Back to School Goals

Jess at


is having her wonderful Back to School Goal Linky again, and since I reflected on mine and wiped the slate clean, I've been thinking on what I want to focus on this year!

Personal: I have a fairly decent home/work balance-but I spent a lot of time napping last year. I'd like to cut down on naps, and find a better way to balance that!

Organization: Data, data, data! Our principal is very focused on data (especially MAP data, and looking at if students made their growth targets), and I like to find a way to use that data to help me with teaching, as well as all the other data we have!

I'll also have THREE sets of math manipulatives (one that was already there, one from Go Math! and one from Math in Focus!) I need to find a way to organize them so my classroom is not overrun!

Plannng: I'll admit-I did a stinky job of teaching Writing last year. I'm hoping that by mapping out the year, and what they need to know, I'll get a better sense of where to go and when, and I'll be a better writing teacher!

Professional: I'd love to learn how to make my own SMARTBoard lessons-to better fit with what I teach (and hopefully, the SMARTBoard will be fixed...)!

I'd also love to get an IPad, and use it in the classroom. I hoping to get through a workshop (then I can get reimbursed-but the district will technically 'own' it), but we'll see!

Students: I want the students to start tracking some of their data! We did this last year with Spelling graphs, but I'd like to get a little more in depth and a little more aligned to CC.

I also want them to learn that sticking with something and keep trying to figure it out is sometimes better than just knowing the answer!

Motto: What can I say? Nonsense is good for everyone!

Smiles and Sunshine,
Kaitlyn

Did I Do It?

I've been spending some time exploring new blogs (to me!), and going back and reading their older posts (doesn't everyone do that?! :), when I saw Jess' Back to School linky from last year-which reminded me of my post!

I thought it would be fun for me to repost my goals, and see if I actually met them!

Here were my goals for last year:

Here's how I did!

Personal: I definitely succeeded with this one! I hardly ever brought any work home with me, and though I did some unit creating, it didn't consume my life nearly as my as it did last year!

Organizing: Well, my math centers were sorted into domain bins.

Here are the binders that hold the copies of the centers.

I didn't get them organized by individual strand (but hey! at least their organized by domain!).

I also didn't use them this year! With piloting and everything, it all fell by the wayside. So, they are as organized as I left them. Maybe half-succeeded on this one?!

Planning: Hmmmm. Well, I definitely did more with the CC than I did the year before....but I definitely wasn't always planned three days in advance!

My planbook usually looked like this! ELA was almost always planned for the week, Science or Social Studies nearly so, but Math was planned on a day to day basis, depending on how the lesson went!

 I usually had everything planned at least a day in advance-and almost always before the day started :) Although, I did get very lazy by the end of school-but you don't need to see that picture ;)

Professional: This did happen! My teamies and I went to Lucy Calkins together, and we also recently completed a 2-day workshop at our local historical society. I also went to a so-so Guided Math workshop on my own.

Piloting definitely happened, and we had lots of math meetings and discussions. We'll be working in our first year of our new program-Math in Focus, so we'll have more trainings on that as well.

Students: I hope they had fun and learned a lot- I can say that the ABSOLUTELY LOVED Mentor Sentences (thanks Jivey!), when I asked them what their favorite thing was 90% of them said that! (And they definitely think I should do it again next year!)

I had some interesting kiddos this year-but for all the trouble this kiddo gave me-he also came the farthest, and made such an impression on me (and I on him! He said I was his favorite teacher, and if anyone told me I wasn't a great teacher-I shouldn't listen to them :).

Motto: What can I say? I still think nonsense and fantasy are necessary things in everyday life! :D

So, all in all, I didn't do too shabbily! I think reflecting on this was one of my better ideas (pats self on back) :), because I can see where I need to make improvements, and I'm now gearing up for next year! I think it helped wipe the slate clean, and made me think of how I want to change and improve for next year!

Smiles and Sunshine,
Kaitlyn

Wild Selections

Ready for some Wild Reading?

Brought to you by:
Here's some wild selections!

I think I would like to try the 40 book challenge this year (put into that third section of their notebooks with the trackers and refection). I might guide their independent reading selections with some genre requirements, but it will definitely be to choose what you would like.

Has anyone else do the 40 book challenge with their class? How did go? Any suggestions?

Smiles and Sunshine,
Kaitlyn

PS. I've just recently noticed some trouble with Yahoo! disappearing the blogger comments I get emailed to me.  If you've commented on my last few posts and I haven't replied (and you're not a no-reply blogger), I'm sorry! Yahoo! thinks I don't need to see your comments-which is unfortunate to them! I happen to think that all your comments are important. I've switched over to gmail, so hopefully this won't happen again!

Monday Made It

Craftiness ahead!

I have some more paintings.

I did this one with my sister~it was interesting to see our differences!

