sleep. However teaching in a classroom is a whole new world. I am a night owl through and through so it takes awhile, but eventually the exhaustion will set in and I will start to fall asleep at a bit more reasonable hour.

Causes me to... So many changes this time of year. With the hours I spent looking at blogs, periscopes, TPT products, and more this summer, I have an endless amount of my ideas in my head. I tend to rethink the way I organize everything - both digitally and my paper files. I choose a system that will fit the way I plan on working for this school year.

Makes me think... There is so much potential in a new school year. My students and I are both renewed. I come into the classroom with new ideas and teaching methods. I see so much potential in all of my students and I cannot even predict how much they will learn academically, and how much growth they will have as a kind, caring citizen in my classroom and at home. 

I'm so glad I had the chance to share with all of you. If you would like to participate, link back to The Primary Pack and find the blank template. As well, I've finally set up my Bloglovin icon on the side of my page. Please follow me for new posts and updates!

Allie

Teacher Week: Favorite Subject

Hello everyone!

Once again I'm linking up with Blog Hoppin' for teacher week! Today is the last day and I will be telling you all about my favorite subject(s) to teach!

My favorite subject to teach varies a lot by grade level. In the past 3 years I have worked in Kindergarten, 3rd grade, and 5th grade! Yes, it's wide range of ages but I LOVE them all!

Kindergarten

Kindergarten is such an amazing year to watch. Even in the 1st month, I was amazed at how much progress my students had made. The subject that amazed me the most was writing. Most of my students entered my classroom not being able to write their name! By November, we were writing guided sentences with prompts at the beginning and students filling in their own answers near the end! Every day I was so proud of my students for their abilities to express themselves by sound-spelling words. There are so many skills and strategies to get students from a blank page to writing multiple sentences. For me, this subject was fun, rewarding, and allowed my students to be expressive! 

3rd Grade

In third grade, my favorite subject to teach is math. My students last year were able to feel so much ownership when they finally "got" multiplication, fractions, division, and more! So much of the math curriculum is interactive and I was able to delve into real world examples with my students. They found math relatable which was highly rewarding for me to see! The manipulative activities, task cards, and games that I was able to use at this level really made math come alive for students. 

5th Grade

Health is not only my favorite subject to teach in 5th grade, but it is also my all-time favorite subject to teach. When I was into my student teaching experience and was told that I would be teaching not only the basic health curriculum to my 5th graders, but the drug and alcohol unit as well, I was slightly terrified. While the curriculum had a lot of good information and lead points, I think I was most nervous about some of the questions that would come up - and boy did they! Besides some of the questions I expected - Why are these substances bad for you? How come adults can use them? - I got some questions I was not prepared for, such as: What is the difference between rum and beer? Why do some types of smoking cause the munchies and what are they? My cooperating teacher was wonderful though and helped me through my first round!

I ended up loving to teach this unit. I was able to have very honest and helpful discussions with my students about how the choices they make (positive or negative) affect them in so many ways. The curriculum also had us look at advertising strategies to entice people to buy as well as PSAs to warn against dangers.

Here are some of the PSAs that we looked at for smoking and alcohol use. The students were very quickly impacted!

At the end of the unit, my students had the task of creating their own PSA poster about at least 1 substance. This was their final assessment and showed me what they took away from the unit (as well as a paragraph that accompanied the poster). The heartfelt messages that my students showed in these ads were quite inspiring. 

This is a sample of a PSA that a student made. Sorry for the shadows - I took this for personal records ! I never thought I would be blogging with it :)

Once the ads were graded, my students took them home and were able to share them with their families. Get this - many of my students STARTED THE CONVERSATION about drugs and alcohol with their parents. They told their parents about the dangers and some students even requested that their own parents make lifestyle changes. I absolutely love that knowledge about health made my students feel empowered to make changes in their own homes. Definitely a proud teacher moment! 

Thank you for joining me again today! Be sure to jump over to Blog Hoppin' for more favorite subjects!

 Have a lovely Labor Day weekend!

Allie

Teacher Week: Sanity Savers

Hello everyone!

I'm back again for the fourth day of Teacher Week with Blog Hoppin'. Today we are focusing on sanity savers to make work life just a little easier.

I have 5 teacher tips that help keep me organized, motivated, and reduce my stress levels. I hope at least 1 works for you as well!

