New Space

Thank you very much for all the sweet comments after my last post. I literally thought there was no-one out there reading my blog anymore so it made me really happy to know that there are a few followers hanging on! You have definitely inspired me to keep blogging. I do really love writing, I think I just prefer blogging over the summer when I am in planning/organizing mode. I love sharing ideas for the upcoming year and photos of my classroom as it comes together. 

Once again, I get to embark upon the fun adventure of moving to a new classroom at the end of the year. Well, let's be honest, when room assignment changes involve many people, the moving process continues all summer because each person cannot move into the new room until the previous person vacates it and that takes fooooorrrrevvvvverrrrr. Ideally, I would be able to get my stuff into the new room and partially set up sooner rather than later. I have already started packing up my stuff and giving away lots of resources/materials/items that I don't foresee using. 

Why would I just start giving stuff away you ask?

It's because my new classroom is the size of a closet. 

Okay, that was a gross exaggeration.

But, my new room is a lot smaller than my current room and it has a lot less storage.

I think...

I haven't actually been able to get into my new room yet. 

I know that sounds strange but it has to do with the awkwardness of job reassignments. 

Enough said. 

I am itching to get in there and take a good look around, take photos, and start planning out my room. 

But I think that needs to wait until summer break. 

Since I will be teaching small groups of students in grades K-5, I know that I will need various wall space areas dedicated to each grade level. I don't plan on having the same thematic units for all of my groups, so I have to find a way to dedicate space for each individual grade level. 

I have no idea how I am going to swing that. 

Given that the room is very small, I considered not bringing along my very large rectangular carpet, but I decided to bring it and here's why...

1) I love it

2) It was expensive

3) Little kids need designated spots for their buns. My oval carpet does not have said spots and mayhem ensues each and every time we transition to that carpet in the form of flailing arms and legs, hands that are not kept to selves, and friends talking to each other when I am teaching. 

::sidebar:: I just recently assigned spots on that carpet and have kids sitting in four rows in number order (each child is my class has a particular number) and since assigning spots, life on that carpet has been far more pleasant. But, I can't take that carpet with me because it belongs to Kindergarten.

4) I always need a carpet space for gathering. Who wants to read a book to kids sitting at tables? Not I said Sneaker Teacher. 

So, my thought is that I can mainly use the carpet for instruction with my younger groups (K-1), maybe K-2) and I can use tables for my upper grades. 

Don't you love my fabulous floor plan? I think the round tables I currently have will work better than rectangle tables, but I need to make sure I can accommodate all of my older students at the tables. I won't know the size of my groups until fall. I don't *think* I will have more than 12 students in my upper grade level groups, but really who knows...

The bummer of this room is that the wall to the left is actually a divider because the other half of the classroom is the Kindergarten work room and the Tag Teacher's office. Then the wall on the bottom is a wall of windows.

So, I basically have not a lot of wall space in which to designate spots for all my groups.

::sigh::

I'll figure it out and it will be fabulous. 

One of the cool things about being a "specialist" is that the classroom does not belong to just one class. Therefore, I don't need to prepare a lot of the things I would usually prepare at the beginning of the year. And, specialists don't get students until like week 3... #bonus

I am really excited to get into the room and start moving furniture around. I really hope everything fits and I can make it work. 

Are you moving for next year or staying put? 

Where to go from here...

Starting in the fall,  I will no longer be a Kindergarten teacher. I have definitely neglected this blog this past year (I feel like it's neglected while school is in session and then revived over the summer when I have more time and I am preparing for the upcoming year). 

I have contemplated just calling it quits as I am not even sure anyone is out there reading anymore since there haven't been many new posts over the course of the school year, but I feel like I have spent so much time on this blog since I first started it. I certainly don't want to just delete it...

So, I am trying to figure out what to do going forward.

If I want to continue the blog, I have to make some changes because I certainly can't advertise that readers will be reading about the wonderful world of Kindergarten if I am teaching English Language Development. At one point in time I designed the blog and created the header, but I honestly don't even know if I am capable of that anymore...

I'm feeling stuck. 

Ideally, I would post much more frequently and would share lots of great teaching ideas with amazing images and examples of lessons and student work. My blog would be a place other teachers would come to for inspiration and resources. 