One of my very favorites!

The next one I did was a redo-I didn't love the way it came out when I originally did it, so I went to an Open Studio time to see if I could do better-and I did!

New Version

Original

 Right now, most of my paintings are lying on the floor-they're being furniture placeholders!

I'm getting a dining table and a chair, so I have the paintings laid out when I want them (with almost the correct dimensions!) so I can get used to the new traffic flow-hopefully to save me on some leg bruises!

This way, I'll be used to avoiding the furniture by the time it finally arrives! 


I've also been working on my Planbook for next year! It worked fairly well for me this year, so I'm just tweaking it a bit for next year (plus updating fonts and colors :)

So far, I have all my monthly calendars done-complete with PD days, vacations and days off!

I'm waiting for a certain someone's set 3 borders to go on sale before I finish the plan pages (Kelly B. I'm looking at you! :), but since I have almost two months of summer left, I'm not too concerned about it!

I've also been continuing my stash busting with another baby blanket-this one for a boy!

I'm about halfway there!


Smiles and Sunshine,
Kaitlyn

Wild Readers~Chapter 1

Ready for some Wild Reading?

Brought to you by:
My thoughts on Chapter 1!

And my Literacy Block:

 *EEKK- Elbow Elbow Knee Knee-Fancy way of saying partner reading :)

I'm definitely a wild reader (or a voracious one, as I prefer).

I'm thinking about how I can have my students be wild readers with a basal (that I really should follow, even though it's awful...), as well as meeting all their needs.

Right now, I only have 16 (I know!), but that will almost certainly change before school starts, and I'll be getting any new ones, as I have the lowest numbers. That will help with meeting their needs (although I'll be all by my lonesome next year, as I have no LC kids-bummer!)

It will be interesting to see how the class is, as of right now their reading levels span from O to V! I hope I can encourage some wild reading for each of them!

Are you a wild reader?

Smiles and Sunshine,
Kaitlyn

Historical Society Workshop

Oh. My. Word.

I just spent two days at one of the most interesting and informative workshops I have ever been to.

My teamies and I went to a workshop at our local historical society about the American Revolution in our area.

We learned SO much!

Not only was it about the resources they have and what primary sources can be used for in our classrooms, they also had sessions about things that most of us don't think about-like how was the experience for the Loyalists? the Slaves? What the cause really was of the American Revolution (slavery had a big part to do with it-it wasn't necessarily about taxation without representation-more about local control-something that still pops up today!)

We also went to the local tavern (that's now a museum!) and learned about the family and what life was like. 

It was such a cool experience! (Plus, my commute was only 5 minutes (that NEVER happens for workshops), it was only $40, plus I get PD credit, as well as credit to move on the pay scale (of course, it will be less than half an hour of pay scale credit-but not every district does this, and eventually, if I get up to 15 hours, I can slide over :)

Check out all the information we learned about!

Some information is classified and has been redacted :)

I HIGHLY recommend that you check out your local historical society. They probably have things for teachers (ours has some Wonder Boxes (hands on) in addition to lesson plans), as well as workshops for you!

They're also a good resource if you are doing your own genealogy, as well as having some (probably) fascinating information about where you live!

Smiles and Sunshine,
Kaitlyn

Summer Professional Reading

Happy Friday! (Although days aren't super important when it's summer and you're not working yet! :)

I received a very fun package today...professional books! (Thank you Amazon Prime!!-I ordered these late Tuesday night!)

Pathways to Common Core was a freebie I got at the Lucy Calkins workshop in January, but I haven't read it yet.

I found the Making Thinking Visible book through this pin:
Which led me to this site

Which had the book! I really curious to see how this would work-I've skimmed a bit and it looks like an interesting read-heavier at times, but useful!

And, of course, I had to pick up Donalyn Miller's new book-I enjoyed The Book Whisperer and can't wait to see was she has to say! (Best part-I got it used! And fulfilled by Amazon!)

In addition to my new reads, there are some old reads that I will be going back to this summer.

As you can see-there is a clear emphasis on small group work and writing (with a little math thrown in!).

I really want to map out my writing curriculum this summer- so I have some idea what is going on (I usually fly by the seat of my pants :), as well as giving the students a clear, logical writing instruction that builds upon itself.

You'll also notice a focus on Guided Reading. Most of my students are reading near or at a 4th grade level-so the strategies I learned to teach Guided Reading in the younger grades doesn't necessarily apply. I want to get a better handle on it, so I really feel like I am teaching the students rather than just going over a book with them.

Of course, I'll also be spending some time with this:

Since we're starting with it in the fall!

Now, there will be plenty of fun reading in there-I read voraciously, as well as fairly quickly, so I should have plenty of time to read everything! :)

What reads are on your list?

Smiles and Sunshine,
Kaitlyn