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:

1. Increase reading of informational text
2. text complexity
3. academic vocabulary
4. text-based answers
5. increase writing from sources
6. 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. 

I also have the Good Reads app so I can see updates and enter books I want to read or mark when I have finished a book. 

Have you read any of these books? Any favorites? 

Do you always read books before viewing the films?

Proud New Owner

I am now the proud new owner of this baby

see that hefty price tag?

not. what. I. paid. 

Lakeshore is currently having a big sale with 20% off tons of stuff. I'm not sure if it's storewide, because there always seem to be exceptions, yet this puppy was on sale for $69.99

Yes, that would actually be 54% off! woot woot! 

Plus, I had $55 in giftcards that parents gave me last year. 

So, basically, this beauty cost me 14.99. 

SCORE! 

I also stocked up on the laminating pouches because those were eligible for the 20% off. I got two boxes of the 9" by 11.5" and each box contains 100 pouches. I really have no idea how quickly I will go through those, but each box was $15.00 today, so that's not horrible. I also think I could order pouches from amazon for cheaper that would also work. I got the 3-mil pouches which aren't quite as thick as I was hoping, but I am still a happy camper.

So, let's take a look...

 pretty!

My first laminating job is the desk tags that we are going to use this year courtesy of my teammate who created them. She used an idea from a catalog and put our Journeys sight words on it. We plan to laminate them and have the kids keep them in their work buckets as opposed to on the tables. That works better in my room for sure since I share the classroom with another teacher and any kind of name tag on the tables take up too much space on the table since there have to be two at each table spot. 

 in

 out

voila!

You may be wondering why I would need my own personal laminator when there is one available at school. Well... there are rules about laminating at school that require us to leave the items we want laminated by the machine labeled with our name and grade so that once a week a parent volunteer can do the whole stack. This is in order to prevent the waste that goes along with laminating small projects. I am never organized enough to have my stack of things that need to be laminated ready in time for the volunteer. I just don't work that way. Also, if I get a new student on Friday, I hate to wait all the way until the following Friday to get items laminated. Now, I can conveniently do that at home whenever I need to. 

I probably would not have made this purchase if it was not on sale because it normally isn't cheap, but considering I had the gift cards and it was on sale, I figured it was meant to be. I am really glad I had gift cards too because that means I'm not submitting the receipts for reimbursement, which means that the laminator is my property and not the property of the school district. 

The only thing that could make life better would be getting one of those amazing Cricut machines. 

::drool::

My teaching partner/roommate has one of those, so I guess I can live vicariously through her....and she shares. 

Do you get money through your school district to spend on school related expenses? 

How much out of pocket money would you estimate you spend each school year?

Home Sweet Home-My Bedroom

The next stop on my home sweet home tour is my bedroom. I think it's really important to be in love with your bed--and I am. 

Our bedding is LUCIANNA MEDALLION DUVET from Pottery Barn. I always love me a blue & white color scheme and fortunately Mr. Sneaker and I agreed on this bedding set. I think it's a good balance of our tastes that is feminine enough without being too girly. 

Closer look?

I like to read in bed, so I have my iPad, my Kindle, and a real book on my night stand. And Baby Sneaker likes to read in my bed too, so I have one of her books as well. I started to read the Dreamkeepers by Gloria Ladson-Billings awhile back and I never really got into it. I think I am burned out on non-fiction education texts for the time being. Now I'm onto some books from this list of 14 books to read before they hit the big screen. 

(more about that in another post). 

Some of my favorite things in my room are

Bo the teddy bear. Mr. Sneaker gave this bear to me on our first Valentine's Day together. He's been a favorite sleeping buddy since. Yes, I sleep with a teddy bear. ;0) 

I love this photo of Baby Sneaker. She is so serious, but her eyes are so big and blue and it always makes me smile.

I also love my closet. My color-coding doesn't stop in the classroom and I always group my clothes by color and style. I love the longer hanging space for dresses and for the hanging shoe bag that houses all my ballet flats. 

And of course, I love my sneakers!

What do you love about your bedroom? 

Good Finds-Math Version

I met with my Kinder team yesterday to discuss our year plan. I shared the math plan I've been working on and we discussed our plan for all subjects and aligned our science units/lessons with the themes in our new reading program. I like the idea of fitting the various content areas together which is not something we have really done explicitly in the past. Teaching that way just makes sense to me, so I am getting really excited for the upcoming year.

