Classroom Library

  Last year with it being my first year in the classroom, I feel like I have quite a few things that I want to do better - or organize better in my classroom.  My library is one of the BIG things I wanted to change and make better.  I didn't feel like my students used it, or really enjoyed the books in there and granted I didn't have much of a choice when it came to the books in there.  The teachers who I'm teamed up with were wonderful and gave me books that they had in their classroom that they didn't use so that I had a little bit to start with, and throughout the summer at garage sales I bought some more. But, those books that the other teachers had given me were older and I noticed throughout the year that my students just were not into them - they didn't enjoy reading them and were not taken from the library very often.

  I picked way too many genres for my library, and it was kind of closed off in our classroom instead of the "open" feel like I wanted it.  For a while, my kids would have to be reminded to book shop instead of begging me to do so. Don't get me wrong - they loved to read, and we built up a ton of stamina when it came to reading. They progressed wonderfully throughout the year.  But, I wanted my library to be an inviting place that they begged to go to or sit in.

At the end of the school year, I packed up all my library books and put it on my "Summer To-Do" list to re-categorize, label, and go through all the books in my library. It took me two days - which isn't so bad honestly - to go through all of the books that I had taken home with me.  I ended up with this big of a laundry basket full of books that I didn't want to use anymore.

I was incredibly surprised with how many of the books were so outdated and old. I was extremely happy that I was able to get rid of so much.  I felt like this was something I could finally do this year as Scholastic Book Orders and Book Fairs helped me build up my classroom library a ton last year.  My little peanuts raised so much money for both of our book fairs for our classroom and our wonderful PTA was able to give us some money as well. I am grateful for my go-getters last year and the parents that make our school rock. I'm planning on letting the new first grade teacher look through the basket and then I'm not sure what will happen to them. They're not a part of my library anymore, so I don't particularly want to keep them around.

After the sorting of good vs. bad books, I had to put them into categories.  I don't level my classroom library by level - I want my kids to love to read and learn to pick books for themselves instead of going simply by a level.  This year, I plan to have 3 baskets that are labeled by color that will have leveled books in them. The kids will get a color on a card in their book bin, so that they have a basket that they KNOW are good fit books for them. My kiddos last year were awesome at choosing good fit books for them and I'm hopeful that this year will be the same.  I did the rest of my labeling my genre or topic. I made my own library bin labels because I couldn't find any I liked that I could customize to my library and my style. Here's a picture of what those look like.

I really like them - and I don't feel like there's too many of them for the kids to get overwhelmed by.  Once I picked my topics, I had to go through all of my books and categorize them which left me with a back bedroom that looks like this - yikes.

The books have notecards on them to help me remember which group is which.  I ended up with 19 genre groups, and then 3 leveled baskets, and 1 magazine basket. I took the picture and the label from the basket labels that I made, and put them into smaller avery labels.  I printed them onto avery labels and then plan to stick them onto the books.  This way my kids will know which basket they belong in for easy storage after they read them.  I put the books back for them last year, but I'm planning on doing a system where they put them back themselves after they read them.  Crossing my fingers it works.  All I have left to do is laminate the book bin labels, and place the labels onto the books and my library will be complete and turn into something that I love.

Onto the next project next week - haven't picked one yet but I'm guessing it will be finishing up my substitute and teacher binders.  Also, good news! The Kids Inc summer program is moving out of our classrooms next week and moving to the other side of the building which means that my classroom will be open for me to go and work in it in around 2 weeks. I am excited and I  know the husband is too so that I get all the stuff our of our back bedroom. :) It's sooner than expected and it will be nice to start playing around with the set up and organization.

Until next time.

Cancun Escapades & Airport Sleeping

Whew!  It feels so good to be back home and into a normal routine again.  While our trip to Cancun was incredible, there is honestly nothing better than sleeping in your own bed again.  We left on June 7th for a nice getaway trip to Cancun for a week.  We've been to Cancun 3 times before - last year I chose to go there for my graduation trip, and two years before that we went together for spring break and it was my first time out of the country.  We love how safe Cancun is for visitors, and we really enjoy vacations where all you do is lay on the beach and relax all week.  When we were planning this trip, we thought we might actually do something adventurous this time - however, with myself being a teacher and Ryan being the Creative Arts Director at our church in town, we are adventurous everyday so we literally needed a week to be lazy and non-adventerous.  Not only was it a time for us to relax and refresh ourselves, but also a time for us to reconnect as a couple.  The last month of school was so crazy for myself and Ryan's job has him busier than anyone in his department so we really didn't see each other much in the month of May.  It made us feel like we were "dating" again being on the trip. We'd get dressed up for dinner, and literally enjoy each other's company.  I'm so lucky to be married to my best friend. He's the best.

