Partner Work

Grade 2 social studies is all about communities.

We are still working at learning more about our community. Right now we are learning about the jobs that people in our community have.

Research is such a great skill for students to have, so we started a very small research project. Students worked in partners to find information from books. (They thought that reading books would be the best way to gather information).

I was so excited when we got started. Students did a great job choosing which job they would like to work on and got started reading for information right away. All the groups worked really well together.

The final product is not yet finished as I want them to make a poster about what they have learned. (We will be working on that today.) But the information that they wrote down is great.

Something that I'm still thinking about, and will have to make a decision very quickly, is do I edit for spelling or let them use their best try at spelling.  I'm leaning more towards just having them use their spelling. These posters will not be put up in the hallway, just our classroom, so I don't feel they need to be in published form.

I will try to post the final products tomorrow.

Report Cards

It's that time of year... report cards.

November reporting is always a tough time for me and from what I can tell, for teachers in general. For me personally, I feel as though I'm still getting to know my students and having share the information I have gathered and put it in a child's file seems kind of daunting. The information that I have is always my opinion on how I see things. Another teacher who may see that same thing may interpret in another way. They may not even see the same things that I see. And this always stresses me out. Am I doing it right?

Teachers aren't really taught how to write a report card or make comments to parents during university courses. It's kind of a sink or float thing.

For anyone who doesn't actually know a teacher personally, I believe, doesn't actually understand what goes into making a report card. Words are carefully chosen as we would never want to come out and say things to upset a parent yet we want them to know the truth about their child's learning and behaviours . Hours are spent going over notes from conversations, observations and the products we collect to paint a complete picture of a child in as few words as we possibly can so as to not overwhelm parents. Giving each child a score out of 5, or a percentage becomes difficult. What do you really base this number on? An arbitrary ideal in your head? A mathematical formula?

For me, report cards are the hardest part of being a teacher. These reports cards are permanently with each child as they make their way through school and can be looked at when needed by future teachers. This is a lot of pressure for anyone. Is the information we are writing down accurate and written in a way that is not making things sound all good for a student who is really struggling?

If I could change one thing about teaching... no report cards! Just informal meetings with parents throughout the year as they are interested in how their child is learning at school.

I know this would never happen in the near future, but maybe one day.

Trucking Along

I feel as though this year is just flying by.

Report cards are going to be here before I know it... like next week!

My life in and out of school has gotten into a good routine... nothing too out of the ordinary happens around here! I'm not sure if this is a good thing or not.

Not only am I thinking of report cards, I'm also getting my head wrapped around this whole winter season called Christmas that will be approaching before we know it. Again this year each home room teacher in the early years will be helping their class to get something ready to perform on stage. Last year my class did a short play called "The Littlest Christmas Tree". Of course I can't do the same thing again, so I'm going to try to figure something else out. Luckily, this year I can count on the help of my colleague and put our brains together to come up with something great. But of course if anyone out there has a suggestion I'd be more than willing to listen!

This week in my social studies class we are starting to talk about Remembrance Day. I always find it hard to share something so big, and in our world, very abstract. 6 and 7 year old children aren't familiar with the reality of war. Part of me thinks that it's really important for my students to know and understand that we have things pretty good when we compare Canada to many other places around the world. The other part of me hates to have these young kids grow up so fast with the reality of life.

In the long run, Remembrance Day is in our curriculum and I will teach what is age appropriate to my students. The line is just really thin and deciding how much these little people should be exposed to can be  bit of a challenge. But I'm doing my best, and I guess that's all I can really do.

Hope everyone out there has an enjoyable week!

SAGE

Every year in Manitoba SAGE is held. This is a day where all teachers from around the province get together to learn things in their chosen field.

This year I attended a session put on by MELIT (Manitoba Early Literacy Intervention Teacher) and I really enjoyed it. They had Regie Routman and her colleague Sandra Figueroa come to Winnipeg to speak. For those of you who have never heard of Regie Routman and are teaching writing the. You need to look up her stuff. Se has become a very well known writing guru.

Our school division has done some work with Regie's work in the past so it was really amazing to see and hear her in person. She is very passionate about what she does and it really shows in her work. She holds every child to a high standard and believes that they can achieve no matter what their label or past history with writing.

Throughout the day listening to Regie and Snadra speak my mind was racing thinking of how I can change the way that I teach writing for the better. I came away with a few things that I would like to try with my students. One such thing being to take the time and have public conferences with students so students can learn for each other. I also need and want to take the time and share and celebrate my student's learning. I know the this will take time and that's why I haven't really done it up until now but the things that will come out of sharing and celebrating should be well worth the investment of time.

If you ever get the chance to hear these ladies speak or have them in your school then count yourself lucky and enjoy! This is the first SAGE in a long time or maybe even ever that I have truly enjoyed and am excited to put some things into action!

