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.

My Plan for Building Comminuty at the Beginning

My classroom is almost put together with the exception of a few things like name tags, my language of math board (more to come on this), and organizing collected papers and items from subbing days.  It is comforting to know that my room is coming together and will be inviting for my students when they come for their student walk through in a few short weeks.  It is exciting for me to know that it is my classroom, done just the way I want it.  I didn’t have to confer with anyone on what they wanted done in the room, rather I got to do it 100% my way this time.  Now that the “set up” is nearly complete, I am left with plenty of time to really contemplate the start of the school year (something I did not have the luxury of last year in my long term). 

When I student taught, I had an amazing mentor teacher that I learned so much from like how to really get to know your students and their families from the start, how to be explicit in my teaching, how to be consistent in my discipline and behavior management in the classroom, and so much more.  One thing that she does every year in her classroom is read a wonderful picture book to her class at the start of the school year: Mrs. Spitzer’s Garden by Edith Pattou.  After reading the book, she talks to her class about how each of them is like a flower in her classroom garden and they all have different needs.  I did this on the first day of school last year with my 4^th grade long term class and plan to start this school year off just the same. 

I want to do a short getting to know you project with the book this year and am excited to have the results showcased all year long.  For my hallway bulletin board, I plan to have the students take different cut outs and colors of plants and flowers.  On the cut outs, they will draw pictures of things that represent them (their favorites, family, what they want to be when they grow up, favorite subject, etc.).  After everyone is finished, I want to take some time for the kids to share what they created and why.  Once we have all shared, I will laminate their “flowers,” glue them onto clothes pins, put them up on a boarder out in the hallway for us to hang their work on to display all year long (I’ll show pictures after the start of the school year).

I want to spend the first few days of the school year really getting to know each of my students well as kids and learners.  I want to define what our classroom will look like together as a community of learners and discuss what we want to get out of our 5^th grade year together.  I want the classroom to instantly go from being my classroom to our classroom where we all feel a part of the community and belong.  I want my students to feel at home to a point where they want to be there daily and know what is always expected of them.  I am excited to share with all of you how this goes once the year begins because I strongly believe that the way we start the year, determines the success we see as teachers at the end of the year.

Happy early planning for your classroom!  I know that it is a lot of work and requires so much thought and intention behind the decisions we make in the first few weeks, but I have seen from my subbing experience that that intention behind decisions is so crucial to the sanity and success we feel as teachers at the end of a long school day in February, March, April, May, and June.

My Reading Workshop

Starting up a classroom of my own is far more intense than I ever thought.  As I have planned for the placement of my guided reading table, whole group meeting area, computers, my desk, and many other spaces, I have spent a lot of time thinking about what the room will be like in November/December when my room is in full swing with students working independently and me with a small group.  Having had the opportunity to "test" out my teaching style and a classroom layout or two as a long term substitute has been wonderful.  It has also left me with more ideas than I can use in one room (having worked in a hundred or more classrooms in three years, my idea book is full). 

My favorite part of the school day is my reading block.  I love to read and love to watch my students enthusiasm for reading grow during the year.  I have spent a lot of time studying, taking classes, and observing other teachers during this time and have developed a structure that works for my students.and myself  I usually start this time with a mini lesson.  I am a big fan of anchor charts and use them often during the school year.  My mini lessons typically consist of a read aloud that connects to a concept (i.e. cause/effect, prediction).  Check out this area below.

After the mini lesson, my students get to work on their independent work.  I have read and love the books titled Daily 5 and The Cafe Book by Gail Boushey and Joan Moser.  I have found a way to incorporate their ideas into my reading block.  While I work with a small group of students on reading (more to come about my guided reading lessons later), the rest of my class knows that they are expected to be working on their "Daily 5 Choices."  Daily 5 is more geared towards early elementary and my Master's degree and early teaching experience is all K-3, but I have tweaked it a bit to make it just as successful for my 5th graders (used with my 4th grade long term classes last school year).  My kids have 5 "Main Idea" choices - Independent Read, Buddy Read, Word Study, Writing, and Content Area (more on these area's in a later post).

My Buddy Reading station is on the bottom of the left end of the bookshelves and the Independent Reading station is on the bottom of the right end of the bookshelves (in the blue bin).

The entire black bookshelf is my Word Study station.

This is my Writing station.

This is my Content Area station.

When setting up my classroom, I had to take into account these "Daily 5 Choices."  I took a class this summer on Literacy Work Stations that focused around two books (one for primary grades and one for intermediate grades), Literacy Work Stations and Practice with Purpose.  Both books are by Debbie Diller (an author I read a lot of in grad school - where my love for teaching reading really blossomed).  This class talked a lot about providing students with choices during the reading time that are not busy work, rather provide valuable practice to enhance learning.  My five choices this year will be viewed more as "Main Ideas" with choices or "Details" inside of them.  I stationed these five spaces around the classroom.  Each station is housed inside of a portable file bin.  The students choices at these stations will be placed inside of these bins.

Planning for a classroom that will be mine all year long is a lot of work, but I am certain rewarding once the students arrive at the end of August.  I hope you enjoyed a little glimpse of my reading block plans.  I hope to share so much more about it.  After all, learning is reading in many ways!

At the Beginning

I have been a teacher for 3 years, but now have the privilege of starting my "first" year teaching my own class of 5th graders.  I have been a long term substitute in four different classrooms during this time and have even set up one of those classrooms.  Take a look at a picture from that room below.

For the last several weeks, I have been busy moving into and setting up my own classroom.  It has been a lot of work.  After three weeks of moving in and unpacking, my stuff is almost all put away and organized.  Take a look at my library area before below (with the books that came with my classroom - back wall in the picture).

I had to merge my books with all of the books that came with the classroom.  The previous teacher had put the books on the shelves like they are in the picture above.  I love having my books in bins and organized by genres.  So, I spent several days working on the books.  I decided to start there because it seems like it is the biggest job of setting up a classroom (and really took the most time).  I bought these great black bins at Target for all of my books.  I will soon have labels on the bins for the genre's.  Take a look at my organized classroom library below.

My non-fiction books are on a separate shelf off to the side (not in bins - too many!).  They didn't all fit on my built in shelves.

I organize my books by genre instead of reading levels because I want my students to be able to identify what books are a good fit for them anywhere they go.  I am planning on starting the school year with lessons on how to pick a just right book.  We will also be setting reading goals for the year during the first few weeks to go along with book selection.  In the picture above, my top two shelves are too high up for my students to reach, so I put books on display there with storage behind them.

Setting up a classroom has so many different aspects to focus on.  My classroom library was where I started and the room immediately felt more put together.  More to come soon about other parts of my classroom.