I just don't know if I have all that in me particularly since I will be learning/doing a new job and teaching college courses and being a mom. I kind of feel lost among the blogging world at this point because I don't have the time or energy to post about what I teach and I don't create cool products and sell them on TPT. Sneaker Teacher has become just a not so frequently visited space on the web. 

I'm kind of sad about that, but I am just not as inspired to blog as I used to be. 

For anyone out there who actually might be reading this...what should I do?

Revamp the blog? 

Let it go?

The Word Is Out

I know, it's been awhile...

This year has been going really well, but I just am not finding time to blog about it.

You'll forgive me, right?

I had to come back to share some exciting news!

Not another baby sneaker...

A new job!

Next year, Oregon is moving to statewide full-day Kindergarten. Because I want to continue working part time, I will not be able to continue teaching Kindergarten (my district doesn't offer job shares in grades K-2). So...after lots of waiting, lots of worrying, and lots of questions, I found out that I will teaching ELD next year!

I am super excited because I will be staying at my current school, still teaching part-time, and moving to a new position that I am really looking forward to.

I've been teaching college courses that are part of the ESOL endorsement program, so I am really excited to experience my university world coming together with my teaching world.

Woo hoo!

the nation's top teacher bloggers

Very excited to be among this group! 

I think my little homemade bloggy button fits in just fine. 

Not sure I would actually consider myself to be one of the nation's top teacher bloggers, but a little exposure and a bloggy bash are sure to inspire me to be a little more attentive to my blog! 

Stay tuned for photos from the conference next month! 

Kindergarten by Day, College by Night

It finally happened.

On Monday night, I taught my first college class!

I am teaching a hybrid course called Second Language Acquisition and Development for K-12 Educators as an adjunct. Hybrid means that we meet at PSU 5 times and then on alternate weeks I use the D2L digital format to post assignments and prompt discussions.

As an adjunct, I basically inherited the course content and it's my job to deliver it. Having all the content created for me has its advantages and disadvantages, but I think overall it was beneficial given that it is my first ever college course.

Since I have control over the format of the D2L course page, I tried to make that super organized so my students will have an easy time understanding what their assignments are and when/how they need to turn everything in. I took several online courses when I was living in Germany and working on my doctorate, so I am pretty familiar with how those types of courses operate.

So far my takeaways from being a professor are as follows:

• I really like having my own teaching space. It was weird to arrive in a random classroom prior to class only to find that a different class was in session. I showed up very early, but by the time I got access to the room, my students were already coming in. I had to figure out how to get technology running, arrange the small room to accommodate 30 students, and get all my papers organized with an audience. I had no idea what the table/seating arrange would be and since we were very crowded, the set up was not ideal for the group activities I planned.

• Adults ask a lot of questions. Even though I thought I made things VERY clear, there were still many clarifying questions.

• Adults actually did what I asked and I didn't need to redirect any behavior. It was great to just calmly circulate when they were discussing in groups. I listened and enjoyed what they had to say. I don't often feel that way in Kindergarten. 

• The amount of work I have to grade just grew exponentially. I don't grade a whole lot in Kindergarten, but my college students have to write a 500 word reflection each week minimum. 500 words times 30 people is a lot of reading. Plus, I have to read the textbook chapters so that I can be familiar with the content and plan activities to go along with the content. 

• I was a lot more self conscious teaching adults than I ever am teaching children. Hopefully that gets better. 

The next course I am going to teach is entirely online, so that will be interesting as well. 

Now, please share with me some of your favorite memories of college courses so I can be a rockstar professor! 

What did professors do that you LOVED and also what did professors do that you HATED?

More Button Business

Just to be 100% sure that I am not breaking any code of conduct for borrowing images, I adjusted my button a little bit. I tried using an actual image of my Dr. Top sneakers, but it was way to grainy, so I decided to just use the overlays within Picmonkey. I think it came out okay. Even if it doesn't include a sneaker, I still think it's a good match.

In case anyone else has the burning desire to create a blog button, I followed this tutorial and it was pretty simple. I am by no means a coding expert, but I was able to follow the directions and figure it out. 

Now what do you think?