Back to the Archive - 7/23/13 - Advice for New Teachers

I'm popping in from the past again with another Back to the Archive post! This one is from last year! I'm giving out some sage advice to all the new teachers out there! ;)

So...let's go BACK!

I'm tripling up and linking up with the "Loving Wisdom for New Teachers" Linky from Fabulously First, the Let's Get Acquainted - Teacher Advice Linky from Flying into First Grade, and this linky from Miss Kindergarten:

To do a little linky alchemy, my ten things are in the form of advice, gleaned from my observations and personal experiences + mistakes + successes over the years. (Also, I've thrown in some photos to break up my wordiness.)

Me as a fresh-faced first year
teacher! Bwahaha! Look at that
cool guy...

Well, this next year will be my lucky 13th year of teaching and I have definitely noticed some trends, and learned quite a bit in that time. I'm going to try to not repeat too many of the great ideas I've already read in these linkies. If I do repeat a bit, sorry! I'm afraid some of these will come off as preachy or know-it-allish, please know that that's not my intention! I've definitely even been guilty of a couple of these. But that leads me to my first one...

#1 - Don't ever think you've mastered it. I once worked with a guy who told me that he was planning to move into a principal position because he had "completely mastered" teaching. He'd been teaching for all of 5 years. I refrained from punching his lights out, but I did imagine doing it. If there's one thing I've learned from teaching, it is that one can never master it. You should always be striving to become a better educator.

#2 - Don't let people or "things" steal your passion. Less than desirable trends, admin, parent interactions, curriculum programs, NCLB, etc will come and go. Close your door and do what's best for your kids. Easier said than done sometimes, I know!

#3 - Love what you teach, and if you don't...pretend or at least still love how you teach it. Like our friend Dave Burgess will attest, enthusiasm is key. If you have to teach American History up to the Civil War to 5th graders and couldn't care less about history... pretend. If asked, my students would say I'm crazy about history. In reality I didn't have any interest in it...until I started to act like I did and used full fledged, in depth simulations to teach it. Now it's actually interesting to me!

#4 - Share. Seems simple, but I've found that it's not. If you do something cool in your room, share it! I want to believe that the reason teachers don't share is because they are shy about their ideas. (But I know that some just don't like to share the limelight of a good idea. :(  ) The students always benefit when teachers share. So don't be shy, and don't wait for a colleague to ask you! If your colleagues don't like your ideas they won't use them. Afraid you'll look too proud of your own ideas? Who cares? You SHOULD be proud. The end.

Don't fall into the trap of
being a screamer.

#5 - Keep control. We've all had kids with behaviors that are...less than perfect. We've all known teachers who are screamers. (Or maybe you're lucky and haven't!) Don't be that teacher. If you're screaming, you've lost control...don't blame it on your kids. 

#6 - Have high expectations for learning and behavior...AND enforce them. If you don't back up your expectations then they're meaningless. I think a lot of teachers who struggle with classroom management tell their kids that they have high expectations but then when the kids don't meet them they just let it go. 

#7 - Plan. I know that many of you will read that and think, "duh!" But in my opinion planning is not just smart, it's our duty. Kids deserve their days/lessons to be well thought out and planned with them specifically in mind. Taught it 12 times before? Not to these kids you haven't. "But I want to be flexible in my teaching." Great! But being flexible is not NOT having a plan...I've heard that from teachers across my career and it's a pet peeve of mine.

Freebie!

#8 - Fair is not the same as equal. Our society stresses that everyone should be treated equally. And in many cases that is true. But I think when it comes to education it's more important that people are treated fairly. Everyone should have the equal opportunity to reach their full potential. Click my poster over there to download one for yourself for free! Check out my band-aid lesson post for more on this topic.

#9 - Remember your real job. I almost think the hidden curriculum is more important than the actual academic curriculum. Public education was created to make people into better citizens. If I help make my kids into good people, give them good life experiences, provide them with a place that they feel safe and loved, plan exciting and engaging lessons, and get to know them as people...the test scores and all that will work itself out.

I met Killer B when she was a resource teacher
and taught in the classroom next to mine. I
eventually tricked her into marrying me!

#10 - Keep an open mind. Whether you've heard rumors about a kid on your roster, think you can't learn anything from a professional development meeting, think your methods are already good enough, etc...chances are, you're wrong. Sometimes it's easy to go into something with a fixed mindset rather than a growth mindset. And when you do that, you're bound to miss out on some wonderful opportunities. 

My contribution to Let's Get Acquainted!

So I hope that didn't come off as too soapboxy. A lot of those served as great reminders to myself! Hopefully there are some new teachers and veterans out there that at least can read this and think, "Right on!" 

