First Week of School Over!

     I just finished my first week (three days) of school.  I can tell this year will be one of professional growth already. 
     I noticed a big difference in the students as I moved down to fourth grade from fifth grade.  The students organizational abilities need a lot of development. They don't clean off their desktops at the end of each academic period.  They don't push in their chairs when they leave their seat.  They have never used Agendas before and they write very slowly. 
     I have a special education aide in my room most of the day whom I have never worked with before.  This means I have one more person that I have to introduce to my classroom routines.  I also have a high percentage of special needs students in my room, including one student with a behavior disorder.  This student started having difficulties the first day of school.  By day 2 I had to have him take an extended time-out in our behavior room.  I am already networking with our resource people for behavior.  Day #3 was better, but I had to stay glued to his side.  I know other students are suffering because they can't work independently for more than five minutes yet and don't know classroom routines.  I will definitely learn some patience this year!
     When I reflect on this first week, I am also thinking about the tremendous growth I experienced as a looping teacher for the past two years.  Although I do not know whether my new principal will allow looping next year, I do know that these students will improve by leaps and bounds this year.  Whether I get to stay with them for one year or two, I know they will make progress like my students do every year.

Displays 2013-2014: Everything Else

Whew,  I'm finally done setting up my classroom.  It always seems like I need more time than I get.  In the middle of this set-up week, a team-mate had her baby early (so we had to visit her, of course and help her long-term sub adjust) and our new Spelling/Vocabulary series arrived (time out to stamp it and deliver it to all the team).  But, all-in-all, I'm ready enough.

This bulletin board idea came from Teachers Pay Teachers.  Right now the pictures are just "place holders".  I'm going to have the kids design their own iPads with a "playlist" of books they have read or want to read.



 "How Much Signal Strength is Your Brain Using Today?" is from literacy specialist Jenn Jones of Hello Literacy. It's a kid-friendly version of Bloom's taxonomy.   This is on our big "team" bulletin board across from the bathrooms/Library.

 These balloons are from Really Good Stuff.  My students decorated them on Step Up Day in the spring.  I think it will be great for them to see something they created on the first day of school.

 These are a couple views of my classroom library.  As a mother of four and the daughter and daughter-in-law of teachers, I am lucky to have an extensive classroom library of about 3,000 titles.  I am also lucky to have a crafty husband to build all these shelves. 



Displays 2013-2014: Reading

I'm nearly done with the displays for my classroom.  Today I laminated a lot of instructional materials.  Hopefully the printers will be hooked up to the wireless internet by tomorrow so I can print all the stuff I bought at the TpT Back to School sale.
I have some new displays for Reading and some old favorites.  Of course, I had to start with the CAFE Menu with new polka dot border and matching header.  I love the magnetic paw prints that hold the border in place.

Opposite the CAFE Menu is my primary teaching area.  I have the easel to work with the whole class on the carpet.  I can easily transition to small groups with the table right next to me.

Last year I moved away from a Math CAFE Menu and found that I really missed it.  So this year it is back.  The hardest part was dealing with the big bulletin board in the middle of the wall.  I'm still not 100% sure that I like the way it is now with fact fluency being the center of attention.  I'll have to see how it works as the year goes on.
 

This new bulletin board will support my new school year resolution to emphasize vocabulary instruction more.  Right now it's just blank with the heading "Word Nerds".  Next to the bulletin board is a list of the CCSS vocabulary standards.

The Theme Board is not new to my classroom.  The idea comes from master teacher Beth Newingham.  I use the stories that we read as a class that are part of my basal series.  After we finish a story, we debate and then vote on the theme. We put a picture of the cover of the story under the theme we decide.   The first few times it is very challenging for students to do this.  As the year progresses they get better and better.

 

This year I added "Got Character?".  The plan is to start by labeling the emotions with different synonyms to expand the students vocabulary for describing characteristics.  Then I'm going to do something very similar to the Theme Board where we will post the name of the character beside the characteristic. 

The last change was the Super Improvers Wall (see www.wholebrainteaching.com).  Previously the colored card system for misbehavior and the reward system of drawing stars in index cards were in two separate locations.  To make room for other interactive displays, I needed to combine the two systems.  For more information on each system, please download Chris Biffle's free ebook or watch his inspiring videos.  

