A teacher's dream

This past Saturday I had the pleasure of attending a job fair for a charter school that will be opening in my county next year. What kind of school will this be you ask? A teacher's dream school! The founders of this school believe that it should be a place where teachers teach and students learn. There will be no tolerance for behavior issues. It is basically the 3 strikes and you're out principle. Reading will be taught in grades K-8. Memorization of basic facts, rules, and principles will be necessary in the lower grades. I am so excited that I may be chosen to be a part of this amazing venture. The beauty of it is that because it is a charter school and not a private school children of all income levels will be able to attend.

Noun Projects

My students have been working on nouns for over a month now. I got an idea from a co-worker to do the ABCs of nouns. I am lucky enough to have exactly 26 students. First I have each student a piece of construction paper with a letter of the alphabet. Next, I told each student to list 5 nouns on their sheet. They had to write the plural of each noun. They then had to tell if their noun was common or proper. Here is an example of one: M milk - milks - common mom - moms - common Mike - Mikes - proper moose - moose - common man - men - common I displayed their projects on the wall outside our classroom. I decided that we are going to make a wall full of projects. I am calling it the ABCs of Parts of Speech. Once we cover verbs we will make pages of verbs. I plan to include adjectives also. Then, as a culminating project I will have my students take their papers down. They will then make as many sentences as possible from their parts of speech. I can't wait to see the final finished project.

Breast Cancer Research

I am helping my friend Lisa Stephens Rahn raise money for Breast Cancer Research. She is participating in the Susan G. Komen 3-Day For the Cure. Every dollar spent in my teachers pay teachers store for the entire month of October will be donated to this worthy cause. Please visit my store and share this with all of your teacher friends! http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/Georgia-Peach-Teacher

Co-Teaching

In my district Special Education students are in the regular education classroom as much as possible. I have had the inclusion class room for six of the seven years I have been teaching. This year is the first year that I have had a full day co-teacher. My co-teacher is certified in special education and she handles all of the accommodations for our special education students. Over the six years I have had special ed students I have learned so much about the special education world. I have had one course in special education. I feel that one course is not sufficient. I think that teachers who have the inclusion classroom need to have more instruction in the area of special education. In my opinion, the best way to do this is through professional learning in my district. As I say all the time I'm just a teacher so what do I know. The big question in my mind is Why in the world have the administrators in my district not thought of this yet? Being the inclusion teacher I am with special education students all day long. Doesn't it just make sense for me to have extra training in this area? Please tell me if I am in left field here. This year I have 3 autistic students, a student who was diagnosed developmentally delayed (I suspect she is actually MOID) and a student with a specific learning disability in reading. How do I know and understand each of their diagnoses and how to properly accommodate them? I have taken it upon myself to learn. I ask lots of questions and do research on my own time. I imagine that not all inclusion teachers do this so how do they serve these students effectively? I'm sure that the answer is that they don't. It is time for school districts to wake up and provide, even require this training of its co-teachers. Comments/Questions? Please let me know :)

Staying current

As I'm sure most of you do I have been working in my classroom this week. As I begin to set up the furniture and organize my materials I realized that I am such a dork! I just love having the opportunity to start fresh each year. A new set of students, a new classroom set up, new lessons, etc. As I thought back I realized that this is my 3rd year in this classroom. I have rearranged my classroom every year. I started to wonder if I am the only one who does this. I know teachers at my school who keep their room exactly the same every year. There is nothing wrong with this. If you find something that works for you don't change it! For me it is not just about the way the room looks it is also about how you prepare for the school year. I truly examine everything from the previous year. Some things I keep and do exactly the same. Others I don't reuse EVER. Most of my lessons and ideas are tweaked from year to year after careful reflection. It is my hope that all teachers, whether they keep their room the same year to year, or never have it the same way twice, are always updating and tweaking their lessons and activities. This is truly the only way to stay current and reach the needs of our students. I hope all of you have a stress free time setting up your classrooms, and enjoy the last little sliver of summer!

