First Day of School!!!!!

Welcome to Ms. Riddle's Class! I am so excited to be working with a GREAT group of kids. I am so thankful and blessed that I have an AMAZING group of students this year! I'm so pumped up and coming back to my old self! When everyday I seriously could not WAIT for the kids to come to school and sad to see them leave! I hope they like me, too, because they don't switch and have lovely me all day! My kids are pretty cool, so I think they'll like me too.

I was so nervous about being in a new school and new grade level today! With all the new rules, procedures, etc. I kept feeling that I forgot to do something! I will get used to it, and so will the students! I got so lost today as well...geez I think they purposely made our school a maze to get us critical thinking subconsciously! Oh, little tid-bit and idea I want to incorporate in the classroom. I want to include a cross word puzzle or some logic puzzle that will only take a few minutes at the end of the day. Does anyone know of a good site with kid friendly cross-words?

Today I started teaching the kids how to count in French! They were SUPER excited! Hopefully they will motivate me to do my lessons more often! Even a student that was very sad, scared, and nervous all morning perked up, sat up, and was even pronouncing the numbers as well!!!! I'm so thankful for my class. I also learned that I have a class of writers and artists! SO awesome! With that thought, I asked the third grade teachers from my old school if they would like to participate in doing pen pals! I always dreamed of having one when I was growing up!! And eventually I would like to Skype and the kids will be able to finally meet with each other and interact with each other! Wouldn't that be totally fabulous?

So excited about this wonderful school year!

B.O.Y. Craziness!!!!!

Numbness. That's about all my brain keeps telling me. I am so excited to be starting in a new school and I love how proactive my administrators and amazing team members are! HOWEVER, it still doesn't mean that I'm not so overwhelmed that I am just sitting like a bump on a log talking in circles or not talking at all! Integrating the new programs and ways of teaching is the most overwhelming. Second in line is BRAND new curriculum, all subjects. Yikes. But, the sun will rise regardless and I will continue to do my best to take in as much information as possible and do the best I can do for my students.

So we're supposed to integrate a new philosophy of teaching called P.E.A.K. (Performing Excellence for All Kids). I think PEAK is a great tool for teaching and will help students reach their own potential much quicker than other forms of teaching. BUT, it takes ALOT of time, planning, and collecting of materials for the teacher. There are 5 levels of exposure to information (conveniently related to weather!). First is the CLOUD. So just as a Cloud starts to form foreshadowing an upcoming storm, the information of an upcoming unit or new information is posted somewhere in the classroom(2-4 weeks prior to scheduled unit). Just as it is in real life, the SPRINKLE is next. There are brief references, activities, or thoughts 2-4 minutes long presented 2 weeks before the new material is scheduled. Next comes the SHOWER of 3-5 minute activities that can be used as movie "previews" or "commercial breaks" during transitions 1 week before the scheduled unit. The GENTLE SOAK is during the actual scheduled unit which includes whole group lessons, activities, projects, discussions, etc about the unit. The final DRIP, DRIP, DRIP of PEAK are the reteach small group or mini lessons, or reviews that occur up to 2 or 3 weeks after the unit has been taught.

LOVE the idea. Dislike practically needing to plan my whole year in the next three days before school starts. However, it WILL make me a stronger teacher and stop me from procrastinating :) Wish me luck!!

Smilebox! First Day of School All About Me

I happened to stumble upon a most glorious, FREE photo sharing website called Smilebox! It's AMAZING!!!! and FREE!!!! You can create scrapbooks, slideshows, invitations, NEWSLETTERS, and much more! It is very easy to use and the newsletter formats are so cute! Perfect to implement on blogs or to share with parents. Possibly a great idea for a gift from each student to their parents on Christmas???? You can email it, post it on a website such as facebook, blogger, twitter, etc,  burn it on a DVD, or print it! SO much to do! for free! Enjoy :)

A free scrapbook design by Smilebox

I Got a Job!

I have been looking for a job since January...and I FINALLY was offered a job last week!!!! I was very discouraged by all the cuts, but tried not to lose hope! I will now be teaching a self-contained 3rd Grade in a school MUCH larger than the one I first started in. My interview with the principal was more like a 2 hour awesome conversation with an amazing mentor teacher and long time friend! I cannot wait to start working for her because she is so excited and supportive of my abilities to teach ALL subjects in another new grade level! Hooray! I'm going to see my classroom today to get an idea of what I need to move from my old classroom. So excited to start the new school year!