 

One last tip/trick:  I don't know about you, but I just can't seem to get stickers to stick on my cubbies.  They have so much sticker residue built up over the years it's just not working.  My cheap trick is to cover the sticker with clear packing tape.

 

I turn down one top corner to make the tape easier to remove at the end of the year.  Voila!













Displays for 2013-2014: Part 1 Writing

This week we had two days of teacher workshops, so I was able to get back into my room and do a little setting up.  I have been focusing on setting up for Writing instruction.  Here are the latest pics:

My "Writer's Block" starts out very simply.  I have the six traits and the title "Writer's Block".  Over the first weeks of instruction the traits will be moved to the side of the bulletin board as the actual board is filled with posters that we co-create as part of the lessons.

This is the example of one smaller poster.  The words on the poster match the assessment rubric exactly, so that students can get used to the language of the rubric.  On the first day students decorate the cover of their notebook on the inside front cover write their three goals for the year.

Above the Writer's Block is a graphic with the levels of proficiency I use in my classroom:  substantially below proficient, partially proficient, proficient, and distinctive.  These are the same designations used by my state.

These are my completed editor name badges (see this post) with my shape-coded levels.  There are a couple of students without shapes because they are new to our district.  I will do a writing benchmark on them in the first week to get their current level of functioning and complete their name badge.

This is an expanded view to show how the name badges double as an attendance board.

Testing: When Life Gives You Lemons, Make Lemonade

As teachers in the US are returning to school, many are beginning to moan and groan about the overwhelming tide of testing that has engulfed the US educational system.  Assessments seem incapable of surviving alone.  Within a year, they reproduce like rabbits. Because, of course, you need a test to see if your kids are ready for the BIG TEST.  And if one of those tests a year is good, then one per term is even better for progress monitoring.  And that test doesn't test everything, so you need to sprinkle in a few others for good measure.  Then, of course, the next grade level wants a different assessment from the ones you use, so...  You get the idea.
     Like it or not, I don't think this frequency of assessment is going away any time soon.  It is too convenient a measuring stick for districts, principals, and teachers.  And that, my friends is the real wave of the future.  In some states, the bottom performing 10% of the teachers in a school must be fired.  In my school, assessment data is used to create yearly goals that count as a percentage of our annual performance review.  Right now that percentage is small.  But it is bound to rise in the coming years.
     So, when life gives you lemons, make lemonade!  That's right!  When your students are required to take yet another test, make it worth it... for both them and you.
Making tests worthwhile to you:
1.  Learn as much as you can from the assessment data.  If you don't know how to read the assessment data (few of us learned to do this in college), ask your school "data guru".  Every school has at least one.
2.  Use what you know about your students and how you taught them to interpret the results.  Many people rely on others to "read" their data for them, but even the wisest data guru is limited because they don't know your kids and how you taught them.  Leave the data gurus to look at the big picture- trends across the grade and grade levels. Only you know whether a weakness the test reveals is because you haven't taught it yet or you did teach it, but your students didn't master it.   For example, last year my principal remarked that my Math class was the weakest in the grade level on data, statistics, and probability.  Since I had already looked at my own data, I agreed.  Then I showed her the results for my class at the beginning of the year.  Every child's weakest area was number sense and operations.  Since number sense and operations are the foundation of Math, I decided to focus my teaching in this area throughout the year.  Yes, because of this focus, something had to give.  But, by the end of the year, not a single child had number sense and operations as their lowest area.  And the class overall had the third highest level of overall growth in test scores.
3.  Know your test data well.  Like it or not, your tests scores will be used to assess your teaching ability and compare you to others. Suck it up and be proactive.  Be honest about what your data says.  Even it's not complemenary, be prepared to say how you will use the data.  And find the nugget of wonderfulness in your data, even if it is just one child.
3.  Use your assessment data and, when you do, tell your students that you are doing it.  Something along the lines of:  "Your recent ______________ test showed that ______________.  So today we are going to _________ ."
Making test worthwhile to them:
1.  Given them information about how they performed last time on the same assessment and what their goal is for this one.  A bit of specific advice never hurts.
2.  Give students feedback on their performance as soon as possible.  Next generation assessments can do this immediately, but don't just be content with a score.  Again, here is where your interpretation will be vital.  Put it in kid-friendly language.  Try to come up with at least one positive comment, such as how hard they worked or how long their written answers were.
     I  assure you that when you follow these words of advice, your students will do their best on the test.  They will become hungry for your feedback.