Our days mostly consisted of waking up and going to get breakfast and then spending the rest of our days on the beach - I was able to finish 2 books while I was down there and do some teacher reading as well.  I love to read, but can't usually find the time or energy during the school year.  I read The Fault in Our Stars, as well as the second book in the Divergent series - Insurgent.  If you haven't read either of these I would highly recommend them.  They are both fabulous and nice little mind getaways. I also was able to read a few chapters in my Words Their Way book. Our district started Words Their Way last year for our "word work" time to get rid of weekly spelling tests.  I was familiar with it as my cooperating teacher (who was incredible by the way) used it during the time I was student teaching in her classroom.  I didn't actually take the time to invest my time into it like I would have liked to last year.  My kids did individualized and differentiated sorts and daily word work, but I never felt like I really had a grasp on it.  My kiddos did make progress so I'm hoping that what I did last year and reading more about it this summer will prepare me better for it next year. We were able to get an upgrade to a suite our second day there.  From our understanding, a water line had broken in the hotel and so when we went to take a shower we still had some water pressure, but not a ton.  When Ryan jumped in the shower, he got to putting shampoo in his hair before the water turned green and black.  Not exactly how you want to finish your shower.  We called down to the front desk and they are able to upgrade us as well as give us a spa credit. I told Ryan it was worth him having to finish showering with a bottle of water. We traveled down the street to the mall while we were in Cancun twice just to get out of the hotel for a little bit, but other than that we mostly stayed in our resort.  It was all-inclusive so we swam, ate, watched movies, and relaxed for 7 days.  Wonderful I tell you.  I would high recommend the LiveAqua if you are staying in Cancun. It's an adults only resort and totally worth every penny. We got a few massages in as well while we were there - basically, you're treated like royalty.  Loved it.

The day before we left we had a nice little decoration on our bed - they did little things like this everyday when we were there.  One night we walked in after dinner and found rose petals that stretched from our door to the bed, as well as little candles lit everywhere. They truly like to make your experience memorable. They must have had a sense that our trip would not be the greatest on 

the way home - and boy were they right. We were set to leave Cancun at 1:30 and land in Minneapolis airport around 6:00.  This was going to give Ryan and I plenty of time to get through customs and immigration in order to catch our connecting flight home at 10:00.  Well, there were terrible storms in the area (South Dakota, Minnesota, Nebraska - literally everywhere.)  So we didn't actually land in Minneapolis until 7:00 and then we had to wait in the airplane for a spot for us to open up to get off the plane which took a half hour.  The airport was so backed up.  We didn't actually think we were going to get to our flight in time because the line through customs and immigration was terribly long.  Way out the door.  Awful I tell you.  Luckily we made it to our connecting flight with a half hour or so to spare, and they weren't taking off on time either. I told my husband "perfect! let's grab some food and hang out before we head home tonight!"  

Back up though - we didn't get home that night.  We got onto our flight at 10:30 and literally had to wait in line behind 50 planes in order to take off.  But, we never did take off because by the time the storms had weaned off a little in order for us to take off, our pilots time in the air had "clocked out" and it was illegal for him to go anymore tonight.  From my understanding, they can only take 12 hours of actual in flight time during the day. So, after sitting on the runway for an hour and fifteen minutes, they dropped us back off at the terminal and said "have a good night!  there's mats down the hallway, you're flight leaves in the morning."  But, it was so nice of the airport people to say "It could leave in the morning, it could leave earlier. We don't even know!" - sense my sarcasm?  You can imagine my frustration.  So, our flight was delayed until 5:45am, but the Delta people told is that it could take off any time depending when they could get a flight crew.  So, Ryan and I grabbed some cots (just mats on the floor that daycare kids would sleep on) and had to spend the night in the airport.

It was miserable. That's all I can say. The airport lights never turned off, they didn't take our luggage off the plane so I couldn't brush my teeth or anything, and the TV's in the terminal stay loud and on all.night.long.  Our plane took off at 6:30 the following morning (see, still late from the original time) and we got back home around 8:00.  We picked up our puppy from the kennel and went straight to bed.  Sunday was just a catch up day for us. We did some laundry, slept, went grocery shopping, and tried to watch some of the shows on our DVR.  What an adventure.

Needless to say, I am glad that we are back to normalcy around here.  Ryan and I both went back to work at the church on Monday (I'm working their part-time during the summer) and then yesterday I was able to go swimming with my Goddaughter and her mom who happens to be my best friend. It was so good to see them again.  Love my little sweet God baby and her mom is seriously the best.  So glad our husbands became such good friends so that we had a chance to do the same.  The rest of the week will be spent getting ready for husbands birthday on Friday, and doing a few school summer things. Half day of work today, and still cleaning up from our trip.  Thankful for quiet time with Jesus and a cup of coffee to get the day going.

Until next time.