It doesn't necessarily make sense to share my plan for math, but I thought I would share some of the resources I recently purchased from TPT to go along with our math instruction. Since I am using the CCSS to guide my instruction more so than just my math curriculum, I was on the lookout for resources that are aligned with CCSS. I am always in awe of busy teachers who somehow find the time to create incredibly cute and creative items for their classrooms. Sadly, I do not share their talents, so I will continue cheering them on by buying their cute products. 

I love these teen number pages. 

Number Sense Know How! {THE TEENS} Number Worksheets For Eleven - Twenty

Common Core Math {Understanding Teen Numbers 11 to 20}

And these are great posters to hang in the classroom

Teen Number Posters- Common Core Aligned Numbers 0-20

I also thought this would be a fun game for the kiddos to play to match the teen numbers with their dots representations on the 10-frame. Our math program introduces a ladybug puppet called 10 bug, so this game goes well with the ladybug theme.

Composing and Decomposing Numbers 11-20 Ladybug Matching Game

and for FREE

(who doesn't love a good freebie?!)

Number Practice Pages for 1-10

Monkey Madness - Trace, Stamp, Write (numbers)

Are you a TPT seller? 

Have you found anything good on TPT lately? 

Super Sweet

I am pretty pumped about my new Erin Condren Teacher Planner. 

I chose this cute apple design for my cover. I added my name and school too. 

What I really liked about this planner is that I was able to view a video of a teacher flipping through the entire thing so I could see the various pages and what is offered. It's difficult to find a planner that suits my needs, so I usually make my own. I decided that finally becoming Dr. Sneaker merited a splurge. And by splurge I mean spending a whopping $77.35 on this baby (which will either be deducted from graduation money or reimbursed by my school district since it is indeed a school related expense). 

The base price is $59.00, but I got some add-ons including extra double-page checklist spreads ($7.50) and a pen holder  ($2.50) plus shipping ($8.35). 

It was so excited to receive this pretty baby in the mail that I already started filling in dates based on my school year calendar. 

Take a look...

Colorful tabs to make everything easily accessible. 

  I will definitely be adding some items to these Year at a Glance pages today when I meet with my Kinder team. 

 This is the layout for weekly plans. Lots of open space. I don't think I could fit all my plans on these pages if I taught full day, but for half day I will surely be able to write down everything within the spaces. I already jotted a few notes for first day activities. 

 These are the pages that I ordered lots of extras. I plan to use them for checking in HW, documenting data from my behavior chart, and organizing assessment data for report cards. I think I will section them off so I have a bunch of pages for each grading period. 

I love all the little teachery quotes throughout the planner. Colorful and inspirational.

Although definitely not a reasonable cost for a teacher's budget, I do think that this was a fun splurge. Will I buy one every year? That depends on how it works out, but I definitely like it. I am always striving to be more organized and I think this will help me to have all the info I need in one place. There are also many pages for notes after each monthly calendar which will be great for meetings. That way when I take notes, I won't lose the rando piece of paper I bring because I can write them in my planner and then refer back to them if needed at a later time. I also love the graph paper because I can keep track of my seating arrangements and keep a record of it so I don't (gasp) put a child at the same color table twice during the year! 

Home Sweet Home-My Desk

The next stop in my Home Sweet Home tour is my desk. I already posted a pic of my workspace when I wrote about making my year plan for math, but this time I have more photos and some of my favorite items as well. 

My desk is in the kitchen, so I am trying really hard to keep it looking neat. I have a huge stack of school stuff on top, but Baby Sneaker's grabby hands and its location make it important to keep most things put away. 

The desk we got is part of the Bedford Collection from Pottery Barn. This collection allows you to build your own desk based on which components you want. We decided on the rectangular desk, which fits perfectly along our wall. We chose one 2-drawer file cabinet and one 3-drawer file cabinet for the bottom pieces which gives us 3 deep file cabinet drawers in all and 2 regular drawers for storing other desk items. I have one drawer and then Mr. Sneaker has one drawer too. 

(I'm so good at sharing). 

Mr. Sneaker just added this set up so that I have a larger screen to look at. My laptop is underneath. 

