Good Reads

I just got my copy in the mail! 

Super excited for Mr. Halpern and the publication of his first book! 

Yes, I said first book. I have high expectations for you, buddy!

And, I would love to follow in Mr. Halpern's footsteps because I've always wanted to write a book!

Can't wait to get in bed with this gem tonight! I have a feeling I will probably read the whole thing in one sitting...unless I fall asleep, which has everything to do with my mommyhood/kindergarten teacher exhaustion and nothing to do with the book content because I'm sure it's hilarious. 

Go get yourself a copy! 

Bazinga!

Catching Up

Entering the fourth week of school, I finally felt prepared. The first few weeks are so hard because I always feel like I am doing everything in my power just to stay afloat. I only plan for one day at a time because we usually end up not getting through everything and I bump activities from one day to the next. I think I have finally settled into the year, I've gotten used to being back at work and doing the work/mom balance, and I've finally got a little rhythm going.

What's going great so far this year...

• So far I have 20 students. That number is amazing compared to last year and I really hope it sticks. 

• Whole Brain Teaching. It's amazing. I worried that I would forget to use it or I wouldn't do it correctly, but it's super easy and very effective. I wish I had tried it out sooner. 

• Brain Breaks! I am using gonoodle.com for brain breaks on a daily basis and the kiddos love it. I am also incorporating a lot of movement and songs into my instruction and that just makes the day fun.

• Daily play time. Yes, I brought it back and I am so glad. The kids LOVE to have play time and it is amazing to have 15 minutes of time to just watch them in action. It's really fun to see what skills they demonstrate through play. Also, play time is really helpful with accountability for behavior. If students don't work during work time or don't follow directions, we use some of play time to practice those behaviors correctly. I only keep them out for part of play time though, because I am just really firm this year that they need to play and that play is the right thing to do. 

• My idea for a revamped math plan that better aligns with CCSS was actually used by the district in the creation of our new pacing guide (woot woot!). I am feeling really good about teaching math in units instead of spiraling lessons that touch on something new everyday. 

And, now, for my awesome news...

After working very hard on some writing this summer while having a newborn and a toddler at home, I found out recently that an article I wrote was accepted for publication in The Reading Teacher journal. I am beyond excited because when I did my dissertation research, I really wanted to make my work pubic in a journal that was focused on reading instruction, not just focused on multicultural education. My article talks about using culturally responsive practices within the context of implementing a core reading program. I'm not sure when it will be published, but I am SO excited. I set my sights on The Reading Teacher as my journal of choice and even with a 15% acceptance rate, my work was selected. Can I get a mighty OH YEAH!?

And, my colleague and I have been accepted to present about our work with iPads at the Southern California Kindergarten Conference in February! We are pumped! Double OH YEAH!!

First Day-The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

Oh the first day of school. 

Is it okay to say I'm glad it's over?! 

I am always so stressed out by the thought of a room full of 5 year olds that I don't know yet, but it turned out to be a pretty good day. 

The GOOD

I rolled out some Whole Brain Teaching and I thought it worked pretty well. I saw smiles and heard some giggles. I introduced Class, Yes and the rules. I'm not totally convinced that Class, Yes is the ONLY attention getter I will need. I typically use a bell as the quiet signal and I was hoping to just replace the bell with Class, Yes, but I think that at certain times I will need something else. I noticed that when I wanted attention after playtime, I had a few stragglers who were not on board with the Class, Yes.  

I decided to only use three of the five rules because I don't expect Kindergartners to always raise their hand when they want to speak and to always raise their hand when they want to leave their seat. Those rules may work for some, but I wasn't a fan. So, My three rules are:

Follow Directions Quickly

Make Smart Choices

and

Keep Your Dear Teacher Happy.

I think that about covers it. 

Tomorrow I plan to roll out the Mighty Oh Yeah and the Mighty Groan in conjunction with the Have You Filled a Bucket book. I am not using the scoreboard because I plan to incorporate the Mighty Oh Yeah and Might Groan with my class buckets. When the kiddos earn pom poms, we'll do a Mighty Oh Yeah and when they lose pom poms, we'll do a Mighty Groan. 

