Five Whole Brain Rules

These are my five whole brain rules. I have hand motions with them and the kids recite them each morning with a new student leading. I am on the third day of school and my students know them well enough that when one is broken they can point it out and recognize the offense and related it to the rule #.  Rule number 1 Follow directions quickly. Rule number 2 Raise your hand for permission to speak. Rule number 3 Raise your hand for permission to leave your seat. Rule number 4 Make smart choices. Rule number 5 Keep your dear teacher happy. I made the signs then framed them and hung them on the wall above my smartboard like pictures.  I have a link to a class reciting the WBT rules. It really works. Love whole brain teaching! Best teaching I have done in years. My students love it and the scoreboard is amazing! But that is another post! Stay tuned!          Whole Brain Rules

Contact Clipboards

My Clipboards were getting nasty (writing on them) after many years of use. I decided to cover them so I took to Pinterest to find out what everyone else was doing. I found people paper mache "ing", putting fabric on them and a host of many other materials. It all seemed like a lot of work to me. Soooo I went in search of contact paper. Thought it would be easier. I was right. Took hardly anytime at all! I bought this dotted contact paper at Staples for about 3.24 a roll. One roll did about 8 to 10 clipboards. I then added some green and blue ribbon to the top and look how nice! It gets a little tricky above the clip but I figured out a way to patch it in first then hold the clip open, start the contact paper on the back and pull it around the clipboard pulling the backing off as I turn the board. Within about 2 minutes I had it done! I was surprised that it didn't wrinkle. Easy to work with! Love it!

Crate Bookshelves, Baskets, Plastic Plates and Socks

 

So I made the crates that I saw on Pinterest (I would give credit to whoever began them but I saw them everywhere and don't know who to credit!) It was surprisingly easy....not always what I find when I take off on a Pinterest craft wave. The hardest part was finding the crates all one color. I went with the blue crates from Walmart because they interlock. Now with that said the interlock is not stable enough for a classroom full of 7 year olds. I took zip ties and secured them. They are incrediblye stable now! I bought the green baskets at the Dollar Store. Two per crate. The baskets were $24.00 total and the creates were a little under $40.00 so it wasn't a cheap project however I created more bookshelf space in my room and it matches my color scheme! I use it for my students to keep their fluency books in it as well as their "whiteboards" markers and "erasers" and their data notebooks. I say "whiteboards" because this year they are writing on plastic plates. I bought a pack of 50 for $3.00. I then bought socks (Turbo the new kid movie out) for erasers. Last year I bought those cute little paddle whiteboards and they are just shot. They were expensive and now they look awful. The plates won't bother me if they are ruined they were cheap! I was surprised at how well this works with expos and how easy the sock cleans it! I chose blue plates and found that only red shows up well on it. The white plates would be a better option for you to be able to see but you know blue matches my room ;) The bookshelf fits perfect under my Smartboard. It was a great project, took very little time to complete. Quick and easy! It's the first thing someone notices when they walk in and they always say they love it and ask how I did it.

Behavioral Chart

So here is my behavior chart this year. It is the standard clip up clip down chart. I decided rather than the colored laminated paper with clothes pins like most of us use to do, I painted it right on my cabinet. The old clunky metal cabinet. I then bought some little hand buttons and glued magnets to the back. I put each child's number on the hands so I can use them year after year. I "pay" my students for their leadership jobs, good days, and for moving up the chart for being on task etc. So the chart above shows the money they get paid. This adding of the coins is a standard for us. Students can "bank" their money with the banker and then once a month they get to "shop" and buy things like lunch with our janitor (a class favorite), free homework passes, perform for the class, 5 minutes extra recess........  and many more non junky trinket items. At the end of the day, students record their color on a calendar in their homework binder that goes home to parents to sign.

Finished Classroom!

Well, it is done! The classroom! I still have things I need to do that I like (labeling student books, cubbies) you know the organization piece that keeps you sane when you fellow teacher comes in and says, "I need one small googly eye. Do you have one?" But other than that I have the room complete. I am going to post all the photos here then will do a separate post (in my free time) about each picture and the project with how tos. Just give me some times as school starts Monday! Ekkkk!

Blog Hoppin'

I am participating in Blog Hoppin' Teacher Week 13! For Monday you are to tell about yourself so here are 10 things you may or may not know about me!

10. I have been a camp counselor, dance instructor, girl scout executive, Ms. Charleston Showbiz, Director of a Boys and Girls Club, Assistant Principal and teacher!

