Reflect & Refresh ~ Part 2

It's time for the second part of the Reflect and Refresh linky with Mrs. D's Corner and Terrific Teaching and Learning!

The second part is what we want to do for the new school year.

Communication 

I really want to try Remind with my class this year, and continue to write positive notes in the agenda-and keep up with it! Maybe if I made myself a schedule...

Organization/Management 

I'm a pretty organized soul, so I want to focus a little more on management this year.

I've been thinking about how I want my classroom to run, and realized that I want to go back to my Responsive Classroom roots.  I use a lot of the components of RC, but have gone away from the logical consequences part.

After reading Learn Like a Pirate (so good, btw!), and reading this post from Starr Spangled Planner, I realized that I'm tired of 'rewarding' behavior that I expect them to do (plus, our kids are very good and well-mannered).

So I'm hoping to give them more responsibility, and through feedback, deal with situations. I'm also planning on having the kids come up with the consequences (like we do our rules), so they have more ownership of their behavior and choices. Here's hoping it works!

Content

I want to make better use of entrance and exit slips-which will help me differentiate better!

I also want to give Genius Hour a try (although where I'm going to find the time is another thing!), so that all kids feel smart and an expert in things.

Summer Project

I was able to organize most of my math manipulatives (here and here), but I needed more, and then I had a slight mishap with the shelves falling off the wall (which as far as I know, isn't fixed yet! > : (

I'm continuing to work on my math project-and I'm done with the quick checks for each chapter! (I finished last night! Boo-yah!)

Next, is the entrance/exit slips for each lesson-we'll see how far I get before school starts!

Definitely a lot of things to try and look forward to this year-we'll see how it goes!

Smiles and Sunshine,
Kaitlyn

Monday Made It

My free Mondays are slowly dwindling down-time to kick the creating into high gear!

I finished up mapping the Math in Focus lessons for my grade, so I started working on the rest of my project.

I think I bit off more than I can chew!

My original goal was to create entrance and exit slips for each lesson, accompanying task cards, video lessons and quick checks for each chapter.

Yeah, that's a lot.

So right now, I am focusing on the quick checks!

I decided to do 3-4 assessments for each chapter, all having the same types of problems, so we can see the growth from beginning to end-and have a mid-chapter check if needed!

This chapter only has 3 because I was DONE fiddling around with the graphs! :)

Next, I think I'm going to work on the entrance/exit slips. I decided to do 3 for each lesson-as some lessons take more than one day, and the skills can be scaffolded (so my higher kids could get a 3-star one and the lower kids a 1-star one).

I like doing the entrance/exit slips together because I can take the exit slip from the previous day and make it the next day's entrance slip :)

End of Day 1 Exit

Formats start of Day 2!

I feel comfortable working on the task cards during the school year, so if I don't get to them before the year starts-that's fine. I've also purchased a lot of others! :)

I'm putting the videos on the back burner for right now-I don't know if I'll have the tech to implement it, so I'm not going to start something that won't be used!

I wrote up a table of contents for my planning guide (hey-if I'm going to make a the kids write in a table of contents for everything, I should have one too! ;)

Yes, I know it says Speaking & Speaking-it's been fixed and reprinted :)

This way, there will be a 'division' between the cover of the guide and the cover for my ELA map.

I also took the Common Core standards and typed them up horizontally. I had them vertically, but everything else in the planner is horizontal.

Of course, I had to make them pretty :)

I also included the Next Gen Science standards-although I don't know if we are switching to that or not (I do think we will be in the near future), my intention is to keep this planning guide for a few years and not have to remake it every year.

We recently had to hire an upper-grade teacher in my building and I was on the interview committee. We found someone who we think will be awesome, and will bring some great things to our school.

Since I know very well what it is like coming into a new school/district, and that I've already met her and she's on my floor, I put together a little welcome basket for her.

I picked up the basket at the Dollar Tree, and then raided Target's dollar spot and back to school section for the rest!

I think I may have gone overboard getting a 'Welcome to -' gift for our new upper grade teacher🙊...I hope she likes it! 😝 #newteachers #teachergift #teachersofinstagram #teachersfollowteachers #iteachtoo

A photo posted by Smiles & Sunshine (@smilesandsunshineteacher) on Jul 29, 2015 at 2:31pm PDT

I tried to include some 'must haves', as well as some fun things!

Favorite pens, and Expos, post-it notes, thank you cards and some bookmarks!

I hope she likes it!

Have a wonderful week!

Smiles and Sunshine,
Kaitlyn

Currently

I can't believe it's August-only 3 weeks left until school starts!

Smiles and Sunshine,
Kaitlyn

What I'm Wearing Wednesday ~ Interviewer Edition

Happy Wednesday!