I tried glue sponges this year and the kiddos used them for a Kissing Hand project. Success! Not messy, not difficult to use, and easy to put away. Love it! 

I have 19 kiddos (so far) this year. That number is SO refreshing compared to the 28 I had last year. I really hope our numbers stay that small because it just works SO much better. 

I gave the kiddos about 15 minutes to play today using pattern blocks. It was SO fun to see what they made and to listen to their descriptions. I am ADAMANT that I NEED to incorporate play on a daily basis this year. Being the mom of a toddler has readjusted my mindset about Kindergarten and it's fueling my desire to shake things up a bit in the classroom and make things more developmentally appropriate. 

I gave out a little "getting to know your child" sheet at our supply drop and got 10 back today. I love the information I got about my students and am really glad I used those inventories this year. 

The BAD

I did not take any photos. Now that I am writing about our day, I wish I had some photos to share. 

3 kiddos did not come to school today. Since we are doing so much with expectations, routines etc, I hate it when kiddos join late. 

One of our buses was THIRTY minutes late. That was not fun particularly because I need to take a little time to pump during my school day and since I do not want to take a break during student contact time, I hold off until the kiddos leave. I am already going a long time just waiting until 10:40, yet I had to go an additional 40 minutes. 

The UGLY

Nothing was really that bad, but my little Sneakers gave me a rough night last night. Baby Sneaker who typically goes down at 8:30 was not asleep until 12:30, then Little Sneaker woke up at 4, then Baby Sneaker woke up at 4:45 to eat. My alarm went off at 5:30 and I have been going since...Not the best night of sleep leading up to the first day! 

How was your first day? 

She Works Hard For The Money

After dropping the girls at daycare, I headed over to my classroom and spent 4 glorious hours organizing, cleaning, arranging, and prepping. I started to feel a HUGE sense of urgency given that inservice starts on Monday and we have families coming for a meet and greet on Wednesday evening. Because I am half time, I need to participate in whatever is going on from 8-12 and often we have a training or meeting in the morning followed by time to work in our classrooms in the afternoon. I need to leave at noon to pick up the girls, so if I have obligations in the morning that leaves me NO time to be in my room getting it ready. I feel like I got a ton accomplished today and I would no longer be embarrassed to have families enter my classroom in it's current condition. Yes, I still have more to do, but at least there are no longer boxes and clutter all over every surface. 

Mr. Sneaker found me three more of the plastic magazine bins at Target and I borrowed some of the ones that are supposed to be the kids' work boxes just so that I could have all the majority of my books put away. Wouldn't it be great if I only needed 18 work boxes (meaning I only get 18 kids in my class!?) Let's cross our fingers for that! I figure for any additional kiddos I get beyond 18, I will just borrow back the buckets and put my books somewhere else. I still have three categories of books that are currently homeless, but I can always put those away. 

The shelf to the right is meant to be the shelf that kids can access to find books for their book bins (and I may have decided to just use their work buckets as their book bins instead of having an additional bin just for their books). I am thinking that I will make some sort of curtain to hang over the top two shelves because I don't want the kiddos to be overwhelmed with too many choices. As they learn to appropriately care for books I can always give them access to more. And having a curtain is a good idea in any event because we all know that you need to put all of our teachery stuff on lockdown when kids and families come in for a meet and greet so that the almost kinders and their siblings do not proceed to take things out in order to play on the carpet. I so much enjoy setting up the room, but I have learned not to have too much out because inevitably it gets touched, moved, or messed with and 

I. Hate. That. 

The blue baskets on top contain books that I use for read alouds, books I use for teaching expectations at the beginning of the year, and my multicultural books. I don't plan to give kiddos access to those for reading independently. The two large bins on the bottom shelf are easy readers and sight word books. The bins on the top two shelves are all of my themed books. I may or may not let kids read those independently, but in any event those will be used for specific instructional purposes rather than out all the time. 

A good chunk of time today was spent creating my reading wall and putting up the letters. That really is not a job meant for one person to tackle on their own, but I went for it because I needed it to be done. My whiteboard just got installed today and since I requested to have it moved to the left a bit, there is now a huge discolored section to the right of it. I was told that will be fixed next week, so I am going to hold off on covering/decorating that wall until next week. Since I moved the iPad cart to the right of the board, I think I will post the iPad rules right above the cart. Then the rest of that wall is dedicated to the reading focus wall and my pocket chart where I display the letter of the week. 