9. I teach 2nd grade. I have taught headstart, 2.3.4.5 and college!

8. The most students I have had was 27 second graders including the first student in my area to have a service dog.

7. I was in a classroom during 911 in the DC area.

6. I was in a classroom during the sniper of VA period. Scariest thing I have ever experienced.

5.  I love to create assessments!

4. I have been teacher of the year and Walmart's teacher of the year!

3. I won a trip to Disney in a contest!

2. I have three beautiful children: a 21 year old and 18 year old twins who go off to college in one week!

1. I married my best friend from Jr. High School. I have known him since I was 13.

Whole Brain Reading!

This is my class working on a Brain Break from Whole Brain Reading. Throughout the day I would break and give them one minute to work on sight words or math facts. The goal was for the partner groups to read or say the facts as fast as they could trying to beat their previous score. The kids love it and their reading and math aromaticity improved dramatically! As you can see from the video they are ALL engaged. In fact not one student noticed me tapping. I put the timer on my Smartboard and for one minute they read or shout out facts. I partnered a high with a low and took personalities into consideration. I would break anywhere from 3 to 6 times a day. Usually when they were getting squirmy or not paying attention or for a transition. I have had several evaluators marvel at how engaged and how fast my students move from one lesson to the next.

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Enjoying the Journey: Why Teaching Is So Doggone Hard

 I really enjoyed this post from a fellow teacher. Thank you!

Enjoying the Journey: Why Teaching Is So Doggone Hard: It’s almost here, fellow teachers.  Like it or not, we will wake up Monday morning much earlier than our summer sleep schedules are acc...

In Response to another Blog "Why teaching is so darn hard"

I read a blog post that was very elegantly worded about these last few weeks of getting the room ready for school. As a reply a man named Zach, who gave himself such "accolades" as Democrat, Master’s Degree, Southern white male, votes for several causes, hates whiny bullcrap; bashed teachers. I was so appalled by his “bullcrap” he wrote, about how easy teachers have it with having summers off and great working hours that I wrote a reply only to be told it was too many characters to post so here it is on my blog. Are there truly people out there who have no clue what we do? It isn’t that we are complaining; ask a teacher if they love their students. We all do. You would not believe what we do for them and let’s face it; we stay in the business for the children. Here is my reply to Zack:

Zach, I sit here at 5:30am on a Sunday two weeks before school starts with my Master's, two Bachelors, an Associates and have worked as an Executive in the private sector, I am creating documents for my incoming class this morning and have been for the last three weeks night and day much to my family's dismay. I am the chair teacher in charge of six other teachers. I have endless meetings after school every day but one. I do not get paid for this. I work Monday through Thursday 6:30am to 4:00pm (that includes my meetings and Friday 6:30am to 3:30pm.)

 On Saturdays I go into work for 4 hours to set up for the next week. I spend on the average $700.00 a year on my students out of pocket. I attend at the least 12 evening events throughout the year that gets me home around 9:00pm AFTER working my regular work day.

 I have taken in students and families of students to live with me over my 13 years of teaching (one’s mother was arrested for drugs and she came to me and asked me to take her child while she went to jail and rehab) I have taken in children and their families who lost their homes to foreclosure, divorce, abuse, and fire.  I myself have a family and children. I make fewer than $50,000 a year with my degrees and am required to continue my education with a total of 120 additional hours in five years ON MY OWN TIME.

 I spend my summers working a host of jobs because teaching does not afford me to send my own children to college. I spend at least 2 hours an evening and most evenings 4 hours grading papers and filling out paperwork required of me that I cannot fill out during the work hours because I am busy teaching students.

 I do not get a pee break. I get one break a day for 40 minutes at 1:10pm to pee and eat. (Let’s remember that I have been in the building since 6:30am) After I drop my students off, talk to any of the following about a troubled student: counselor, principal or interventionist and then go pick them back up, I may get a 20 minute break. That is IF I am not in training, I.E.P., parent conference or evaluation meeting. Yes, they are planned on my break time so that a sub is not required.  NO, I do not get a lunch break for I eat with the children who in that 20 minutes need things opened and most often do not handle the time wisely and I must intervene. I spend my lunch with at the least 200 screaming 5 to 7 year olds.

I most often have 20 to 32 students in my room. The average year gives me 25 squirming seven year olds.  I become their everything: teacher, mother, father, nurse, counselor, and friend. I must teach them an ever changing curriculum, be held accountable if they do not pass the state standardized test all the while being evaluated at the least once every two weeks by a host of many people from my principal, reading specialist, math specialist, a panel of leadership team members, district office personnel and the host of anyone who would like to come and watch me teach from parents to community residents. I am also given new teachers to train on the job from the local colleges and high school students to introduce to teaching who are enrolled in career courses. Each comes with mounds of paperwork.

I am expected to call and conference with parents on a regular bases and schedule all those appointment times (on average I meet with at least 30 sets to accommodate children with two sets of parents) and this is AFTER my work hours and again I do not get paid for this. In addition I am to find a service learning project to support with my students. I organize events and collect money and complete races, runs, walks, skates to support organizations such as cancer research.

