Summer Time Prep

Before Summer begins or at least early in summer, I always plan for the first few weeks of school.  I get my center folders ready (see upcoming Busy Bee post) and prepare 2 weeks of Beginning of the Year activities. I also get my book bags ready for the next school year (upcoming post)

 During this time I also plan the following:

1.  A Parent Welcome letter telling about myself and how excited I am to be their child's teacher
2. A Welcome Kit- the letter I send that shows what to include is on my page on Teacherspayteachers and is available for free

Teachers Pay Teachers

3. A Business Card with my name, email, conference time, and phone number that I put a magnet on so parents can have that information on their refrigerator
4. An info card that tells my parents names and phone numbers, emaiil addresses, siblings, transportation to and from school, allergies, concerns (Parents fill these out at Open House or Meet the Teacher Night and I hole punch and hang them all on  a ring next to my phone)
5. At Meet the Teacher Night I also send home the Parent Questionaire so that I can get to know my students a little better.  This is also available on my Teacherspayteachers website. 

Classroom Managment

I am a firm believer that a classroom should be managed in a positive way with a focus on procedures that make the classroom run almost without the teacher even needing to be there. Classroom management was the hardest thing for me when I started teaching, as I think it is for most people, but is now the thing I get most compliments on.  It is important to establish a specific procedure for EVERYTHING that takes place in the classroom and for the kids to practice the procedure and to perfect it.  If you are consistent with this and your schedule is pretty much the same on mostt days, your kids will run the classroom and move to the next step, after cleaning their area correctly.  They will strive to meet your standards as long as they know what you  expect!  In following posts, I will outline the procedures that I establish each year in the classroom. These procedures start with how they enter the room and unpack their backpack and include how they put books away on the shelf. 

Whole group
As I said I believe in positive reinforcement, so I always have a goal that the class is working towards together.  Sometimes, we fill a marble jar or spell out ICE CREAM PARTY on the whiteboard, one letter at a time.  Either way, they get a marble or a letter for every compliment we get as a class.  If we are walking in the hall or if they were great in music or lunch and a teacher lets me know, they get a letter or marble.  If I have to walk next door to help the teacher in the next class and they are completely quiet and working, I can give them a compliment.  This motivates them to always try to do their best and my kids have loved this every year, plus it works like a charm. 
Small Group
I have already touched a little bit on my table groups in a previous post and how I group my students into tables for small group work, etc and how I later use this to teach a lesson on Communities.  The system I use for my groups is that I put change group "mayors- leaders of the city" once a month and the mayor is the one who gets to hand things out, get supplies etc.  I use the mayor as the person that does the jobs for each table.  "Mayors, please get a math tub for your group." The students love being in charge and everyone gets a chance to lead.  I then make a tally chart on the board with the name of each table group and will give table points throughout the week to the table that is clean first, quiet first, ready first, etc.  The kids work as a team to make sure that everyone is ready when I am ready to move on and will even help each other put supplies away if it means their table could be first to get quiet and seated.  At the end of the week, I give a prize to the table that gets the most points.  The prizes are usually small incentives but the kids enjoy it (things like stickers or pencils). 
Individual

I use a color system in my classroom, similar to what most teachers use, but mine is in the form of a painted wood board with clothespins.  I make my chart into a weather system.  Students stary everyday on Sunny (yellow).  They get moved to cloudy(grey) for a warning and stormy (blue) for a day where I have been on them way too many times. This results in me writing a note in the folder and me taking away a privelege that is important to them (computer time, play time, extra something, etc) .  But my all time favorite part of my behavior chart is the chance the students get to move up from sunny to something extra special (rainbow- red) This is saved each day for just a few students who are doing an extra wonderful job during activities or transition times.  Students get super excited when their clip moves up a level, instead of just down!  I then chose my line leader the next day from my rainbows.  I usually pull the rainbow clips off at teh end of the day and let someone close their eyes and pick a clothespin to be the lineleader the next day.  Plus, students who get on rainbow get a special note home in their folder to praise them for their day.  Students and parents love this! :)

