It's Almost November...

...and I'm posting for the first time since school started.

Lame, I know.

No excuses, just on to the good stuff.

I LOVE my new job.

LOVE!

I am teaching in a way that I haven't taught since I was a student teacher.

I am creating units, coming up with my own materials, and connecting with students.

#amazing

If you don't recall (since it's been an eternity since I posted), I am now an English Language Development Specialist. I'm still working part-time and my schedule worked out so that I teach groups for students in Kinder through Grade 3. I also push in to Kindergarten for a 30 minute block each day.

Here's the lowdown on what we're working on:

Kinder/First-Friendship unit: Students are working on story retelling and I created a graphic organizer (based off of others I saw online) to use in the app StoryKit so students can retell the story verbally using the organizer before they write about it. I LOVE picking out the books I use and finding common themes that thread throughout.

Heidi's song about the parts of a story is a must!

        

Second Grade-Community Unit: Students are learning about places in the community, the difference between wants and needs, and they are creating a book in the app Book Creator about places in the community. I also came up with a community song set to the tune of Everything is Awesome.

Third Grade-Jobs Unit: My Third Graders are learning about jobs. They are working on writing a letter to someone who does the job they are interested in. I have contacted most of the letter recipients in advance and they have all kindly agreed to write back to my students! We worked on the different between open-ended and closed questions and they started peer editing today!

I also wrote a "Work Nae Nae" embedded with key vocabulary that we practice on the daily. 

Sometimes I feel like I am flying by the seat of my pants, but I love that my instruction is connecting to students and it's based on what we've done not just on a prefabricated scope and sequence. 

How is your year going so far? 

Wall Space

This morning I worked in my new classroom for a bit. Aside from the mess that is hidden behind the closet doors, the room really doesn't need all that much more work. 

It doesn't look like much, but I got the walls covered today so they are ready for student work.

Unlike in years past, I really think I am going to start the year without any posters/visuals on the walls. I've been pouring over my new book on culturally responsive teaching and the brain and the final chapter discusses how to create a culturally responsive environment for learning. 

The author's message:

Think carefully about what visuals are displayed on the walls.

They send a non-verbal message about what and who is valued in the classroom. 

Rather than prepackaged "multicultural" bulletin board cut-outs or standard ethnic "heroes" posters, find authentic cultural elements that add real value to the classroom.

I am really taking this to heart this year.

I want to authentically create a working and learning environment that represents my students. Therefore I want the walls to be covered in their photos and their work.

While I definitely love me some super cute TPT purchases, I am holding off for now and keeping the canvas clean. 

I'm going for "minimalist, yet relevant."

In no way am I trying to be a Debbie Downer, but I am kind of over seeing so many classrooms that are decorated to the gills and theme-based. To each their own, but given my new role, it has just really been on my mind that my students should be able to look around the room and feel as though they are represented, not inundated with tons of thematic chotchkies. 

Also, this article mentions how children actually learn better in classrooms that are not as heavily decorated. 

So, this year, the beauty of the room will emerge slowly and unfold as I get to know my students and what's important to them. 

I do like bright colors and no, my walls are not completely bare, but it's a lot less "decorated" than in prior years. 

What's your classroom style? Are you a fabulous decorator or a minimalist? 

Summer Reading-Part 1

Now that my assessment course has come and gone, I finally have some free time to enjoy some summer reading. I previously posted about two books that were on my summer reading agenda, but I ended up reading a third book that I am excited to talk about. 

It's called Culturally Responsive Teaching and the Brain: Promoting Authentic Engagement and Rigor Among Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Students

For the past few years, my personal bible on culturally responsive practices has been Geneva Gay's Culturally Responsive Teaching

I recently came across another great resource that is a very teacher friendly guide to culturally responsive practices.  

What's new about Culturally Responsive Teaching and the Brain is pretty evident in the title. This text connects the research on culturally responsive instruction with "cutting-edge neuroscience research" which is really impactful and interesting. 

I majored in Psychology at Villanova University, so the content of this book brings me back to those days of learning about neural pathways, dendrites, axons, and myelination. I remember writing my first cover letters for education jobs after graduation and trying to leverage my degree in psychology by mentioning how connecting new content to students' background knowledge resulted in the activation of more neurons and therefore increased the likelihood students would remember the new content. 