I lived through 911 and the sniper of VA with students. I held crying children in locked downed rooms while we got the news of 911. I had students whose parents were in the Pentagon when it was hit. I used my body as did all my fellow colleagues, as a shield to make lines on the bus ramp so that we could get the students in and out of the building during the sniper. I spent weeks in a room with 27 students who came in each morning to tell about the shooting at the Michael’s Craft store the one I just went to the night before. I practice hiding my students in my room in the dark while administration shakes my door handle loudly to resemble intruders in the building all the while keeping those squirming seven years olds calm and quiet.

So Zach, come walk in my shoes.  You have no idea what it is like to be a teacher or a spouse of a teacher who gets talked into coming to school for community service day, spend their evenings running around to football games, baseball games, softball games, dance recitals, of children they do not know.  Or gets calls to meet at school to move, lift, hang, create a host of many objects to make children an atmosphere that all children can feel safe and open for learning.

I chose this profession. I do not complain or moan about it. I love it. I endure the low pay and the long hours. I do it because it is an important job. I do not belittle other professions nor am I saying mine is more important or harder than anyone else’s. I understand that other professions have their ups and downs as well.  I get to spend my days with the most amazing people. Children. I laugh every day and my “co-workers” hug me as they leave, thank me and tell me they love me. I do it for them. I am making a difference one child at a time one day at a time. 

A Sale and a Give Away!

 
I am busily working on my classroom! At the moment I am scanning and getting lexile numbers for my books. Big job! When my room is set up and ready I will take pictures and post. In the meantime, I have a SALE! Go to either sites TPT or Teachers Notebook. I have a sale at both and some free give away contests!

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/Common-Core-Toolbox

http://www.teachersnotebook.com/shop/CommonCoreToolbox

Enjoy the stores while I work on my room! In the words of Arnold, "I will be back"

Clone my Teacher!

So I had an idea, actually it was an old idea updated, and I wrote a grant. I use to back in the day (okay now I am dating myself) tape record myself every Sunday night teaching a lesson. It was usually a making words lesson......"spell cat....c...a...t  what letter would you change to make hat? Pause h....a....t  hat. " My students would gather around the tape player with headsets and mini chalkboards (again dating myself) and would complete the lesson in groups of five while I worked with a group and the rest of the class was silent reading. It was a great tool! I could be in two places at once and teach two lesson at once reaching twice as many kids in a small group setting. By spring I was getting major creative and saying things like......"Now boys and girls please pay attention I see you squirming around." and they would look at me. hahahaaa! Sometimes I would say, "If you know what letter you would change clap once." My favorite comment of all times was one spring a child said to me, "You know that lady on the tape? She sounds exactly like you." hahahaha! Anyhoo, the point is I was doubling my efforts and it was great! I decided to bring it  back this year.

I haven't used it yet as I got my grant for 25 MP3 players in the spring and decided to play with it this summer. I begin using them this month when school starts but I am ready! I have recorded my spelling practice lessons. I have recorded my lessons for reteach. I have music to listen to as they work. I have stories to listen to and respond. I have videos to watch about grammar and history. I have the basic math facts. I have sight words.  And I am working on ideas of other things I can tape for my students! Each student will have one and they are attached to a lanyard. As soon as I dig out my camera (okay yes it is in the bottom of a filing cabinet at school) I will take some pictures of students using them and post. I know the concept works! It was one of my favorite tools. I will keep you updated on the status of Clone my Teacher! I am very excited about it! Please email or comment on any ideas you have about how to use them and if anyone else is using them. I found very little out there on the web about ways to use them in the classroom other than what I was already doing years ago.

Mrs. Fields' Cookies

Okay with a name like Mrs. Fields (it's a new name for me for the beginning of the year) what else would I give as a treat for Open House/Meet the teacher night????? . . . . . . .Yup cookies!! I find it funny that my name is Mrs. Fields and keep waiting for the cookie jokes but they never come. Guess Mrs. Fields' Cookies isn't a big deal like it was when I was a teen. Anywho, I decided that instead of a pencil or some other random treat to give my kids that they won't remember, I am going to make them a big homemade cookie! I made a little poem and cut it out to put as a topper  for the cookie bags. Here is the little poem below. I will take pictures of the cookies the night before my open house when I make them and edit the post with the added pictures. Just thought you might want the poem now so you too can do cookies for your class! 

 I hope you enjoy this cookie made from scratch,
You’re one smart cookie, the best out of the batch!
Our year will be sweet, sprinkled with lots of fun,
I’m so glad you’re in our class each and every one!
Cookie made with love from your teacher,