1. Google Drive - I will admit it, Google drive is probably the only reason I can put as much on my plate as I do. I run most of my life (besides the calendar - Erin Condren helps with that one) out of my Google account.

This is my folder from last spring's long term substitute job. I could share the folders and documents I wanted while accessing everything for myself at home!

Some of my favorite parts of Google Drive:
-I like to work on my own personal computer at home and my school computer at work. Google drive lets me create all sorts of files using its programs. I can also upload ENTIRE FOLDERS of my work into my drive and just download them at school. I am notorious for losing flash drives so this works perfectly for me.

-Documents can be shared. It just takes the click of a button to share a resource with another teacher. I love that I can choose what editing permissions other people have.

-Multiple person editing! Not only have I used Google Docs with my PLCs, but I also had my students (when I was in a 1:1 classroom) share their writing assignments with me. I was able to leave feedback in another color each night to a few students so that I could see where each student was at and provide feedback without wasting paper!

-Forms. I love using forms for responses from students. Whether they answer questions as an assessment or not, you can completely customize the types of questions used in forms so that students can turn in assessments that way or respond to their readings.

Whew! Obviously I love Google drive and all of its options. I promise to keep the rest of these shorter!

2. Clock Buddies - I will elaborate more in another post, but I love using clock buddies to set up pre-made partners. While I do not always use them, they are a great go to.

This is a clock buddy sample. I used this last year but I honestly don't remember where I got it! My apologies!

If you have never heard of clock buddies before. Each of my students gets a sheet of paper with a clock and 12 lines (1 for each hour of the clock). Many teachers have students pick their partners for each hour. I set mine up a little differently. For 4 hours, the students get to pick their partners with no repeats. Another 4 hours are randomly selected through partnered cards (peanut butter goes with jelly,  salt goes with pepper, etc.). The last 4 hours I choose and let students know who their partners will be. This allows me to make pairs that work well behaviorally and allows for academic supports. I rotate through all of the hours evenly but I tend to have my substitutes call only the hours that I have made. When I need students to partner up efficiently, I just say "find your 3 o'clock partner" and they are there. By the end of the year, they don't even need to look at their clocks!

I am working on putting my full pack of clock buddy materials into my TPT store. I will let you all know when it is officially up and running!

3. ReadWorks - readworks.org is a site with all sorts of reading passages that not only are available through lexile level but also offer question sets for passages based on skill.

Sample passage from readworks.org. Where it says skill/strategy, many are focused on just one strategy!

When I need to pull a quick passage, I can make sure my text is at level, on a particular subject, and working a particular comprehension skill! AMAZING!

Sample from readworks.org. These questions are from a kindergarten passage.

I have also used the site to print off articles of interest for some of my more reluctant readers. Starting with an article is a lot easier for them to handle than a whole book and as they see their successes they will gravitate more towards chapter books.

Oh, and did I mention - creating an account is FREE!

4. Movement - I am the person during the staff meeting that needs to shift every 30 seconds. I just can't sit still. I might be part of that dancing thing, but we weren't meant to be sitting in chairs all day and neither should our students. While the tough days it feels easiest to pull away a brain break to make up for lost time, taking the 5 minutes to get your kids moving is essential.

Taken from jamschoolprogram.com.

Some of my favorites are using Go Noodle, having a class dance party to a current song, Fitness Math (another product to be announced soon!), kid's Zumba or Just Dance videos on Youtube and Jammin' Minutes. Most of the time when a class is getting near that level of misbehavior, taking those few minutes will get the class back to business.

Taken from gonoodle.com

*Tip - have the students take a few calming breaths at the end to get them refocused and ready to work!

5. My last tip is for both teachers and substitutes. When I have been a substitute in classrooms, the best days are the ones where I know the teacher's attention getting signals. For substitutes, your day will start off a lot easier if you know the cues that the teacher uses. The students get the sense that you are familiar with the room and teacher. As well, they will respond the first time! If the teacher has not left the signals they use in their notes, ask another teacher or the first student to walk in the room.

For classroom teachers, please leave your attention getting signals in your notes! This part is typically left off of sub notes the most but we know how crucial these signals are to the day running smoothly. Just leave it at the top of the page with other procedures!



I hope at least 1 of these tips is able to help you out in your classroom. Leave comments with any questions you have!

Make sure you stop by Blog Hoppin' to read more sanity savers. I have added many to my list!

Allie