Take Home Folder or Binder

     Every Year, I usually use a system where I send home a daily folder with the newsletter, behavior caledar (where students color the color they received for the day and get it initialed), any notes fromt the school, reading book bag, and any other homework.  On Tuesdays, I would send home a separate colored "Graded Papers" Folder, where I could make sure the parents signed, and helped students redo failing grades.  This separate system allowed me to make sure the students did not mix graded papers with homework,etc. and the feedback over the years has been very positive for having graded papers come home in an organized way. 
     If having two folders seems difficult to manage, or you would rather use a system where all your papers are together and you have more room, I would go with the M.O.O.S.E or F.I.S.H. ( or whatever binder will match your theme).  I only used these binders one year when my school paid for the binders and I liked them with Second Grade, because I was able to teach the kids which divider we put certain things in and to put notes in the front zipper pocket.  There are many ways to set these binders up and allow for a lot of individual creativity.  The important this I would say is to ENCOURAGE and EXPECT organization and to TEACH these skills, using the binder.  If you just send the binder home and back, you will have many students who dont take care of theirs and are constantly needed certain parts of the binder replaced.  This is the main reason I have heard for teachers who do not like the binder.  One other complaint is that the binders are heavy, but I did not find them to be particularly heavier than anything else these kids carry in their backpacks! :)

See the website below for more binder ideas. She has great organization ideas and theme acronyms for using a binder in the classroom:

Binder Ideas

Centers and Literacy Stations

I have tried many different center systems since I began teaching, but my ABSOLUTE favorite was taught to me by my good friend, Amber Johnston.  The Busy Bee Literacy Center cards took away the headache of grouping and organizing in order to move kids from center to center and make sure they still were getting enough time in Reading Group.  The cards are attached to folders.  Students in the same reading group have the same color folder and the horseshoe should be in the same position on their card.

Busy Bee Literacy Centers

I will post examples and pictures and exactly how I use these cards in an upcoming post.  I will try to do this later this week.  The system is awesome and makes for diverse grouping while still making sure all reading groups are met with every day.  The only downfall of the system is that it only allows for 4 reading groups which is not enough with today's class sizes, so feel free to play with the format of the cards to fit a fifth group or change the beehives to somthing matching your theme (using colored fish instead of beehives). 

Table Groups

     I like to use tables in my classroom instead of desks.  I find desks to be harder to teach organization and a little noisy.  I also have seen kids hide or play with things inside the desks during teaching time.  If you decide to use tables, I have used two organization systems over the years that work pretty well.  The first thing I used was a crate under each table where students organized their work by subject.  This worked ok, but we did have to plan for the extra time to transition from one subject to the next.  For the last couple of years, I have used chair pockets instead to organize individual work into folders.  This was my favorite system. 

      Either way, desks or tables, it is important to group students into table groups or clusters for small group activities, partner work, and managment (positive behavior or table point incentives). I start the year by naming my table groups, following my classroom theme.  I hang a picture of the group name from the ceiling, using fishing line and a paperclip to attach it to the ceiling.  For instance, if one table group was the Hippos, I would have a picture of a cartoon hippo above the group and would make sure to not dangle it low enough where the kids could reach it.  During class, I provide table points for the first table ready after transition time and tables that are working quiet.  At the end of the week, the winning table would receive a small prize, like a pencil, candy, sticker, etc.  The kids love it and it encourages them to do their job and get back to where they need to be in order to work towards a team goal. 

      As the year went on, and we moved into learning about communities, I change the table group names.  I tell the students that our school is like The United States and our classroom is like the state of Texas.  I then let each group choose a city inside Texas to be their table name and hang new tags over the groups with their city names.  This helps them get the idea of how cities fit in states and states fit into The United States.

Reading Groups and your Theme

It is fairly obvious how to incorporate your theme into your reading groups.  A typical K-4 class should have about 4 or 5 reading groups and you can name your groups to fit in with the theme.  So Going with the jungle theme again, my first year teaching I had the Lion Group, Monkey Group, etc.  You can obviously get very creative with this.  I had boxes (the fabric kind you can buy at any teacher store with pictures of the group and the name on the front. I would pull guided reading books for two weeks at a time and plan and prepare lessons and then store these lesson sets in the crates until the day I was ready to use them.  This was also helpful for whenever I can up with a word or comprehension activity that I would want my group to do. I would sort it into their group's box.

