Sneaker Teacher

classroom ideas you have to see!

Check out this article that shows some great classroom organization ideas!

My favorites are pictured here:

Check out the link and tell me which ones are your favorite!

Throwback Thursday

I am loving the idea of Throwback Thursday that I've seen on facebook, Instagram, and some blogs. So instead of writing something new today, I picked a post from the summer before my first year of Kindergarten. I had just decided to go with a beach theme in my classroom and shared some of my ideas for decorating.

Originally posted August 12, 2010

Which Way to the Beach?

Not only do I wish I were at the beach today because it is gray and rainy out in Germany, but I finally decided what my classroom theme will be and the winner is....BEACH THEME! As I mentioned in yesterday's post, I spent a LOT of time yesterday on the internet looking for ideas and making lists of what I need to buy/print/organize/put together next week. I only have three days left in Germany, can you believe that?! I am so ready to hit the ground running and hopefully jet lag will not interfere. Last time I flew to Cali I was totally fine, it was just the return that killed me for about two weeks.

Back to the beach, I have been trying to decide on a classroom theme for awhile now and I started looking in the direction of the zoo which intermingled a lot with wild animal and safari themes. As I was looking, I came across some really cute decorations that sparked my interest in a beach theme. I did some shopping at Oriental Trading since they have fun, cute decorations that are pretty reasonably priced and I found some good stuff.

I am picturing the balloon lanterns hanging above the tables because I like to assign each table group a color and I already have rainbow colored material bins, so I typically use rainbow colors anyway. I am not sure if the janitor will allow that, but I am going to try! I think the beach ball string lights will go along the top of the whiteboard, but I don't think I will actually use them as lights, just decoration. I will find a place for the big sun, probably in the area where I do whole group lessons. I was thinking of incorporating some ocean/fish stuff as well to go with the beach theme (maybe for attendance and/or bulletin boards). I have to see what materials I find at the teacher store when I get back. I also want to use buckets for supplies like in the picture above, but I will get more beachy buckets instead of metal ones.

That's cute!

It could be cute to use something like this Popsicle for attendance. I usually have laminated names with magnets on the back so the kids can move their names to sign up for their lunch choices. My Kinders won't have lunch at school, but I do want them to be in charge of "signing in" daily when they arrive. If the popsicles were on magnets they could move their pops to indicate they are present. I need to do more thinking on that...still not sure where I want to go with it.

The ideas are still coming together, but I am glad that I at least have some semblance of a plan. Also, the bee folders actually still coordinate quite well because there are always bees as the beach! I am excited to get working on arranging and planning out my room. I know I will need restraint to not start decorating right away, but I need to be a planner first once I see the room and think through everything before I start moving stuff. I will definitely post pictures of the room and the progress once I get started! If you have any ideas or have done the beach thing before...I am all ears!!

Life's a Beach!

Revisiting Star of the Week

Yesterday I spent some time working on my plan for how I want to do star of the week this year. Last year we decided to have a star and a co-star and go through the rotation twice so that each kiddo got to be the star and co-star once during the year. One of our star responsibilities was to bring a family photo for our family tree, so we wanted to make sure we'd have all the photos up by mid-year instead of some kids having to wait until almost the end of the year. Although star/co-star worked out reasonably well, I once again want to change it up and try something new this year. I'm going to ask all families to send in a family photo at the beginning of the year so that even before we start up our star of the week rotation, I can have all the photos on the family tree.

Some of the activities I removed from star of the week are:

star of the week snack that correlates with the letter of the week

bringing in items that start with the letter of the week

an open ended family project

family photo

I decided to ask parents to send in bulk snacks so that I can plan more easily and so that I can kindly request healthy snacks. I always felt horrible when a parent had to buy an entire extra package of something in order to accomodate the number of students, particularly when that last student was absent and an entire package went unopened. So, having non-perishable snacks on hand just cuts down on the waste or the food that gets returned to families.

I am not really correlating star of the week with our letter of the week because it always sucks for the kids who get X or W and I want star of the week to really be all about the kids and getting to know them. We can reinforce academic skills at other times.

I downloaded this star of the week package from TPT and it's free, which was awesome. I'm not going to use it as is, but it gave me some great ideas and inspiration.

This packet includes a letter template so that all of the students can fill in a sentence and draw a picture about what makes the star special. Particularly at the beginning of Kinder, the writing skills just aren't ready for that kind of task, so I spent some time yesterday altering the template. I am going to send a blank template home asking parents to write about what makes their child special and I will write a letter as well. I think the kiddos will really enjoy hearing those letters. I plan to save them for their Kindergarten memory books. Making those adjustments really just involved changing the closing to "love," on the parent letter and to "your teacher," on the teacher letter. Easy peasy.

Then I redid the letter explaining the star of the week tasks since mine are different than the original. I loved the border and the font of the original, so I did an internet search for CK Handprint and was able to download the font. It's really cute. Then I put a text box over the original letter and typed my own.

You can download my letters here. I hope I am not infringing on anything by borrowing the border from the original creator, but her work was free and I'm not selling mine, so I think that's okay. And I'm linking back to her so you should all go check out her stuff on TPT!

Star of the Week Letter-Teacher

Star of the Week Letter-Parent

Star of the Week Description Letter

I've already sent these off to the print shop so all the copies will be ready for me when I go back. Now I need to translate them into Spanish (or attempt to) and find someone who can proofread them to make sure there aren't any errors. I hate sending papers home in Spanish if I'm not certain they are perfect and google translate just doesn't cut it.

I am hopeful that the changes I've made make star of the week even more special for the kiddos and make it more about them than it has been in the past.