Writing Workshop

  We will be off to Cancun in 4 days - 4 DAYS I tell you.  I could not be more excited to spend my mornings with a cup of coffee on the beach and a husband at my side. We are staying for a whole week at a hotel on the strip and are SO excited to be reconnecting with each other. We are praying for nice weather since right now it is currently tropical storming in Cancun - but the forecast looks promising.  With that being said, I have been busy this last week :)

 Since last year was my first year teaching, I felt like I was really just getting a "grasp" on everything. I didn't fully feel like I could commit myself to one subject because then all the rest would fall through since I've never worked through them all before. However, I felt really confident in reading since I have a minor in it, and I also felt pretty confident in math. I had the district math coach come a few times to help me with my CGI questioning but after those few visits I felt really confident to teach math. Writing on the other hand - don't judge me but it was awful. My kids were incredible writers at the end of the year (thank goodness) - but I really don't know how. I felt like I was drowning when it came to writing. I didn't even know really were to begin. I knew I wanted the Lucy Writing Workshop feel but I didn't really know what that really "looked like".  Sure, we talked about writing in college but not in depth like I would have liked - and I took it my sophomore year so by the time I got to my own classroom I had forgotten a lot. Luckily, our district has plenty of classes offered over the summer and one of them was for writing workshop. I could have jumped out of my chair when my dear friend emailed me to tell me about the class, and then to top it all off I could have jumped and screamed when I found out who was teaching the class.  So, my friend Kate and I decided we would tackle the class together. Kate is a first year teacher as well at another school and she teachers second grade.  We went to school together and became super close our senior year of and literally have been the best of friends ever since.  She is an incredible teacher and we love to build each other up in our adventures in the classroom. 

The class at first was incredibly overwhelming. There was so much information to process that first day that I didn't fully grasp everything.  The class was two days long and after that second day I had to just put the bag with all of the information and resources aside until I was able to process through it again.  Well, that day was today. I went back and looked through everything and finally feel like I am able to share a few things! 

Our district is using the Lucy Calkins Common Core Writing next year and our school has bought a guide for each teacher.  I actually kind of went through it last year during our opinion writing but didn't commit to it like I would have liked too.  This year, we are using it as a building and hopefully our team can dig through it and make the most of the lessons.  Her lessons are very long and don't really fit into the "mini lesson, writing time, sharing, conferencing" outline that I would like to do.  I'm planning on taking each lesson day by day and possibly splitting them up into multiple days.
 
Mini lesson are something that I struggled with alllll year.  I didn't really think I was doing my students justice. I didn't feel like I was teaching them what they needed at the time but instead just guessing and knowing that they would need it sometime (just maybe not right now).  And, I didn't think about what to use for it.  Mentor texts were always something I wanted to do, but not something I took the time to plan or investigate.  At this workshop however she gave us a plethora of mentor texts that she has used and thanks to Amazon, and friends with Prime a lot of them are coming  to my door for next year.  I plan on making a running list of standards or topics that each mentor text could work for - in writing and in reading - so that they can be used in multiple settings.  Some of the books I wouldn't have thought could work for a writing objective, but a lot of the things you need to teach at the beginning of writing workshop (procedures, routines, tools, publishing, etc.) can be taught through a mentor text and mid year last year I knew that my writing workshop time was not something I was proud of.  Next year, I plan to actually scope and sequence my quarters and months so that we spend a good amount of time in establishing those routines. I want to introduce writing folders (that I will need to make and will blog about eventually), writing toolkits, paper choice, and how to use a writing partner.

Conferencing is something I didn't feel I did my kids justice with this year either. Are you seeing a pattern yet? ;) They would get a writing goal but I didn't plan it out enough so that I could see them once a week and meet about that goal.  Some of them had goals for 3 weeks before we would meet again. This had something to do with my schedule as well - I didn't fully commit to that hour of writing workshop a day. And, it was hard to incorporate our district standards with the writing workshop of Lucy before this set came out.  That is something next year that I promise myself I will do. Even if it has to be split up, I will make sure they get at least 30 minutes of independent writing time a day.  Of course at the beginning of the year we have to build up stamina but eventually we will have that half hour a day.  Next year, I plan to meet with my kids at the beginning of the year individually, and then slowly start putting them into writing groups where they come up once a week to the table (that group of 5-6 of them) and I conference individually with them while they work at the table. Table time is something first graders think is SO cool, and they really get excited about group. That way my students are right there, and I can make sure that they get the attention that they need.  This will be the time where they will turn in a piece to me to get published.  I'm going to type up their pieces and then the following day they will illustrate them, and then put them in their writing scrapbook that will be made for them.

As I start putting things together - my writing toolkits, my writing scrapbooks, my writing folders and resources, my mentor text library, etc. I will blog more about them and the process!  I'm thankful to be so excited about writing again and getting tips on how to manage everything.  I am hopeful that next year I can have even a better writing experience and my kids can value how fun and exciting writing can be for them.

Until next time.