Welcome to Mrs. Rowe's First Week

Week one is over!  I found myself feeling so overwhelmed this week with everything.  Today was the first day I left work well before 6pm.  But, at the end of my first week as a full time teacher, I can truly say that I still love my job.

I have a lot of kiddos to teach this year (27 as of now) and all have their very own needs from academics to behaviors. At the end of this week, I already feel like I know them so well and I haven't even completed or graded one start of the year assessment yet!  My how much I will learn in the next few weeks about them.

I spent the early part of the week really getting to know the kids, sharing with them, and planning for how our classroom will operate this year together.  Check out some pictures of our work so far.

Our getting to know you activity along with the book Mrs. Spitzer's Garden by Edith Pattou (see an earlier post about this here).

Our classroom Constitution.  This started our first Social Studies unit about our U.S. Government and gave us a chance to decide what was important to us as a class for how we act and treat one another this school year.

After really starting to establish the expectations this week, I dove right into teaching by Wednesday.  We talked about picking a just right book using the "I Pick" strategy and the five finger rule.  I would share a picture, but my drawings were not so great (the kids decided that the five finger rule should be called the five leaf rule in our classroom instead as my drawn hand looks more like a leaf).  We talked about our thinking while we read and after practicing and marking our thinking in our books with post it notes, here is what we came up with to chart:

We talked about how to "Buzz" with a partner about the book we are reading.  This year, this is what our "Buddy Reading" is going to look like.  Talking about and having a conversation about what we have read with a partner/friend.  The kids did a great job at coming up with ideas of what this should look like and sound like:
     - Ask your partner: What is happening in your book? (Giving a summary so far)
     - Sit knee to knee
     - Talk about your opinions of the book and why
     - Talk about predictions
     - Describe your own visualizing of the book (the movie in your head)
     - Sharing the questions you had while reading
We talked about when it is okay to abandon a book and reasons we have all abandoned books in the past.  We spent so much time re-learning how to independently read and "buddy" read this week.  By today, they all wanted to know when we could have our reading workshop again!

In writing, I decided that I want the kids to do a lot of writing with technology.  The type of writing that they will do in ten plus years when they are in my shoes won't be the type of writing we do today or did yesterday.  We don't write handwritten notes anymore.  Rather, we type up an email and send it out immediately.  It occurred to me that kids don't understand that this is still letter writing and the concept of "text" language isn't always appropriate.  I decided to focus our early writing this year on the concept of friendly email format.  Check out what the kids and I came up with after taking a peak at some real examples:

I am so excited to see what week 2 brings and cannot wait to share.  I hope you enjoyed a peak into what we spent our first week doing in Mrs. Rowe's 5th Grade Classroom!

Twas The Night Before...

The first day of school.  Tomorrow is a day that I have wanted and waited for for a long time!  I am so excited to get started (I think I over planned because I am so excited to get moving into the school year).  :-)  However, that is by far not all that I am feeling.  I am finding myself feeling nervous.  I want the school year to be perfect.  I know all of you veteran teachers are laughing as I say that, but a teacher can dream can't she?  :-)

My classroom is set up just the way I wanted.  It is organized and perfect in my mind.  I have planned and spent a lot of time thinking about what is most important to me to get across to the kids on day one. I know that I want a classroom community where each member respects one another and puts their best efforts forward everyday.  I want my kids to know that I care about each of them individually and that I want to see them succeed.  This week is filled with plans on how we can learn to grow as a community of learners together.  We are learning how to make goals for ourselves and then we are going to make those goals.  Even I am going to sit down with the kids and make my own personal goals for the school year.  I want the kids to see that I think it is so important to make goals and modeling it is the best way for them to see it.

I said that I want the school year to be perfect.  It will be the perfect "first" year for me.  I am excited to welcome 27 students tomorrow morning at my classroom door.  I am also super nervous to welcome 27 students tomorrow morning at my classroom door.  That is a lot of young minds to encourage to grow and learn.  Can I do that?  I know that I can.  I have before in all of my long term subbing experiences, but there is a part of me that wonders.  This time, it is the "real deal."  It is my classroom and there are no safe outs.  I am 100% responsible (I always viewed it that way when subbing, but now it is really true)!  Pressure!

I am sure that on the last day of the school year, I will re-read this post and think how silly I was for being so worried.  After all, in 9 months, I will have completed the school year, my kids will have grown (in learning and height) and I will be ready to start thinking about year two and how to improve even more.  To all of my new students (and teacher friends), I hope you are as excited and nervous as I am tonight, because I think that the right combination of the two equals the perfect start to a perfect school year.

Happy first day of school to many of my teacher friends.  You will all have a perfect start to the year tomorrow because you have all prepared well and I am sure are a little bit nervous to start all over again this year!

Nearing the Beginning

Two weeks and few days to go.  The room is finished with everything put away in its home.  All that is left is to personalize the room with my student’s names and very soon their smiles and chatter.  Having it all put away is a great feeling of accomplishment, but yet it leaves me feeling like maybe I am forgetting something.  I have so much more time this year to prepare in advance and I want to be sure that I use the time properly, but what am I forgetting?

My classroom library is completed and ready for growing readers to dive in and get lost in new worlds of reading.  My bulletin boards are up and ready to display changing anchor charts throughout the school year.  My guided reading space is prepared and ready for teaching and to serve as a great group meeting space for small groups.  All of the manipulatives and materials are put away and labeled for when we need them.  I have started to think through the first day of school.  My behavior plans are set (but just might change based on my kids when I get to know them).  I even know what I want my room to look like when it is filled with students and in full swing come November.  I even have some thoughts on how to get there.

Now, I am ready to put together a classroom schedule, meet my kiddos, and dive into a new school year.  I am excited to grow as a teacher this year and to have the permanent feeling of my own classroom.  When people have asked me what I am looking forward to most about my classroom after three years of subbing, all I can think about is having the same kids all year long to work with, get to know, grow with, and learn how to improve for them as their teacher.  I am excited to grow relationships with my students, student’s parents, and staff.

I continue to talk about improving as a teacher and I am lucky to have the opportunity to get additional training as a “first year” teacher.  I have been assigned a mentor teacher to work closely with, to learn from, to challenge me, and to help me learn how to better reflect on my teaching this year.  I don’t think I will ever know it all as a teacher because I can’t imagine knowing it all in an ever changing world.

I start back to school next week for all of my new hire training and then professional development with the entire staff.  This just might be one of the few school years that I can’t wait to get started with and want day one to be here already.