Are you working on school stuff or savoring summer break?

Hanging with ODE

Yesterday I drove almost an hour and a half to be a guest at an instructional materials review for English Language Arts. I was pretty nervous about going because I really didn't know what it would be like and I didn't know any of the participants besides the man who invited me. It turned out to be really interesting. I wish I could have stayed longer, but I forgot my wallet, so I didn't have any money to buy lunch and knew it wouldn't be pretty to be driving home later in traffic while also starving. Have you ever heard the word hangry (hungry + angry = hangry)? That definitely would have been me.

Since I was only participating yesterday, I didn't get to see any of the publisher presentations or the actual review process because those are taking place today through Saturday. I would have loved to do that, but the individuals involved in the reviewing process were recruited last year and went through an intense process to apply and get selected. I was invited to attend as a guest by a man who also just completed his doctorate at PSU who is an education specialist for the Oregon Department of Education. When I got there he asked me to give him feedback on the process so they can continue to improve how they go about reviewing curricula in the state of OR.

The basic gist is that publishing companies present to this group of evaluators. The evaluators score the programs based on a set of criteria that has been established by ODE. The programs that meet a certain criteria are then put on a list of recommended instructional materials that address the CCSS.

During the morning while I was there, directions for the day were given and an ELA specialist from ODE gave a presentation about CCSS and how they impact ELA. There are 6 "shifts" that are taking place:

Increase reading of informational text
text complexity
academic vocabulary
text-based answers
increase writing from sources
literacy instruction in all content areas

All else aside, listening to the presentation was really interesting in terms of my own teaching. I wasn't there "to learn" but I was really thinking about my own instruction and am really glad I was able to attend.

I think the greatest nugget of the day was a statement that really gave me a new perspective on my own research. I have always believed in the importance of helping kids connect what we read with their own lives in order to ensure that everyone has a chance to understand the content. Yet, when the presenter was talking about asking text-based questions, she said, "departing from the text privileges only those that have experience with the topic." That statement really made me think. I don't agree with throwing out questions that ask students to relate the text to themselves, yet CCSS is really pushing to focus on information in the text and to ask questions that require students to actually read and understand the text in order to answer them. The CCSS really emphasizes that students can negotiate the content and think and respond in ways that are not canned. So, staying within the text doesn't mean asking simple recall questions, it means using the information in the text to think, process, and understand at a higher level. And, if we stay within the text, we are ensuring a shared understanding because we are discussing only what we have read together.

Good stuff. Still have to process it a bit.

Have you been using the CCSS to teach ELA?

What do you think about text-based comprehension questions?

Tomorrow

Tomorrow I am attending a CCSS Instructional Materials Evaluation session for English Language Arts through the Oregon Department of Education. I was invited to attend as a guest by a fellow doctoral candidate after he saw my presentation about my dissertation research at our PSU student research symposium. I'm not exactly sure what is going to take place, but I am excited to be a part of it--or at least to be able to watch it take place.

What I think is going to take place is that we/they will be looking at instructional materials for grades K-8 in order to evaluate how well each program covers the CCSS. I was invited to observe and listen to the discussion in order to provide feedback about the cultural responsiveness of the materials since my dissertation research was on the interplay between scripted curricula and culturally responsive instruction.

I'm kind of nervous because I really don't know anyone that is going. I have only met the guy who invited me once and I honestly don't even know if I will recognize him. I am also super excited because I have done a ton of work and research in the past 4 years and I would love an opportunity to do something with it. I truly feel like I have good ideas and the department of education certainly seems like a good audience to share them with. Hopefully I can do more than just watch, but like I said, I really have no idea what to expect.

Now I have to decide what to wear...

Are you a leader or a follower when it comes to your teaching?

Summer Reads

Yesterday I mentioned this post about 14 Books to Read Before They Hit the Big Screen.

I personally feel like books are always better than their movie counterparts, so I am totally on board to read these before I see any of the movies. I can cross off about half of these books because they just don't seem interesting to me. They're probably great, but after reading the story descriptions I am out. I have become very averse to movies that are violent. That's a whole other blog post, but I'll just say I do not think watching gun violence of mass chaos is entertaining. It just hits too close to some of the tragedies our country has experienced this past year. I don't do zombies or ghosts either. Or Sci-Fi. Yet, Mr. Sneaker drags me to a lot of movies that I wouldn't choose and sometimes I like them.

Anyway...

There are a few I have already read.

The Book Thief was SO good. It was pretty long, but I couldn't put it down. I am very curious how the movie will come out.

I really enjoyed Gone Girl as well. Definitely a page turner because it's suspenseful!

Reconstructing Amelia was good too. Another book where the story unfolds as you read and you really anticipate finding out what happens.

The ones I want to read from this list are

I already started The Fault In Our Starts. It's about a young girl who has Cancer who falls in love. So far so good, but I'm not that far along yet.

Divergent is the first in a series of three that is compared to The Hunger Games, which I loved. The third book comes out in October. I've heard from many friends that it's good, so I am excited to give it a try. I always love a good series because there's nothing like knowing that you get more of the characters when you finish.

The Spectacular Now is a love story. It is described as a page turner, so it sounds promising.

When I'm really into a book I typically finish in only a few days. I'm not really good with my reading comprehension in terms of remembering the details of books once I've finished them, but I'm not getting graded, so I'm just in it for the enjoyment factor while I'm reading. I'm so glad I finally have several books on my list to read. I have already downloaded them on my Kindle so they are reading and waiting.

Kelly turned me onto Good Reads, so I've been trying to keep track of what I've read, what I'm currently reading, and what I want to read. It's fun to keep a list and connect with other people for book recommendations and reviews.