Reading Help

I've always had to encourage kids to wait to help when another child gets stuck while reading until they've had time to try it out.

This summer I watched this video and got a great idea as to how I could have students wait to share their answers. 

While working with a small group of readers this week I was finding that kids were interrupting each other with the correct word when thinking was still going on. In order for them to wait to help I had them hold the answer in their hand. If the kiddo who's stuck was not able to figure out the word then the other students can blow out the correct answer, similar to in the video. I'm finding that this is really working well with one of my groups in particular. 

This coming week one of my goals during guided reading groups will be to have the others students work at this so each child has the opportunity to do some problem solving with words.

Loving!

I was reading on of the many blogs that I follow and saw a song in this post and I am in love with it!

I may have played it on repeat too many times today. But I really think the message is a great one. I played it for my students on Friday and I'm thinking that I will be playing it again fairly often for them.

Here it is:

Have a listen, you'll love it.


On another note, this week in Grade 2 we talked a lot about Terry Fox. This very special man did something really amazing for this country. The Terry Fox Foundation has some really great lesson plans available for all age groups that really give students a feeling of who Terry Fox was and what his goals were. I think that every child can learn from this man and never give up on their goals.

Check out these lesson plans here.

This year more than ever this run is important for our school to participate in (we held our run yesterday). This past spring a student from our school passed away from cancer. This run was another great way for our school to connect in a positive way around the memory of this little boy.

Have a great weekend everyone!

From my principal.

I told my principal that I had started a teaching blog. He thought this was a good idea and that I should share something really important with you...

Question: How to get something you want from your principal?

Answer: ASK FOR IT!!!

Fun Quotes

So today I was working with a couple of kiddos individually and they said some things that I had to laugh at. I thought I'd share them with you in case you needed a laugh.

Me: What letter is this?
Kiddo #1 (comes in close and uses a whisper voice): I don't really need to know this I'll just do back to class!

Well a whisper voice from this kid is pretty much amazing and to have this be the thing that he wanted to whisper about made me smile!


Another smile for the day...

This kiddo and I had just finished reading a book together and I was going to get my ipad out and do some things with letters on it when...

Kiddo #2: Aren't we reading?

Me:You wanted to read another book?

Kiddo #2: Well, ya and this time I'm going to read it by myself!

This was coming from a kid who in grade 1 didn't really have a whole lot of interest in learning at all! Oh what time will do.

Good Things!

This week had a great ending!

Reading Recovery (RR) is coming along nicely. I have all my testing done and I'm just waiting to hear which students I should take. This coming week I should actually get to start teaching reading! I'm very excited for this.

On Thursday I again had to race off at 12:00 for a RR meeting. I let my kids know in the morning that I will be leaving for the afternoon. This time the reaction was heart warming. A few of the kids said, "Are you ever going to stay?" I felt sad and good at the same time about this comment. It was nice that they wanted me to stay but a bit sad as well because I feel as though I'm not making the same connections with my students as I have in the past. I will just have to make the most of the time that I have to spend with them!

Friday morning was our first monthly assembly. In the past we have only met together as a school for special occasions. This year to complement our house activities we have planned to get together for a monthly assembly to do some celebrating. This could be as simple as wishing everyone who has a birthday that month a "Happy Birthday", to having a class share something special that they have worked on.

This month we decided that we hadn't been in school long enough for anyone to really have things to share with others so we brought our house groups out for the assembly. During our first activity day we didn't really have time to make our team cheers so we had some time on Friday to do so. After each house had come up with their cheer we met together in the gym. The atmosphere in the gym was AMAZING! Each house was wearing their house colour and it was easy to see who was in which house. We took turns going around the gym and sharing our team cheers with the school. I loved seeing kids from different grades interacting together and really having fun!

After the assembly I heard a lot of positive things being said which makes me really happy. I'm feeling really positive about these activities and I really hope that it can continue on into the rest of the school year.

Lastly, I met with my principal on Friday about my professional growth plan. During this meeting I was encouraged by the positive comments he had to say about my teaching and involvement in our school. It was a really great way to end the week!

How full is your bucket?

Have you read this book?

Or this one?

While I have only read the second book I've heard that the first book is also great and my school has it in the library. I love "How full is your bucket?". It's a story that all students can relate to. Each student has had a day when they don't feel 100% happy. This could be because of something at home or something at school.

I read this book to my class last year and my current kiddos. I'm using this book as a way to check in with students on how their day is going. 

Last year I would check in with my kiddos as they were leaving for the day to see how their day had gone. They would tell me on a scale of 1 to 5 how their day had gone. If their day was anything other than a 5 I would check to see what had happened that made their day not perfect. After I checked in with them I would rate their day from my point of view. I feel as though this was a non competitive/ non judgemental way for kids to let me know how they are feeling and for me to let them know how their day was. Students were always really excited when they walked out the door with a 5 for the day.