Didn't win? It's just $5! Click the image to get one!

So, Killer B picked a winner at random (she didn't even know what I was asking her about!) for my pin it to win it for the Book of Awesome Tasks, and it was Joanne M.! I've already e-mailed your prize to you, and I hope you love it as much as I do!

Don't forget to link up this summer!

An InLinkz Link-up

Back to School Goals - Planning for 2014-15

Howdy all! As promised, I'm linking up again with I {heart} Recess for the Back to School Goals linky! Last time I reflected on last year's goals. This time I'm looking ahead!

My goals for the 2014-15 school year:

Killer B is my lovely wife, btw!

Personal: I'm definitely guilty of being one of those 24/7/365 teacher types. Killer B and I have no kids of our own, so I end up putting a lot of myself into my school kids. Oftentimes too much. Not to get all sappy but, I really need to learn how to shut down teacher-mode and take more time for myself. It's tough because I'm filling up that hole in my life (all those hours most people my age are spending with their kids) with teachery things. Still waiting to figure out what Killer B and I are going to do about that... But on a lighter note... I also want to be sure that I keep my blog up to date and relevant with handy tips and useful activities!

Organization: My desk is sometimes a wreck, and sometimes it's super clean and organized! The problem? When it is super clean it is usually because I've stacked up all the random stuff and papers and stuck them in a drawer! Then at the end of the year I have this drawer full of papers that need to be filed... I really just need to clean off my desk and file the stuff right away. I need to turn my hideaway drawer into something useful!

Planning: Since I teach a 3rd/4th grade looping multi-age, half of my kiddos will be coming back to me next year. So the unique challenge I face is that my new 4th graders have already seen all my tricks when they were my 3rd graders. This means I need all new read-alouds, all new word work activities, all new writing mini-lessons, all new math projects and games, all new mentor sentences, all new science and SS units, and so on. Keeping it fresh means planning this year almost as if it were my first year teaching... and I can't use some of my tried and true favorites! Aaagh!

I was even in their promotional video!

Professional: Penn State has an amazing PDS program. The interns (student teachers) we get from PSU spend the entire year with us, from before the first planning day all the way til the last day of school. They work the same hours I work. They end up getting an amazing pre-service teaching experience that prepares them for teaching better than any other system I've seen. I've been mentoring interns and working with the program for 4 years, and this will be my 5th! I am trying to become more involved with the program, and would love to be a professional development associate for them in the future.  

One way I try to motivate them is by using
read beads and brag tags!

Students: I feel like I do a good job of challenging my kiddos, but I want them to have more intrinsic motivation to challenge themselves. I want them to try and read challenging books, and write more interesting stories for the sake of the challenge and not just because they are supposed to do it!

Motto: The good news is that after I survive this year, the following year should be much easier because I'll be able to go back to "Year 1" and use some of the materials I've made and procured instead of having to reinvent the wheel AGAIN for every single subject, every single day...

Wish me luck this year! What are your goals for the year?

Final Two for Tuesday is a great one!

It's the last Two for Tuesday of the summer! Here's your chance to grab two of my products for 50% off for the rest of today!

First up is my Biography Writing Project. Grab that up for a measly $2.50! Check it out here: 

Next up is one of my all time favorite products! This is the Division version of my Monster Math Battles! Grab the whole tournament today for just $2.50! That's a steal!

So skip your latte for a day, and you'll have two great products for the rest of your career!

Back to School Goals - Reflection

I'm linking up with my BBB I {heart} Recess for her Back to School Goals linky! I love the idea of reflecting on last year's goals, so I'm going to start with that! I'll be back in a couple days with my new goals for this year!

Here were my goals for the 2013-14 school year:

Personal: I have to admit, Killer B and I started off really strong with this one...then it petered out. As the school year went by we'd come home tired and just feel like vegging out sometimes, or I'd have too much schoolwork to do. Before you knew it, it was a Tuesday and we really just wanted to relax in front of the TV...and then BAM...once you break a rule once it's easy to break it again.

Organization: I think I set up a pretty nice classroom this year! I was moving classrooms and took it as an opportunity to totally change my colors, theme, all the posters, etc. I think it turned out really well. I'll make a few changes this year, but not too many!

Planning: Since I was also totally new to the 3rd/4th multi-age I kind of had no choice BUT to plan like a pirate! I put a lot of effort into making several Math project-based learning simulations, and I really worked hard at making my Writer's Workshop interesting. 

I made this bookmark for myself to use while planning. Grab one up for yourself for free!

