Around the Classroom

Last year, I posted a million pictures of my new 5th grade classroom. As I got ready to start back this year, I was fortunately in the same classroom. Everything pretty much went right back to where it was before. My room is kind of small, so there's not really many options. This year, I got *REALLY* tired of never having enough room. My students would have to move up for someone to get by, things would have to be moved to fit at the small group table, and it was just CRAZY! I had been wanting to move my small group table in front of my desk for long time, I just wasn't sure I would like it. To be honest, I really don't like my desk facing the wall, but it is definitely growing on me, and not having a whiteboard behind me really bothers me. Fortunately, I have an easel that I can easily wheel over to use if needed.

I wanted to share photos of my new small group area, so I decided that I would share a few pictures of my other favorite places, too! There's really nothing to take away from this post, but I know that I always enjoy checking out other teachers' classrooms!

My super awesome small group caddy that keeps all my pencils, pens, markers, and highlighters!

My teacher desk :) Up against the wall :(

It's the little things...

Can you tell I love pens??? LOL

My homework board :)

My new focus/objective board. I am *SO* in love with this thing :)

My husband built me these wonderful wooden apple bookends. 8 years going strong!

Document Camera Station

My Library
{with lots of new books}

**MORE NEW BOOKS** I Love Them!!!!

I still love my Thirty-One wall organizer!

Teacher Organization!!!

What keeps me sane :)

My kids love book shares. Every week my students sign up to share their current favorite read! This is their most *FAVORITE* time!

My Word Work Supplies

My Evidence Board

I had to add in my Christmas tree :)

My vintage Charlotte's Web novel :)

More Bookshelves & Storage

My reading chair... I spend a lot of time here :)

My Literacy Block Schedule

I get a lot of emails asking about my schedule at school.  Since last year was my first year teaching 5th grade Reading/ELA using a guided group model, I tried a lot of different schedules.  I changed it around quite a bit, but I finally got it down to an art by the end of the school year.  I modeled it after my guided math schedule that I followed when I taught 4th grade math.  Let's get a few things out there... I teach reading, writing, and grammar.  This year, our writing will be incorporated into our reading.  I'll tell you a little more about that later.  My grammar instruction is usually about 30 minutes each day.  I have NOT included it here since it's not really part of my literacy block.  I have about and hour and half for my literacy block each day.

I ALWAYS finish the day with binder work and a read aloud of some sort.  Most of the time, it is a novel that we are reading together.  The binder work is when the students take a few minutes to organize their binder, fill out any necessary forms to be turned in, and finish anything not completed.  I have learned a little through trial and practice and will post a blog post soon where I REVEAL ALL about my literacy binders.... the good, bad, and ugly!


Mondays:
Mondays are one of my two whole group days.  I use this day to distribute my homework for the week, have the kids write the entire week in their agenda, go over my expectations for the homework, introduce our vocabulary/spelling words, have a big whole group lesson for our weekly skills,  and conduct individual reading conferences with students on my conferring list while they read to self for about 25 minutes.  Individual reading conferences is something I want to get better about doing.  I did it last year, but not near as much as I wanted to.  I will also be using some of this time to complete running records on my students.  I purchased the Progress Monitoring packet from Hello Literacy that I plan to use to progress monitor my students.  We use FAST reading and math as a school level, but I am wanting to progress monitor some of my students myself so they can track their progress in their goals section in their literacy binder.

Tuesdays, Wednesdays, & Thursdays:
These three days are spent reviewing our homework from the previous night, having a short 15-25 minute mini-lesson about our weekly skill, and meeting with small groups for three rotations.  What I do in small group really depends on what our skill is for the week.  We may do some reading response, close reading activity, or vocabulary instruction.

During my three rotations, my students are reading to self, word work, work on writing, or reading to someone.  This year, our work on writing will look VERY different.  Writing will now be incorporated into reading.  What does this mean for my classroom?  A lot of their writing will be connected to their reading in some way.  This is new to me, so I'm not sure exactly how this will look.  All I know is that our writing test is now incorporated into our reading test.

Fridays:
Last year, my students completed a weekly assessment that went along with our weekly skill from the week.  I downloaded the reading passages from here {FREE} and created my own questions to go along with them.  A lot of times, I used 3-4 from those already listed, but I added a lot of my own that required the students to go back to the text to support their answer with evidence.  By the end of the school year, this was something my students were experts at.

However, this year is going to be different.  I am still going to assess my students, but I am going to try to vary the way I do it.  One of the #1 feedback comments I received at the end of the year from my students was that they would have liked more projects.  So, I am going to try and incorporate more book reports {in a fun way} and other ways to assess my students.  I'm going to focus on doing more showing rather than telling.  Don't get me wrong, I am still going to assess my students with paper and pencil, but I am going to try and limit it to no more than every OTHER week.  I believe that by the end of the school year, the students became very bored with our weekly assessments (ahhh... shucks!).