This year because I'm only in the classroom in the morning I'm trying my best to check in with my kiddos before they go for lunch to see how their day has gone so far. On two separate days I had one of my kiddos tell me that her bucket was at a 1. This student has had a really rough time in the past few months at home. She felt that this was a non-threatening way to tell me that she was feeling sad. I liked that I could hear how she was feeling without me having to constantly interrupt her day with my questions of how things are going.

I really love this book and how I can hear about my kiddos days. I would recommend it to all early years teachers! 

Trying to get back into the swing of things

Wow, this working full time is for suckers! I'm finding that I am lacking energy by the end of the day! I'm really hoping that by the end of next week I'll feel like I'm back into my routine and will have a little bit more energy.

My attempt to use WBT in my class is still going well. My kiddos are really good at remembering our rules and I'm using them to make sure they are doing things correctly and quickly. All I need to do is say Follow Directions Quickly and they immediately speed up. So, so far, so good on that front.

I'm also trying to use Words Their Way as a different attempt at word work/ spelling work. So far I've done the assessment to place kids. I was going to use the online version of the placement data record sheet but the website decided not to work tonight and of course I didn't bring home enough paper copies for everyone so I guess that will be my job tomorrow morning before school. Just one more thing to add to my list!

I'm also having to change my way of thinking and what I'm used to because I'm only in the classroom in the morning. The day just seems so short and I feel kind of rushed. I guess it's just something I'll have to get used to.

Well, I'm very excited that tomorrow is Friday... seems my list is so long and maybe I'll  be able to cross some things off of it this weekend.

Enjoy! Keep Smiling!

Houses Begin

Wow! I forgot how hard it is to be at school all day with kids... I'm so tired right now! Hopefully next week I'll get back into the grove and not feel quite so tired.

Today was a great day! My kids were good in the morning. We were able to learn the other 4 WBT rules. They were so excited I couldn't stop teaching them! We also started Daily 5. Today the kiddos read for 3 minutes brilliantly! In grade 1 they had Daily 5 time as well but sometimes during the summer they can forget so we are starting slowly just as "the sisters" suggest.

A couple of colleagues and I wanted to try something new at school this year to build community in our grades K-8 school as we were seeing a real disconnect between the junior high and early years students. We decided to create house groups. Each house has at least one staff member and students from each grade in our school. This year we have given each house an animal as their team name and a colour to go with it.

Today was the first day we introduced this idea to our students and got together in our house groups. I thought that my group went well.The activities we have planned are fun activities so I'm hoping that things go smoothly. After talking with other staff members they also said that their groups went over really well which was great. The comments were that the older kids were helping the younger ones which is exactly what the purpose of the house groups were.

I'm really hoping that this goes well. I can see a whole bunch of potential in these activities in building community in our school and I'm really looking forward to the year.

I was also excited when another teacher told me that she used Class- Yes with her house group today and it went over really well! Sharing things that work is so great!

Have a great weekend everyone!

Survival!!

Yay! Day 1 is over and I'm still alive!

Actually I had a good day. I think my kids are going to be a really fun group. Of course I'm only in the classroom during the morning so we were only able to learn Rule 1, class- yes and teach- ok from Whole Brain Teaching. I think once the kids get used to something a bit different things will go smoothly. In fact I really liked incorporating the Daily 5 with WBT. When just starting off we talked about 3 ways to read a book and introducing teach- ok worked really well to reinforce that concept.

I had students colour Flat Stanley so we can use him in Social Studies and the classroom was amazingly quiet. I have a feeling that this class will be different than last year for sure! Although I did have to get after a couple of kids during our school assembly for talking... something might have to change for that!

Getting started with Reading Recovery also went well. We looked at the observation survey which I have had some experience with so it wasn't all bad. Tomorrow I will put it to the test though and attempt to test two grade 1 students. I will also have to make some time this weekend to do my reading homework.

All in all, a great day... and now off to boot camp. I'm going to be so tired when I get to bed!

Finally Ready

So it's the night before the first day of school and I guess I'm as ready as I can be. There are still things on my to do list but I'm pretty sure that as a teacher (or maybe anyone!) there will always be things to do but I just have to find a place to say that I am as ready as I can be and the things on the list will get done, just maybe not for tomorrow.
I personally prefer to head to school rather early so I still will have some time to get a couple more things done before school starts.

When I left school today I finally felt that my classroom was ready. Here are some pics of what it looks like.

View from the door.

Word Wall

Job Chart, Itinerary and colour wall

Whole Brain Teaching Rules

View from the teacher chair on the carpet

Mailboxes and coat hangers

View from the carpet

CAFE wall

Teacher area

Classroom library

Sign for when I'm working with students

Hand signs for students to use while I'm working with other students.