I was recently on an interview committee for a new upper grade teacher for our building (the person who had that job was promoted to principal in another district-great for them, sad for us).

This was my first time being on the other side of the table, so to speak, and I found the whole process very interesting!

I also struggled with what to wear! I wanted to look professional, but it's the middle of summer, so it's also quite hot-I don't have many 'hot-weather' professional outfits!

In the end, (with some help from some insta-peeps), I decided to wear what I would wear if I was going to an interview-or just a regular day at school! ;)

Since we had two days of interviews, I had two outfits!

We did two days of interviews-so, two outfits! I wore the polka dot dress (which was the clear winner!) on the warmer day. #teacherstyle #interviewer #whattheteacherwore #teachersofinstagram #teachersfollowteachers #iteachtoo

A photo posted by Smiles & Sunshine (@smilesandsunshineteacher) on Jul 27, 2015 at 1:12pm PDT

I did take off my school ID for the interviews-it's almost too hot to wear it!

I love both of these-the dress because it's easy, and the blue skirt with the black shirt because it's a little different-normally it would be a black skirt!

I also wore the blue and black outfit when I met with the superintendent for my current job-although I wore heels then (my shoe style has changed since then-and it's only been 4 years!)

I had fun at the interviews, and I enjoyed dressing up again-it almost makes me look forward to going back to school (almost-we have little less than a month left of summer!).

Smiles and Sunshine,
Kaitlyn

Monday Made It

I've been working hard on some things for my classroom-so picture overload warning ahead! :)

For my first made-it this week....


I customized my Target sign!

Since I like to set the rules with the kiddos, I wasn't a big fan of the follow the rules heading-but I liked the rest of it!

I thought I could make it better-and I did!

The first thing I did was to gather all of my tools.

Not pictured: The paint pens I used

Then I cut all the string off, so I could work with it easier.

and flipped over the arrow

and did a coat (or three!) of paint!

The paint is Martha Stewart's Craft Paint Pearl in Putting Green

Since I was changing what the arrow said, I also had to turn your into our for it to make more sense. I painted over that as well, and added an 's' with my paint pen.

 I was originally only going to do a few of the sayings in silver-but then I remember I had other colors {from years and years ago}, and thought it would look much cooler with other colors!

I did do 2-3 coats with the paint pens.

While the paint was drying, I went to my computer to type up what I wanted to put on the arrow-and brought it over so I could make sure that it would fit!

Now, I don't have a Silhouette or a Cameo or anything fancy like that-so I went old school.

Using a pencil!

I turned the paper over and rubbed my pencil of the back of the letters.

Then I flipped in over and 'centered' in on the arrow.

Then I took one of my smaller crochet hooks, flipped it over, and started 'tracing' the letters.

Since the back was covered in graphite, it left a faint impression-just enough for me to cover with my paint pen!

I slowly started tracing it with my paint pen, not wanting any paint explosions

But you know, accidents happen

Fortunately, it was an easy fix-just paint over it!

All better!

Once everything was dry, I started putting it back together.

I changed the top a little-I wanted a little bow on the top!

The best part-the follow the classroom rules is still there on the other side!

If I ever want to change it, I just have to cut the twine and fix it.

I love how it turned it!

Total cost for the project-$3-the cost of the sign-I had everything else!

I also completed my lesson planner for the next year! I had some hours to fill while waiting for my car to be fixed...

I changed how I did the calendars this year-which made it take longer!

Instead of doing a table and splitting the cells-I decided to do each date in circles!

It looks so cute! Since the days were so wonky with the dates as I had originally had them (I had a lot more Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesdays than I did Thursday, Friday, Saturdays), it was really throwing off the formatting.

Since I didn't really fill in the boxes the previous two years, I thought I could go with something smaller.

It also allowed me to add some extra clipart to each month-all fitting in with that month's theme of course!

I kept the format for the rest of the plans the same (I like to handwrite mine, and since things can change, I don't like having it typed out-I'm anal that way! ;)

I also added in the no school and PD days-helps me remember them {although, really, who forgets those days?!}

I've also started setting up my planning guide for the year. It will include curriculum maps, standards and helpful things for planning :)

Covers-I need to laminate them!

This is from the book Making Thinking Visible- a great read!

I also did two paintings! One was at the studio I normally go to, and the other was a surprise! My friend had tickets to do a paint nite with her daughter (the traveling one that goes to different restaurants), but her daughter had something to do at the last minute, so I got to go instead!

Studio Painting

Paint Nite Painting

I had fun with my friend (and we went out to dinner after), but I definitely prefer the studio painting experience-you get more colors and better instruction, as well as help if you need it.

Have a wonderful week!

Smiles and Sunshine,
Kaitlyn