BTW- the kiddos commented that their two favorite activities were our Hatchet projects and my text structure unit.  Say what?  Text structure?  I thought that was very interesting!

Hopefully this has helped you see how to incorporate components of the Daily 5 into your intermediate literacy block.  If you have any questions, please leave them in the comments section below.

FREE Curriculum Binder Pages for the 2014-2015 School Year

Hey, ya'll!

I wanted to stop by for a quick minute to let you all know that I've updated my Curriculum Binder file.  This is FREE in my TpT shop.  It is ready to go for the 2014-2015 school year with a zipped file that contains a printable .pdf file and an editable .ppt file.  Directions for adding your own text and what fonts to use can be found in the .ppt file.  If you use this, please let me know and leave feedback in my TpT shop.

There are 11 designs to choose from!

You can find more information on how I use my Curriculum Binder and a video in some of my older posts.

Also, I am in the process of finishing up my chapter 4 post for Falling in Love with Close Reading.  Check back soon!

Enjoy!

Virtual Classroom Library & A Little Bit of Everything Else!

Hey ya'll!  I've been super busy.  Well, I was actually on vacation last week.  It was S.U.P.E.R. cray-cray!  It was like the end of the year then BAM!  Time to leave for vacay.  I only had one day without work before we left out.  I've had so many great things I wanted to share with you.

First of all, All of these word are my words!  I am not being paid by money or products to say anything in this post... keep that in mind :)  Okay, so if you follow me on Instagram {you totally should:}, you have heard me make mention of this great app I discovered.  Well, I discovered it from someone else.  It's called Classroom Organizer.  It does something utterly amazing!  It lets you scan your classroom library books and store them on a database.  It then lets you input the students in your class so they (or you) can login to the app, select the student's name, whether they are checking in or out, and then scan the book.  You can also go in and look at which students haven't returned books, setup reminders to be emailed, and print overdue notices.  How awesome is that?  The best thing is that it's {FREE}!  Here's a screenshot of my work :)

Like all things, I did find a few things that I wish were better.  A major problem for me came up while scanning my books from Scholastic.  I get a ton of my books from here.  For some reason, they have their own ISBN# system that doesn't match up with the real world.  However, there is an actual true barcode in the front cover.  So that was great to learn.  BUT... sometimes... when you buy the books in sets, they will not have any type of barcode any where.  This was very saddening to me :(  So, I had to type the title in manually and when the student check them out/in they will also have to type it in manually.  I started thinking... it would be really great if you could create your own barcodes.  Well... there is an app for that :)  Unfortunately, this app is not free.  It's called Book Retriever.  It's fairly inexpensive at .99 (I think).  Here's the problem I ran into for this... they only have the app live right now.  You can not login via your computer like with the free app.  In order to print the barcodes you would need to print from the iPad.  My iPad isn't set up for that and I'm not sure if it ever will be :(  The company is in the works of developing a website but you must pay for a yearly subscription, and they haven't released how much it will be.  So.. here's my verdict, I will stick with the free one for right now.

I'm not sure if I posted my pics of my EC teacher planner... BUT I was super excited to get it in the mail!

However, I was a little disappointed that there were not more record keeping pages.  I teach several classes and now I think I'm going to have to keep up with a record book too... Boo :(  I do love it!

I also ordered a few May Books when they were having their 50% off Mother's Day Sale. They are so cute!

What cute packaging it came it!

This is so me:)

Here they are!  One is lined and the other is a nutritional tracker.  They are very cute books, but I'm glad I got them while they were on sale.  They are a bit thin to be as expensive as they are.... but totally worth it!

Lastly, here are a few pics of my sweet family from our vacation last week.

Happy Summer, Friends!

Guided Math: Chapter 1

Okay... I'll admit that I am behind the times with the Guided Math book study.  It seems like every time I turn around it's a new chapter.  Well, I'm determined to post on each chapter since I use this model in my math classroom every day.  I also have tons of information on my blog under my Guided Math Tab.  I will also be linking these posts up there as well.  Okay... on to the book study!

Chapter 1
This chapter really lays the foundation of why guided math is so important in mathematics instruction.  Guided reading seems to be such a natural method of teaching reading instruction.  However, guided math is a new concept to many.  It truly takes all the components of effective math instruction and brings it all together into an instructional model that provides conceptual understanding and rigor to math concepts.

The last part of chapter 1 discusses the daily components of guided math.  You can find more information about my daily/weekly schedule here.  I did want to briefly share a visual representation similar to the one on pg. 30.  This is my weekly schedule at a glance. {PLEASE CLICK ON THE PICTURE FOR THE PDF FILE}

I only use all the components of guided math on Tuesdays - Thursdays.  On these days, my instruction usually consists of HW reviewing, mini-lesson with activating strategy, math workshop, summarizing strategy, and math journaling.  Mondays and Fridays are the days set aside for whole class instruction, calendar review, distributing HW for the week, Exemplars, and assessments.  This seems to work well for me, and I love how I have two days set aside a week to complete whole group activities and instruction.  I will be posting chapter 2 soon so stay tuned!  I have to play catch up... we are on chapter 5 right now.  Maybe one a day?  If I'm lucky... lol

Updates, Curriculum Binder, & Vocabulary Walls

To say that I have been 'out of the loop' of blogging is an understatement.  So, what have I been doing??  Well, my wonderful husband gave me a 4-hour gift certificate for here...  {ah-hum.. that's Urban Sanctuary Spa in Athens, GA in the Boulevard Historic District}.