Debbie Diller: Making the Most of Small Groups

I finally finished this book about a week ago...and loved it! I cannot wait to use her ideas, but mostly the lesson planning techniques I learned from the book.
5 Things I Learned from this Book:
1. Have an alphabetized box for anecdotal notes taken on students during small group to look back on.
2. Group students according to criteria chosen (Thankfully she provides criteria in an appendix!)
3. There are all kinds of lesson subjects you can choose to teach during small group (NOT just phonics...I know it seems obvious, but I just couldn't think of anything else to do with my kiddos in First Grade!)
4. Reflect on each small group lesson as soon as it's over! (So you don't forget!)
5. Actually write a lesson plan or guideline for a small group. Don't just wing it! (Is what you're doing REALLY driving mastery of the chosen objective?)

5 Things I LOVE About this Book:
1. She provides plenty of pictures to depict exactly what she means by a "small group folder" or "organized small group space."
2. A lesson plan template for each of the "five essential reading elements" is provided. (!!!!!!!!!!)
3. She has a table that has what to look for if a student needs support, prompts to ask students if they get hung up, and literacy work stations to help students apply their knowledge of a certain reading element. (Can it get any better or easier than that?????)
4. She provides research from SEVERAL sources of why each element is essential.
5. Very easy to read and understand, and LOVE the professional questions to think about at the end of each chapter!

I definitely would recommend this book to all teachers to refresh their memories or learn some new ideas to better educate their students!

NOW my dilemma: to read Debbie Miller's Reading with Meaning or Teaching with Intention. OR Debbie Diller's Literacy Work Stations...hmm....

The Daily 5

I'm dedicating the month of June to reading Professional Literature and going to LOTS of Workshops to get a base of how I want to run my classroom. In July, I'll start writing my lesson plans for the semester (since I already cleaned my room for the most part and arranged it the way I wanted the last 3 weeks of school!).  I just finished the book The Daily 5: Fostering Literacy Independence in the Elementary Grades by the Sisters, and it was awesome!!! I definitely am going to implement this structure in my classroom next year.
My reflections on the book:

• Easy to read and follow
• Gives EXPLICIT instruction on how to implement, although reading the exact words of the teacher gets redundant, however, it's necessary!
• Is achievable ONLY IF you are committed to it.
• LOVE the Daily 5 components: Read to Self, Read to Someone, Listen to Reading, Word Work, Work on Writing
• LOVE the table in the appendix which breaks down the first 5 weeks of implementing the Daily 5.
• When placing students around the room, what are the other students doing?
• When letting each child tell you what s/he wants to do first, how is bad behavior avoided?
• Do I HAVE to do all 5? I'm thinking three 20 minute sessions? Does that ruin the whole thing?
• Students choose where to sit in room, who to work with, when they want to do each component.
• I REALLY enjoy whole group teaching and grand discussions, still doable in the whole group time in between each session?

Some of the questions I'll think about as the summer moves on. Overall I really enjoyed the book and learned a WHOLE BUNCH of new information and management ideas I didn't know before!

Next book on the list,  Making the Most of Small Groups: Differentiation for All by Debbie Diller. After reflecting, I decided small groups and stations is where I need to gain more expertise! So here goes!

Professional Development

Last week I attended two really good workshops, "Differentiated Instruction with Guided Reading" and "Reader's Workshop: Making it Make Sense." I have been working to improve my small groups and what to do in small groups, so I took away the most helpful information from Differentiated Instruction.

I had SO many misconceptions about Guided Reading! I really didn't even know what it was! I thought it was choral or round-robin reading in a small group. WRONG! It's actually modeling in whole group, then in small group they read by themselves while the teacher walks around and monitors the reading, supporting where needed! So, here are some things I took away from the workshop about Guided Reading:

1. It is NOT choral or round-robin reading.

2. Reading groups are DYNAMIC, which means they change often.

3. A student will read new text EVERY TIME they read(a poem, the rest of an unfinished book, a new reading selection, etc.).

4. Guided Reading is a gradual release type of teaching. It is more STUDENT centered in small groups.

5. Small group time is NOT for phonics activities (whoops, that was a golden nugget to me!)

6. When student is stuck, prompt first, "What do you remember from our lessons that will help you figure this word out?" Then, "What have you already tried?"

7. Figure out reading groups from Reading Records, Word Tests, Letter Identification, Hearing and Recording Sounds. NOT TPRI and STAR tests (whoops again, but hey! I'm learning right?!)

8. Small groups should last no more than 20 minutes.

9. There is a difference between Reading Skills (TEKS/Curriculum) and Reading Strategies (HOW to read).

10. The RAN Chart. I LOVE it! It allows for mistakes and to be able to correct them! WAY better than KWL chart!