Professional: I've gone totally digital with my lesson planning now, and I think it has been great. I made a block planning sheet in Google Presentations that I can duplicate each week and then type into to plan. The bonus? I can SHARE my plans easily with my intern, and all of the special educators and paras I work with. No more, "I didn't know you were doing such and such at this time!" I've talked to other colleagues about this and they can't believe that I share my plans like that...I say, "Why not?!" I'm proud of my plans, I've got nothing to hide...I plan awesome stuff.

Just a fun throwback picture. We took these fun
photo booth pics at the beginning of the year. You
can get the props in my TpT store for $1.50!

Students: I worked really hard for this one too. I had a particular kiddo this year that usually hated school, and I feel like I made him like school. I think I succeeded at this one!

Motto: This past year was great! The move to 3/4 was definitely a good one for me! I am still loving what I do!

See you soon for my new goals!

Five for Fourth of July!

Happy Fourth of July! 

I'm linking up with Doodle Bugs Teaching for Five for Friday!

1.

This is what our 4th Fest looks like...

How do you all celebrate the 4th? I know a lot of people get really into going to a huge fireworks display, or have a picnic or BBQ...but Killer B and I have always been a bit more laid back. We usually buy a few rockets and roman candles to set off for our dogs to watch, and that's about it! Woohoo!

Seriously though, we're almost always visiting family in Atlanta around this time of year, so it's hard to do too much.

It's kind of a bummer that this holiday is in the summer. It'd be a lot of fun to celebrate it with the kids at school. There are so many cool things you could do with them too! 

2.

Don't forget to stop by and enter this giveaway! Today's the last day to enter! There are lots of great prizes to be won!

3.

I'm sharing my favorite font of all time today! It's one I made a while back for the express purpose of using only a little ink. I make a lot of my bigger TpT files using this font. It's called Nick's Typewriter because it's my handwriting in typewriter style letters. Grab it up for free! 

4.

Not at all related to the Fourth of July, but I'm getting excited about the Institute on Academic Differentiation I'll be attending in a couple of weeks at the University of Virginia! The leader of the institute is Carol Ann Tomlinson. The workshops are all about things like flexible grouping, mindset, close reading, teaching up for complexity, etc. The institute is offered at two levels, and I'm excited to be going to the more advanced version because I hopefully won't have to worry about any of the workshops being too introductory. 

Monticello is right next door! I'm looking forward to
marking this site off of my must-see list!

Spending a week away from my lovely wife, while doing teachery things in the summer is sure to be a challenge...but luckily I'll have some good company! My principal and another teacher from my team are going with me! They're both cool, so I'm sure dinners and after workshop activities will be fun too. This is one of the few times that being a male teacher in elementary pays off by the way...can you say "hotel room to myself?" I can! I can finally snore all I want without Killer B punching me in my sleep!

Hopefully if the jealousy I have of all my BBBs who are going to the TpT Conference in Vegas hasn't worn off by then, this'll help.

5.

Just for fun I thought I'd put some of the patriotic products in my TpT store on sale for Independence Day! Actually they're on sale all weekend. I also put all of my Kaboom math games on sale too, because you know... kaboom... like fireworks!

So grab some stuff at 20% off and let's help stimulate the American economy together! ;)

Here's a few of my favorites that are on sale:

The full list of all 10 on sale items can be seen here:

My BBB Emily over at I Love My Classroom is also having a sale!

Enjoy your weekend!

Back to the Archive! - 7/3/13 - Modified Cafe Menu

So, I'm bringing a post back to the future from exactly a year ago! This one was originally posted on July 3rd, 2013! I chose it because it's a good example of how I've set up my Reader's Workshop, and includes a freebie! 

So, without further ado...let's go BACK TO THE ARCHIVE!

I'm linking up with Workshop Wednesday from Ideas by Jivey for her July Workshop topic - setting up, before the kids arrive.

I'll be sharing a bit (and a couple freebies!) about how I do my Reader's Workshop this time because if you like it you'd need to prep before the kids arrive. I have a relatively non-traditional (but becoming more popular!) way of teaching reading, but I think it really works. I've heard a lot of good things from others about it too, so I feel like I'm on the right track.

It'd be crazy to talk about everything I do in this post, but I think a lot of the backbone to what I do stems from how I group, and my modified Daily 5/CAFE Menu.

Me with a mixed ability reading group -
from footage taken for an instructional video on teaching
using a reader's workshop! I'm famous! ;)

I do a combination of strategy groups (2-5 kids) that change consistently, mini-lessons, and one-on-one conferences. I do not have static leveled reading groups. The kids in my groups can be "high" or "low" or whatever...the common factor isn't their reading ability or the book they're reading. It's the skill/strategy they need to work on. When a kiddo masters a skill/strategy they move into a different group or I start a new one for them. Some kids are in two groups. Some groups I see once a week, some I see every day. Some kids move groups quickly, some don't. Sometimes we use a passage for "close reading," sometimes the kids have their good fit books.