This isn't the best picture... I was too relaxed to really take any!

It was my graduation/mother's day present.  It sure made all those hours I spent on my Ed.S. degree worth it!  I chose to be 'Queen for a Day' and it was W.O.N.D.E.R.F.U.L.!  I got a full body massage, a body scrub, a facial, a scalp massage, lunch, and a pedicure/foot massage.  Ahhhhh... I didn't want to leave!

I have also been here....

My two year old insists on going swimming every day.... FINE.WITH.ME!

I have also been super busy working on math vocabulary wall sets like a crazy woman.  I've had the sweetest teacher buds asking for their specific grade level, and I'm just too sweet to say no.  With that said, I wanted to share the ones I have available so far.  I DO NOT have K or 2nd grade and I really do not know when I will have these.  I love making these things, but there comes a time when you have to say no.  I want to enjoy my time with my sweet boys because I only have a month left of summer.  WHAT???  That's just crazy to me.  These are all available in my TpT store along with coordinating 'I Can' statements {I do not have 5th grade 'I Cans' right now... I will have them before August.. hopefully}!  You can click each picture to go to my store.  Wait.... THERE IS MORE.... A FREEBIE FOR YOU!

 

CURRICULUM BINDER

Do you have/use a curriculum binder?  I started using one last year, but it didn't work for me because I didn't take the time to organize it and get it the way I wanted it.  This year, I am determined to make it work because it is such a useful tool.  I already have a school-wide assessment binder that I use for my data team meetings.  My data team binder can get pretty thick towards the end of the school year.  I want a separate binder where I will store my everyday things like lesson plans, standards, etc..  

So... what will I use this binder for?  I plan on using my curriculum binder EVERY DAY! This will be my go-to place for standards, lesson plans, weekly & benchmark assessment results, guided math plans, etc.  Anything I need for planning will be in my binder.  During my Ed.S. program at The University of Georgia, I read A LOT about taking the time to plan your differentiated lessons.  When differentiating the RIGHT way, it SHOULD take anywhere from 45 minutes-1 hour to truly differentiate a weeks worth of plans.  Since I only teach math, I have an advantage.  This is something I REALLY want to work on this year.  I believe that having this binder will aid in my development of this.  I also plan to look at each and every assessment closely and closely monitor EACH child's progress on pre/post tests.  

I am starting to get things together, and I wanted to share a few things about it.  First of all, I bought a heavy duty 2" binder from Office Max.  

I am picky about my binders, the rings had to be flat on one side so it would close without me having to adjust my papers.  I also like the one touch open/close clasp.  

I also like the tiered pockets on the sides... I don't really have a reason for this.. lol!  

I would show the rest of my binder, but I don't have it completely ready yet.  I do want to share the sections I plan on organizing.  I created some cutesy title pages that I will put in page protectors and place behind each divider tab.  I bought the divider tabs you can write/erase.  Even though I use a sharpie to write on them with, I have found that you can use a magic eraser if you ever need to change them. 

It's obvious here that I have A LOT of work to do!  I used post-its to jot down ideas of tabs as I went through my pages.

So... here is what I have so far.  The sections I plan on including (and have included here in this link for you to have... for FREE) are

o lesson plans 

o curriculum map

o pacing guide

o common core standards

o georgia performance standards (I did not include this one since it is state specific...    we still have to teach the GP standards this year ALONG with the CC)

o standard examples

o grade level alignment (vertical alignment)

o teaching vocabulary

o birthdays

o parent contacts

o notes

o classroom records

o book issue list

o weekly assessments: pre/post

o benchmark assessments: pre/post

Previously, I posted a freebie that included a birthday, parent contact, notes, classroom records, and book issue list that you can use in your binder.  Once I get my binder complete, I plan on posting again with a detailed look inside as well as any additions I may have added, and MORE FREE FORMS.

Again, don't forget your TITLE PAGES and your CURRICULUM BINDER FORMS.  

So, now I have a question for you.  What are some other things you include in your binder if you have something similar?

One last thing... I also need to include my guided math plans.  I have created a lesson plan template just for guided math because it deserves so much more than just a small box.  That's another thing... small boxes make you feel that your plans need to fit inside that small box.  Well, I just don't think that is enough room!  You can get the guided math template by clicking the picture below.  You will be directed to my post where I talk about it more.

Whew!  That was a long post!  Don't forget to leave any additions below!  I look forward to hearing from you.