The Writing Process

When I was hired at my first school the principal told me she was placing me in 3rd grade because of how I described teaching writing. She explained that 3rd grade is the grade where writing begins to really be monitored. Back then I mostly focused on creative writing. I would tear out magazine pages, have students choose one and list adjectives to describe the picture. They would then write a descriptive piece about their picture. After moving to 2nd grade I began to realize that that I should spend more time focusing on the process of writing. Many of my students could produce a descriptive or narrative piece, but they really had no concept of the steps of writing. The new Reading series that my school is using provides teachers with fabulous resources and suggestions for teaching the writing process. At the beginning of this past school year my students were required to complete a writing assessment for the district. Most of my students did not go through all of the writing steps. Instead they drew a picture and then wrote a "final draft." After viewing the results of the assessments I decided to spend quite a bit of time modeling the process with my students. I found that having a document camera and projector was a real benefit. I started with a narrative piece because I believe that narratives are the easiest genre for students. I started with a list of possible writing topics, moved to an idea web, wrote my rough draft (intentional errors included), edited, revised and then published my piece. I spent one day on each step. Wehn I completed each step my students then worked on that same step. At first it was a huge struggle for them and for me. I would end my writing time feeling like I needed a vacation. Gradually I began to see marked improvement in their writing. As the year progressed most of my students began to enjoy writing. Out of 23 students I had about 6 or 7 who became so proficient at the process that they became student teachers to their classmates who needed help. When my students were required to take the writing assessment again in the Spring I was pleased that almost all of them went through the steps correctly. Next year my goal is to be much more deliberate with the skills we focus on during the revising process. Below I included a link to my Teachs Pay Teachers product: week long lesson plan on writing a personal narrative using the process described above. This product will be free through June 25, 2013 for those of you who would like to download it. http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Writing-a-Personal-Narrative-5-steps-of-the-writing-process-579027 I have also included a link to my writing prompts product. It includes 150 writing topics geared towards 2nd and 3rd graders. Prompts have students writing letters, narratives, informational pieces, opinion pieces and persuasive pieces. This product is listed at $2.00. http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Writing-Prompts-Journal-writing-topics-150-prompts-2nd-and-3rd-Grade-CCSS-674698 I would appreciate any feedback (positive or negative) on these products.

Teaching Children to Think

I have been thinking about how I teach math. I always use manipulatives and hands on learning with a little bit of worksheet practice. In my centers I try to include hands on activities along with a journal topic and guided math groups. This year I tried hard to incorporate some expemplars. For those of you who are not familiar with exemplars they are word problems that encourage students to solve the problems any way they wish. They are applauded for explaining their thinking, drawing pictures, making charts, and doing calculations. Students are measured on a rubric, which they are familiar with. When I first introduced the exemplars to my students it blew their minds. I have found that students are not used to thinking of math in various ways and explaining their thinking. I think that if we start explaining our thinking about math and having students explaining theirs in Pre-K we will see a progression from year to year of students who are able to express why an answer is correct and why and how they found the answer. I was reading an article in the National Council for Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) magazine recently and was encouraged by one teacher's story of having her students explain their thinking. She stated that they have a "mental math" time at her school. The students are expected to solve problems without counting on their hands or using paper and pencil. The teacher goes on to explain that she gave the students the problem 11 + 9. It was fascinating to read about how her students reasoned their answers. Her class included first and second graders. She explained that many of the first graders did not know how to solve the problem correctly because of their lack of knowledge of place value. After thinking about how much trouble my students have in explaining their mathematical thinking I am convinced that a mental math time each day is a great solution to the problem. If students get used to talking about problems and how to solve them without being able to use manipulatives or pencil and paper it will force them reason their processes. After all, we are not benefiting anyone if we teach children to simply compute problems. Teaching them to think about why things work they way they do and how they can solve problems multiple ways prepares our students for the real world. I encourage all teachers to try a mental math time next school year. I will be updating you all on how this goes in my classroom. Here is a link to site where you can download the above referenced article: http://www.nctm.org/publications/article.aspx?id=21447