I am not someone who needs everything to be super perfect, I am more of a this works and I have a lot to do so it's good enough for me kind of person. I really don't like how the paper isn't nice and smooth against the wall, but there were screws poking out of the wall, but not screws that could be removed, so I just covered them. 

It's good enough. 

Our sight words will be added on the green paper underneath the letters. I am not quite sure what I am going to put on the blue paper yet. 

I took a few panoramic shots to get a view of the whole room. 

I feel much better about approaching next week with a room that is at least decent. 

I am hoping I get a class list on Monday.

I am also hoping that I do not have 28 students like last year. 

Have you already started school? How is it going?

If not, are you ready?

Little by Little

Today was my girls' first day at their new daycare and I am happy to report that it went well for both of them. Of course I was concerned that Little Sneaker would cry or look at me and say "Mama, don't leave" like she often does at bedtime when I am making my way toward the door. She happily joined the group and began coloring, so Mr. Sneaker and I just snuck away quietly. When I picked her up, the other kiddies were laying down to begin nap time and she was playing with moon dough or something like that at one of the tables. Her teacher took to her wash her hands and then she sat back down at the table. I told her it was time to go and she said "I don't want to go.  I am doing dis" and pointed to her moon dough. Baby Sneaker was asleep when I went to the infant room and she was being held in the rocking chair. She stayed asleep when I put her in her carseat and stayed asleep when I took her out of the carseat and put her in her crib once we got home. Right now they are both asleep upstairs. I would say that was a successful first day. 

While the girls were at daycare, I headed over to my school to commence child free working. On the one hand, I feel like I got a lot done. On the other hand, I feel like there is an infinite amount of work to do and I will never be done. 

::sigh::

Here is what I worked on today...

Before

In progress

Complete

This math wall will be switched out for each new topic I cover. At the beginning of the year I do a unit on counting and cardinality and cover the numbers 1-10. Then I do geometry (2D & 3D shapes), followed by numbers and operations in base ten (teen numbers), then data & measurement, then finally operations & algebraic thinking (addition & subtraction). I have various TPT visuals that I have purchased for the purpose of displaying our current topic on this very math wall. 

Now let's zoom in on what's here...

Number Strategy Posters

Common Core Standards with Content & Language Objectives. Last year I just posted the CO & LO for that particular day, but I thought I might switch it up a bit this year and post all of the standards that relate to the current topic. Then each day, I will post the specific standard we are addressing in the lesson on the white pages. I like the idea of posting all of them because often we are working on several standards at once (i.e. counting, determining the total, writing the number to represent the total etc). I used push pins on everything so I can easily move the cards around. 

Math Expressions 120 chart. 

Math Expressions Number Parade 

with Math Posters 1-10 {ways to show numbers}

I actually decided that I want to swap out the 1-10 posters for something different. I think they have a bit too much going on and I'd like something simpler. That's the beauty of using push pins. Changing my mind is really easy. 

 After I finished my math wall, I tackled my classroom library. 

This photo gives me heart palpitations. What a mess!

I decided that I really prefer the Target plastic magazine bins to the Dollar Tree baskets. The Dollar Tree baskets, although $2 cheaper each, are too wide. In some categories I don't have that many books and those baskets take up a lot of shelf space. The problem with the Target bins is that Target is not carrying that many. I came across only a few this summer, but I didn't get them because I didn't think I would need any more. { #sneakerteacherfail}. Many of my Target bins got broken last year or in the moving process, so I used the broken ones to house books that won't be part of the classroom library that the kiddos access or book categories that I won't put out right away like holidays and some of my non-fiction topics. Since the bins already had velcro on them from last year because I use those bins for my students' work buckets, I just put the reverse side of the velcro on the back of the laminated book bin labels and voila! I think they look great. Now, I can easily access books on whatever topic I need. Ideally I want about 10 more of the Target bins because I have several more categories of books that are still out on tables and on the floor. Hopefully I will be able to track some down! The books pictured below are on a high shelf so my plan is that I will be the only one who can access those unless I take a bin down to allow the kiddos to pull from it. I was part getting my library organized and part just getting my books reorganized because they got all mixed up in the move. 

