I got a feeling...

Check out this awesome video that Sarah@Confessions of an Untenured Teacher posted!

Ah....visions of group dance parties with students excited about reading!!! I usually end the year with my kiddos by having an all out silly dance party on the last day of school with conga lines and funky dance moves. It is great to just enjoy those last moments of the year together by going all out and getting down!

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Tomorrow I am subbing for my friend's third grade math period because she will be out. We took some time to plan a fun lesson together and I am really excited to see how it works out. We have been noticing that some of the kiddos in her group need some reminders about good listening skills. I came across an activity that divides the class into two groups: talkers and listeners. Each student gets a slip of paper with a direction on it. The talkers get instruction to speak about a particular subject for two minutes while the "listeners" get instructions to do something like look at the ceiling or take out a book while their partner is talking. After the kids have about two minutes to follow their directions in their partnerships we are going to come together as a group and discuss what the purpose of the activity was and how to talkers felt when the "listeners" were quite obviously not listening. We will then discuss what the qualities of good listeners are.

After we have chatted about what good listeners do and look like, I am going to read them a short non-fiction story then play another game based on the text. I am going to call on students one at a time to share something they learned from the text, but I will randomly tell them to stop (even in the middle of a thought) and ask someone else to continue the sentence so they can practice really tuning into what other students are saying. The other day in class my friend asked a question and about 6 different kids gave the same wrong answer because they were not listening to what others were sharing. I really think they will enjoy these activities and I hope they refocus some of their energy on really listening to each other and their teachers.

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I have also been trying to get in touch with some people from my new school so I can get some info about Kindergarten. I want to utilize my time off this summer in the best way possible to get prepared for next school year. I emailed both the principal and the two other Kinder teachers I will work with. I am used to working with a fabulous first grade team where team planning was a huge part of how we operated. With Kindergarten it is a bit harder because one teacher teaches a full day session, the other teacher only teaches AM and I will teach both AM and PM with two different classes. So between the three of us, no one has the exact same schedule. It will be hard to plan with the full day teacher because her schedule will be SO different. I am still trying to wrap my brain around how anything can be accomplished in a day that lasts 2 hours and 20 minutes. We certainly won't be getting in 90 minutes of reading and if you subtract the time for a recess break and the time it takes 25 five year olds to clean up and pack up at the end of the day, I think I am left with about an hour and a half of instructional time.

It is going to fly by! I can't even image.

I inquired about what special topics are covered throughout the year so I can begin to accumulate resources and I wanted to know if the core reading program is even used considering the time constraints. I know our full day Kinder last year was using Fast Track Phonics, which I really liked, but I just don't know what there is time for! I will be really happy to get an idea of how much time is allotted for different activities in the half day schedule. Seems hard to get kiddos ready for first grade with that little time.

I just have this huge excitement to go to the teacher supply store and purchase my lesson plan book so that I can start planning for the year! My goal this year is to be all about organization so this summer is truly Operation Organization!!!