It's been awhile since I have actively studied the brain or research on brain functioning, so this book has been very interesting to read. 

"Neural pathways are important because when we go back and forth along this pathway when thinking or problem solving, it helps drive new learning deeper into long-term memory until it becomes automatic or deeply understood."

I think the idea of background knowledge is pretty basic to teachers, yet the idea of funds of knowledge is more specific to the literature on culturally responsive instruction. We don't just need to have access to what students have experienced, we also need to understand their cultural knowledge and ways of thinking and learning in order to ensure that we are not putting forth culturally biases curriculum and assessment. When we fail to truly relate to students or activate their prior knowledge/background knowledge/cultural knowledge, they are certainly at a disadvantage in remembering the content due to the way in which the brain connects new information to already stored information. 

Another key point is that strong memories are highly charged by emotion because of the way that the brain responds to emotional experiences (particularly emotionally negative experiences). Our brain utilizes the fight or flight function and the stress hormone cortisol then inhibits all other cognitive functions such as learning, problem solving or creative thinking. 

What this means for teachers is that we need to put forth our best effort to connect with students. 

"Too often though, we ignore the quality of our interactions with students and instead focus primarily on the curriculum."

I am guilty of this....anyone else? 

"In culturally responsive teaching, the relationships are as important as the curriculum."

I have read Geneva Gay's work extensively and I have even published a few articles myself on the topic of culturally responsive instruction. I know how important it is to build relationships with students in order to generate trust, but reading specifically about how these relationships affect the brain is fascinating! 

"Neuroscience tells us the brain feels safest and relaxed when we are connected to others we trust to treat us well."

The brain will certainly be more productive and ready to learn when being flooded with feel-good Oxytocin rather than stress-induced Cortisol! 

The book's author, Zaretta Hammond also identifies 6 principles she calls 

"Culturally Responsive Brain Rules"

1. The brain seeks to minimize social threats and maximize opportunities to connect with others in community. 

2. Positive relationships keep our safety-threat detection system in check.

3. Culture guides how we process information.

4. Attention drives learning.

5.All new information must be coupled with existing funds of knowledge in order to be learned.

6. The brain physically grows through challenge and stretch, expanding its ability to do more complex thinking and learning.

I have not quite finished reading this book, but I plan to do so as soon as I am done writing this post. I think the concept of culturally responsive instruction is definitely worth reading up on, but this book in particular has been very informative and motivating. 

Everything Assessment

Next week I am teaching a 2 credit course called Assessing Language and Content Learning for K-12 English Learners. I have spent ALL of my free time lately getting ready for this class and I honestly can't wait until it's over. So far it feels like my summer break has consisted of preparing for and teaching college and I am ready to just have a break. I am currently on vacation with my family and my parents are even with us all the way from Connecticut, but my free time (when the little sneakers nap and after they go to bed at night) is consumed with creating slides for the lecture portions of my class. 

I haven't written much about my college courses, but I love love love this new work. Even though the preparation is really time consuming, I really enjoy it. I love incorporating strategies and activities with adults that they can then turn around and use with their own students. I am all about making sure that they get the most bang for their buck and leave the course knowing the content but also armed with ideas of how to practically apply the content with their own students. 

In the course I taught, I used interactive notebooks as a way to help my students process the course content and also as a way to model why interactive notebooks are great to use in their own classrooms. I also used several cooperative learning models from this book...

The appendices alone are well worth the cost because they detail different attention getter strategies, describe many different culturally responsive cooperative learning strategies, and list books that represent different cultures. It is an excellent resource on culturally responsive instruction with very easy to implement ideas for teachers. I provided my students with little paper slips describing the cooperative learning activities I used in class so they could create a separate section in their notebooks for teaching strategies.

A few of my favorites...

Inner Outer Circle

Line Dance

Connect Two

Give One, Get One

Sort & Mingle

Are you interested in knowing more about those cooperative learning strategies?

In the works...

Two very exciting things are in the works...

1) Stay tuned for a new blog design! I have absolutely zero time in the upcoming weeks to work on it because I am prepping for my second college course and that is all consuming, BUT I can't wait to create an updated design with the new digital kit I just purchased. It's super cute and will fit perfectly with my new role as an ELL teacher. 