I love the blue case that I got from Amazon. It comes in a variety of cool colors. When I take my laptop out to use in a different location, I never worry about wear and tear because the case keeps it safe from scratches. 

My drawer (which has a Corner Flex Latch from Babies R Us because it's Baby Sneaker's favorite stash to break into) contains a few of my favorite items...

If you've been a reader for awhile, you probably already know about my obsession with Post Its. LOVE them. So, naturally I have an assortment. I love the lined ones for longer notes. My First Grade team introduced me to those awhile back and they have remained a favorite. I don't settle for plain yellow Post Its. They must be colorful. I also like various sticky flags and tabs, so I keep those in my collection as well. 

I also have an assortment of colorful pens. I like to color code things, so sometimes I use a particular color for each family member and another for work when writing events on my calendar. I also like to color code academic quarters on my assessments so I use a different color for each marking term. I like to keep my special pens and Post Its in these clear containers from Storables. 

My sister in law introduced me to this cool custom self inking address stamp from Tiny Prints. It makes putting a return address on cards super easy and it always looks really nice. They aren't cheap, but it really comes in handy when it's time for holiday cards. 

 Next is my file drawer. You can see color coding at work in here as well. I love to buy the brightly colored file folders and hanging files just because they look pretty, but it's also useful to use different colors for different categories. Each family member has their own color and then I have all of our household files in another color. All of our files from our previous home are in the last color. I used a label maker to label all the files so they look neat and tidy. 

 The great thing about getting a new desk is that it forced me to reorganize and make it neat. Let's hope it stays that way.

What are the essentials in your workspace? 

Is your desk in a private/quiet area or out in the open?

***Stay tuned for photos of my Erin Condren teacher planner***

Home Sweet Home

Since I don't have all that much to say about teaching at the moment, I thought I would show some of my home spaces. Who doesn't like at peek into someone else's home? 

I'm starting with Baby Sneaker's playroom. In our previous home, we had a much larger space, but it doubled as my office. Her current playroom basically houses her toys, but she has the run of the entire first floor. We do spend a good amount of time playing in this room, but she also spends a lot of time exploring other areas as well. 

I did a little before and after shot. The top photo is what this room often looks like during the day. The bottom shot shows what I wish it looked like all the time. How cute is Baby Sneaker putting a diaper on her baby doll? 

A closer glimpse at some of my favorite parts of this room.

I asked for these alphabet cards as part of my baby registry. I think they are so cute and I love the teachery touch it puts in the play room. We never put them up in the previous house because I wasn't really sure how I wanted to hang them. I didn't want to frame each individual one, but I also wasn't really sure how to pull off putting them on a clothesline type deal. Luckily, this room has the perfect little ledge that they can lean on. When Baby Sneaker gets bigger she might pull them down, but for the time being she's not tall enough. 

We have two of these storage units from Target. I love putting things away so that the overall look is not total clutter. The baskets come in all sorts of colors and they are perfect for storing all the little toys, stuffed animals, and blocks. I like having the books more on display, so I keep those in the middle. Baby Sneaker can easily pull the handles to get the boxes out and access her stuff. 

My best friend got this Pottery Barn Kids Anywhere Chair for Baby Sneaker when she was born. I used it for her monthly photos and it was so cool to see how she went from a floppy little baby just propped on there to a 1 year old who could sit on her own. I stopped taking those monthly photos once she turned one, but she still loves to sit in this chair because it's the perfect size for her. She likes to sit on it with her little books. Pottery Barn Kids offers this chair in tons of different colors/patterns and I think a large and small size. I love that it can be monogrammed as well. My sister in law has a different chair for each of her three girls and I love that they each get their own with their name on it. Something special that can be just theirs. We'll definitely get another one when we add another baby to our family.

These mattresses went to a daybed that we previously had. We bought it in the US, shipped it to Germany and it got damaged. So, we got it replaced by the moving company, but we had to get the new one in Germany so the mattress size was different. We sold the bed and the Euro mattresses before we moved back, but we still had the original US mattresses. So, although it's not the prettiest sight, we have them on the floor as a nice little cozy place to lounge while playing. And a certain little monkey likes to jump on the bed, which is pretty fun since it's so low to the ground and not a big fall. On those early mornings when mama is just a little too tired, it's a great place to lounge while the peanut plays.

What do you think?
Do you want me to share more of my home spaces?