I ran out of Dollar Tree bins, but I got baskets done for many favorite characters. I am still trying to figure out exactly how I want to roll out my Read to Self routine. I know I don't want my kiddos having access to all my books because I like to reserve some just for read alouds. The books that I put in the baskets are ones that are already pretty worn and aren't as special to me. I don't want this library to turn into a huge mess that I have to clean up everyday, so the rollout will be slow. I also need to print the sticker labels that match the basket labels to help the kiddos know where to return books too. That will take a lot of printer ink and a lot of time, so that's a project for another day!

Up close with our favorite book characters...

Overall, I feel good about my progress, but the room still looks like a mess! I've got 1.5 more kid free days because we are taking a trip to CA from Thursday-Sunday to visit Mr. Sneaker's parents. Tomorrow morning my teammate and I are presenting about iPads to my friends group of students at PSU. She is teaching a course about technology in the classroom so we are going to share a bit about how we manage iPads in the classroom and how we use them for language development. We are presenting from 9-10, so I will only have 2 hours max in my room after that before I have to go pick up the girls from daycare. 

Now, it's time for a little RHONJ. 

How many hours do you put in over the summer to get your classroom ready?

Do you enjoy prepping for the new year?

Daily 5 and the Book Basket Debacle

This year I am hoping to implement The Daily 5 during my small group reading time. Actually, I am thinking of starting the year with just 3

Read to Self

Work on Writing

Word Work

Then maybe in January, I will introduce 

Read to Someone

and

Listen to Reading

I absolutely love this idea of putting photos of each child reading on their book box.

Adorable, right? 

http://peaceloveandkinder.blogspot.com/

Now I just need to purchase some cardboard book boxes and get my classroom library in order. 

For my classroom library baskets, I purchased these adorable Polka Dot Classroom Library Labels from TPT for $4.00. I love that the set also comes with icons that can be printed on round stickers so that all of the books in each box have a sticker that matches the label on the outside of the basket. That will definitely help kiddos return their books to the correct basket. {hopefully}

I printed the labels, cut them, selected the ones that go with my book categories, laminated them, and cut them again. Whew. Am I done yet? 

Not even close. 

Even with sorting through the labels included in the set and selecting the ones that fit my books, I still had 55 different labels. 

I do not have 55 baskets to accommodate said labels and the books that go with them. Even if I did have 55 baskets, I do not have enough shelf space to house 55 baskets.

So, I sorted through the labels again trying to distinguish between books I will use for instruction versus books that I want kids to be able to put into their personal book boxes to read during our Daily 3. 

That helped to reduce the number of baskets I will need.

I now have 13 non-fiction categories, 10 favorite author/favorite character categories, and 2 additional categories. Plus, I have 8 other categories that are seasonal that I will rotate in and out of one basket because I don't think we need Valentine, Halloween, or Christmas books out all year. 

That leaves me needing 26 book baskets for my classroom library.

I have a bunch of baskets that I got at the Dollar Tree years ago, but I don't think they are the right size to accommodate all of my books. I guess I can see which books fit into those and take it from there. I still don't think I can fit 26 different baskets on the bookshelf that I have, but that remains to be seen. I plan to do a LOT of work in my classroom next week on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday because the girlies start daycare and I will be child free. It is much easier to complete projects when you're not changing poopy diapers, breastfeeding, and rocking a baby to sleep only to repeat the cycle when the sleeping baby pops open her eyes and gives you a huge wide awake smile as soon as you try to lay her down. And the fire alarm going off 4 times didn't help either. 

Yes, the fire alarm went off FOUR times.

I am not sure what I will do with the books that I want to reserve for instruction because I definitely don't want those mixed in with the books that the kids will be putting in their book boxes, but again, that is a project for another day since I can't very well power through my classroom library setup now that I am home.

Stay tuned for pics of my fantabulous classroom library. 

Is your classroom library fabulous? 

What kind of baskets do you use? Where did you buy them? 

Where can I get the cardboard magazine boxes for cheap?