2) Today, after about 10 years of being cyber friends, I am finally going to meet one of my great blogger friends in real life!

Stay tuned!

Mini Makeover

I started moving into my new classroom this morning. The custodian helped me move some things from my old classroom to the new one, so I could figure out how to make things fit. I still have to put everything away for the summer, but at least I have some peace about how it will look.

Check out the before and after. 

I still have tons of boxes and piles to move over, but that will have to wait for tomorrow. 

School's Out!

Yesterday was my last day of school. 

My last day of teaching Kindergarten.

I honestly don't know if I will ever teach Kindergarten again....

Half-day was perfect for me and at this stage in my life I am really happy working half-time and then balancing that with teaching college courses online or in the evenings. Beginning in the fall Kindergarten will be full-day statewide, so that chapter of my teaching has come to a close. 

This morning I met with my new teammate to talk about how the ELD department operates and what I can expect in my new role. We sat down for about 2 hours and it was really helpful. I am really looking forward to this new chapter. 

I think I am most excited at the prospect of getting a K-5 perspective. I did my student teaching in third grade and taught first grade for three years before moving to Germany. In Germany I supported grades K-12, but that was with push-in support. I have never been the one driving the curriculum and instruction for second, fourth, or fifth graders and I think it will be really interesting as well as beneficial to gain experience in teaching a variety of grade levels instead of just the little ones. Not to mention, I am excited that I will actually be doing what I am teaching about in my college courses. That was a nice turn of events.  

We went over the lists for groups and I will be teaching the 3's and 4's (intermediate and early advanced students). So far it looks like my largest group will have about 15 kiddos and I saw some familiar names on the lists of kids that I had in Kinder that I will teach again.

There are a lot of unknowns about scheduling and official groups until later in the summer, so I am not sure that I can even do a lot of planning yet, but I feel like I have a better handle on what the role will be like. 

Tomorrow I have to finish packing up my classroom in order to move to my new closet (just kidding!) classroom. On Friday, the custodian and I are going to move my large carpet into the new classroom and try to figure out what type of tables will work best for the limited space beyond the carpet. Because I am a ton of Kindergarten curricula behind, the amount of stuff I have actually doesn't seem like that much compared to how much I had to move last year (because I was moving all the K curricula). 

The other great thing about teaching ELD is that I will start the room with empty walls. I won't "decorate" or make displays beforehand because everything that goes on the walls will be created during lessons. That in combination with the fact that ELD services don't start until the second week of school seem like they will make for a more relaxed beginning of the school year! 

Are you officially out for the summer? 

If not, when is your last day? 

Summer Reading

With summer vacation just around the corner, I am gearing up for some summer reading. My first month of summer is going to be consumed with prepping for, and teaching, two courses at PSU. They're both week-long, all-day courses, so the prep work is crazy in order to have activities and instruction to fill all that time. 

Once those courses are over, I will be set to full on start prepping for my new role as an ELL teacher. 

I just purchased two new books that I am excited to read. 

Stay tuned for some mid-summer book reviews! 

What's on your summer reading list? 

Access Granted

I FINALLY got to stand in the middle of my new room and look around today. 

(Thank you field day for emptying the entire school at 11:30 so I could sneak in and take pics!)

There's some good news...

I actually have some tall storage cabinets.

But, I can already see that once I bring in my big rug, I am going to be really short on space for tables. I plan to center the rug along the wall with the whiteboard where these tables currently are. 

As you can see from this next photo, there isn't a whole lot of space on the other side of the tables. 

At least there's a nature view to the left...

At least since the whiteboard is small, there is wall space on both sides that I could post visuals on. 

I cannot wait to get in here and move furniture around. 

I think I will forego my teacher desk and just use whatever type of table I bring in for my older students. I also might forego the big set of drawers that is on wheels as I don't have too much stuff stored in my current one. 

Also, my teammate had a genius idea and suggested I look into getting a clothesline to hang from wall to wall in front of that partition so that I can at least clip students' work, visuals, or posters to the line. Hopefully the custodian will be on board with that! 

I am so excited to get started on making this new space my own!

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?