Not only is tomorrow the first day with students, it's also my first Reading Recovery meeting of the year. I'm looking forward to the challenges of Reading Recovery, just not so much looking forward to having to rush out of school right at lunch time nor the drive to get there.

Well here's to hoping that I will actually sleep tonight. I have a feeling tomorrow might feel like a very long day!

Almost time...

I'm one week away from having kids in my classroom and I feel as though my To Do list just keeps growing as fast as I can cross things off of it! Although kids don't come until Thursday, Monday is the long weekend, Tuesday is a divisional PD session and Wednesday is an admin day at school which means I can't really count on having too much time to actually working in my classroom. I'm pretty sure a lot of the admin day will be spent in a staff meeting and just making sure things are in place. So tomorrow is crunch time for me.

I'm hoping that by the time I leave school tomorrow (hopefully at a decent time) that I will feel ready for the first day. Well, here's to hoping!

My brand new desks arrived today and I'm so happy with them. Mrs. B and I were able to get them into place so our room is actually looking like a classroom now which makes my anxiety level much lower.

I'm really looking forward to the first day of school and getting to know my new kidlets. I keep thinking of all the things that I want to do with them on the first day of school and I'm realizing that I'm going to have to prioritize a little bit. I'm not used to only teaching in the morning so those few hours are going to pass by really quickly and something I'll have to get used to pretty quickly as I will be rushing away on the first day of school to attend my first Reading Recovery meeting of the year.

One week to go and so much to do.... maybe I should get back to that.

Where are you?

Sorry, I really am still here! My life right now is getting things ready in the classroom... a real post will happen tomorrow!

The set up begins!

On Friday I went back to school for a short while to start getting some things ready in my reading recovery room. I was just too excited to wait until today as I had originally planned. Today I finished things up in that room and headed over to my classroom to start there.

Here are the before pictures:

This space was the forgotten room in the school. It looked so boring a kind of like a dark hole. That is until I got a hold of it!!

The after pictures!

There are no windows in this room which is the thing that I'm looking forward to least about tackling reading recovery. Hopefully the little bit of colour will help.

Fabulous Blog Award!

Well I am very excited and honoured to have just received the Fabulous Blog Award!

Thanks to Miss L from Miss L's Whole Brain Teaching for this really special honour. Miss L is an education student who is really excited and passionate about Whole Brain Teaching. I just recently found her blog and I'm so happy I did because she is also from Manitoba (I haven't found other teaching blogs from Manitoba)!

Here are the rules:
-Thank the blogger who gave it to you and share the link back to the awarding blog.
-Name five (5) fabulous moments in your life.
-Name five (5) things that you love.
-Name five (5) things that you hate.
-Pass the award into five (5) deserving blogs/bloggers


So here it goes...
5 Fabulous moments of my life
-Flying to Thailand to teach English while finishing my Education degree
-Graduating from The U of W in 2009 with my degree in Education
-Having a student realize something I've been saying for months!
-Ride a gondola in Venice, Italy
-Getting to see a Broadway musical in New York City

5 Things that I love
-Photography
-Hanging out with friends and family
-Teaching
-Dessert (pretty much any kind!)
-Spending time at the lake

5 Things I hate
-being late
-watermelon
-cleaning
-dirty apartment (I know how do they go together!)
-too much perfume smell in a store

5 Deserving Blogs
Each of the blogs that I follow are really awesome but these are ones that I really look forward to reading!
-Second Grade Shenanigans
-Primary Graffiti
-Step into Second Grade with Mrs. Lemons!
-The Teacher Wife
-What the Teacher Wants


Thanks Miss L!

Whole Brain Teaching Excitement!

Last spring I came across this thing call Whole Brain Teaching (WBT) as I read one of the many blogs that I follow. I took a few minutes to see what it was all about. Well, I really liked it! It was a way to keep students engaged in their learning using simple procedures. The school year seemed to be going well but I did pull out one small part and tried it out with my students.

Class? yes! Worked really well. When I said "class" they answered "yes" every time. It was an easy way to grab each student's attention.

But that's as far as I went.

WBT was on my list of things to learn about over the summer and today was the day I took the leap and visited www.wholebrainteaching.com. WOW! I think this could be really great and I'm very excited. My head has been spinning so much with how I would like to do things.

My goal is going to be to start the very first day of school and see how my students by into it. I know the group I will be getting and I think they will take a very strong liking to it.

I will do my best to post my progress with it here as I implement it into my teaching practises.

Let's Get Started!

I'm going to give this whole blogging thing a try.

My goal is to post here at least twice a week as a starting point. This blog is going to be a place to share funny stories (or maybe not so funny!), pictures and lesson plans from my life as a teacher.

I've been so inspired by the many teacher blogs out there that I wanted to share my stories in the hope that they may help just one teacher to get excited about things in their own classroom.

So, enjoy!!