It all goes back to the age-old Band-aid lesson. (Maybe you've seen a pin on pinterest about it!) The first week of school I "cut my finger" accidentally and then procede to hand out band-aids to the whole class and insist that the kids put them on their fingers. They think it's silly that everyone should get one. This leads to a discussion about how I want my classroom to be based on equity, not equality. Everyone gets what they NEED, not everyone is treated the same. Some kids need me to be more hands-on than others when it comes to mastering reading strategies. The kids get it, and I never hear a complaint about "how come you met with Austin 3 times and me just once?"

Whole group mini-lesson (keyword mini) on figurative
language, using Wonder by RJ Palacio.

In order to help facilitate the madness, I give every kiddo a CAFE menu and we highlight all over it as the year goes by. I also keep pretty crazy charts in my pensieve about who is in what group, and when I last conferenced with each kid. Every student is usually working on at least 3 strategies - the one that the whole class is doing as part of my whole group mini-lesson, the one they are working on that I identify during their one-on-ones, and the one their strategy group is working on. Occasionally these will overlap.

My intern conferring with a student one-on-one. So nice to
have another adult to double up on these. Sadly, I don't
think I'll have one next year.

Because I was new to 5th grade two years ago I basically scoured the internet for everything I could find about using D5/CAFE in the upper grades. In the end I discovered a couple 5th grade CAFE menus that were almost what I was looking for. (I honestly have no idea where I found those original ones.) Over the last two years I've made a lot of adaptations to the merged menu I made, and I think it is in a good place now for me.

DISCLAIMER: It is not formatted identically to the "sisters' menu." I made some executive decisions. I went with the A for Awareness instead of Accuracy (I think accuracy is part of fluency anyway.) I also added/expanded on several strategies to the menu that were missing(imho), and removed some of the ones that I thought were too young for older kids. 

Please check it out (freebie of course!) to see if you think you could use it or any aspect of it! 

I'm moving to a 3/4 multi-age next year and I think that even though I made this with 5th in mind I am going to definitely use it with my 4th graders, and maybe tone it down a smidge for my 3rd graders. (Any 3rd grade experts out there want to chime in on that?! I'd appreciate it!)

Anyway, even though this is more work, I would find it incredibly difficult to go back to the way I was teaching reading 4 years ago at this point. (Four 20-minute rotating leveled guided reading groups, all kids had the same book, etc.) And I think a big part of that is the value I see in my one-on-one conferences and the fluid grouping. I feel like I know my kids' needs much more deeply now. I am in no way saying that what other teachers are doing is not just as effective or valuable, btw! I just finally found a good fit for my style and my particular kids' needs!

I use a pensieve like the sisters recommend. I have conferring pages in the notebook for every student, but I often find it more convenient to take my conference notes on a sticky label and then put them into the notebook later. Here is a link to the document I use to print them out on the 14 per page Avery brand labels! It's just like the D5 provided sheets, just printed on labels. It beats hauling my pensieve around the classroom.

A brand spankin' new linky this week is Win, Loss, & Cost from Third Grade Galore and Digital: Divide and Conquer!

Win :)
My recent win would have to be our delightful vacation to Savannah and Tybee Island. Check out recent posts (or join me on instagram, people!) for more info on that.

Loss :(
I've been neglecting my TpT store a bit to focus on other teachery things and now I've got a bunch of half finished projects going on and I'm getting overwhelmed by it all! I need to sit down and finish one soon!

A Thing of Cost $
To tie in with the Workshop stuff. Here is an example of something I might have my kids do at the teacher and independent stations to practice some of the CAFE skills! Check it out!

That's it for now! I'm looking forward to seeing all of the other workshop ideas! I'm always looking to improve how I do things, and I know I'll need to make some adjustments for 3rd/4th next year. I do a reading, math, and writing workshop in my room, so this linky was made for me!

And don't you think Win, Loss, & Cost is pretty fun too? Looking forward to seeing everyone else's!


I hope you enjoyed that blast from the past! And I hope you'll link up this summer too!

An InLinkz Link-up

Two...make that Three for Tuesday

I'm joining in again with Two for Tuesday! I put these guys on sale for the last two days of June, but didn't have a lot of interest...boo hoo. :(

So you can still grab them today for just $1 each! That's actually more than 50% off for a couple of them!

       

If cheap isn't good enough for you, how about the potential for some free things?! 

My BBB Christie is having her 1,000 follower giveaway right now! Be sure to head on over there and enter to try and win some amazing stuff!