If you have never done guided reading before, it is important to use a system to figure out what reading level all your students are on, preferably the first week of school.  Most districts use DRA or Rigby or another form of running records that correlate to book levels.  You then want to group your kids into reading groups, based on their ability.  All the kids on similar levels should be in the same group, so that they are reading the same books.

To see how to take Running Records when your kids are reading, click the link below for some great tips:

Busy Teacher Cafe- Running Records

Here is a breakdown of my weekly (most of the time) guided reading plan. I will go over my centers and center rotation system in a later post.
I always met with my low group first to MAKE SURE we have enough time. I meet with this group every day.  The Second lowest should also be met with every day.  Your 2-3 higher groups can be met 3-4 times but still as much as possible. 

Monday- Picture walk through new book to make perdictions about text, discuss difficult vocabulary words, and talk about a phonics sound we might see that will be new.  Students can use whiteboards to write predictions or brainstorm words with certain phonics blends. Students spend the last few minutes reading from the new book.  Students take the book home each night and need to read it to a parent and get the parent to log the book on the reading log.

Tuesday- Students do a semantic web or other comprehension strategy to show me that they remember what they read and understand.  We spend this reading group discussing difficult parts, questioning each other, and reading parts that were interesting/intrigueing, etc.

Wednesday-FLUENCY, I use Wednesdays to practice speed when reading.  My district provided us with a poetry kit that allowed me to time children and allowed them to time themselves when reading and rereading, with the hopes of getting faster the more times they have read.  You can either print poems or have them read sections of passages or books, but teach them how and why good readers read quickly

Thursday- Introduce a new book and follow similar to Monday.  Students keep both books to take home for practice.  They read Monday's book again for familiar read (helps with fluency)

Friday- Friday is the day I used to pull small groups that need help with certain skills or had problems during reading group/centers over the week.  Since this was our "Finish Up" day for centers, I could pull who I needed to pull and review as I saw fit. 

I always have my students begin reading as soon as they get to reading group so that I can listen to their fluency and accuracy and make sure they sound like they have read the night before.  I use this time to check that their reading log has been signed by their parents the night before.

Theme

As summer approaches, I begin to think about the theme I will use in my classroom for the next year.  I always of course look at teacher supply stores, other teachers room decor, etc.  But one important thing to remember is that MOST of the room will be covered with Word Wall, Math Wall (We used Number Corner) and multiple anchor charts and student work.  One of the best pieces of advice I ever got was to not over decorate with my own stuff.  As you think about your theme, think about the way you can use the theme in your:

1. Classroom Rules
2. Reading Groups (name your groups after your theme)
3. Table Groups
5. Center Stations
6. Take Home Folder or Binder
7. Behavior and Job Charts, etc.

 I will provide an example of each of these in upcoming posts.

Here is an example of incorporating a Jungle theme into your Classroom Rules:

No Monkey Business

1.             Be Respectful

2.             Be Responsible

3.             Be Safe

When thinking about rules to post in your classroom, remember children can only remember a few things at a time.  I would choose three good rules that cover a lot of ground! Also, keep rules positive and to the point.

On the first day of school, I do an anchor chart with the class where the kids come up with ideas that match the rules and have to tell me what the class should look like and sound like. 

Reason For This Blog

After years of teaching multiple grade levels and experience in a few different districts and school settings, I have a very good friend, Nicole Landry, who inspired me to start a blog helping new teachers to stay organized and try to remember the millions of things that teachers are supposed to remember and complete on a daily basis.  My best advice to her: You NEVER get it all done.  Just when you think you have finally finished for the day, you think of a million more things that could be done.  Throw this in with being a wife, mother, etc, and we are FORCED to remember why this is our passion, not our life.  Try to focus on why you love teaching and what brought you to teaching in the first place.  All the other "stuff" WILL get done!   Through this blog, I will give ideas and organizational tips for the classroom.  I will try to provide examples and lesson ideas.  Mostly, I am doing this because I wish someone had shown me all the things that were involved in running my own classroom!