Blogging Our First Week of School

One of my goals for this school year is to be more consistent with our blogging.  It's difficult to keep up the kids enthusiasm about their own blogs, if the teacher is not setting a good example.

To simplify things, I decided to move our class blog onto our website.  I felt that I was spread too thin last year, and I had a lot of trouble keeping up with things.  Also this year, I went back to using students first names for their Kidblogs.  Last year we made up screen names in an effort to increase security, but the down side was that I was constantly confused about who was who.

I decided that the best way to teach about blogging was to model writing a weekly post on our class blog.  I had the students list things in their planners that we did during this first three days of school.  Then I blogged their ideas.  Their enthusiasm increased as they saw their ideas appear in the post.  There was one moment of anxiety when I thought I lost the post, but fortunately I was able to recover the draft.

We will do this again next week, and from there we will move to writing a paper blog.  More about that later.

Using an On-line Lesson Plan Book

Monday is the first official day back for teachers, and the kids will begin on Wednesday.  School may not have started yet, but I'm already beginning to work on my schedule and lesson plans.  For years I used a template that I had created on word.  It gave me my frame work.  All I had to do was update it periodically and type or hand write my plans into it and print it off.

Last year I decided to try out an on-line plan book.  I tried Planbook.com, and I love it. There are so many advantages to an on-line plan book.  If I'm at home and wondering what I had planned for science the next day, I can easily go on line, refresh my memory, and make changes to it, if need be.

Being able to bump or extend my plans to another day is one of my favorite aspects of Planbook.com.  I have a tendency to over plan, so there are many days that we didn't get to an activity, or I realize that it's going to take another day. Using the old fashioned method of handwritten plans, that meant a lot of rewriting of plans.  With Planbook.com all I have to do is hit bump, and I move the lesson plan to the next day, or extend it over as many days as I want.  I especially like the on-line plan book when it comes to long term planning.  I can easily lay out an entire unit at a time.

Having an on-line plan book, makes it easy to give my principal or colleagues access to my plans.  You can set up a code that students, or others can use to see your plan book.  If you teach and plan collaboratively, you can set it up so others can write plans as well.

If you need to include Common Core Standards in your lesson plans, those are built in and readily available.  If your state uses different standards or objectives, you can build a list of those.

For me the trickiest part was setting up my classes at the beginning of the year.  If you decide to try out Planbook.com, they have a series of 14 tutorials to help you get started.  You can create a template that provides the information that you need in your plans every day.  Here is an example of the tutorial for creating or editing a lesson plan.



Even though my plans are on-line, I do print a copy for a paper plan book.  I like to refer to it during the day, make notes, and check things off.  This also makes my lesson plans available to a substitute who probably would not have computer access.  You can choose to view your plans a week at a time, or daily.  At different times, I have printed them off both ways.

There is more than one on-line plan book.  This happens to be the one I use.  One of the reasons I chose it is that it is very reasonably priced, just $12 for the year.

I know this probably sounds like a commercial, but I don't work for Planbook.com and I'm not getting any compensation, though maybe I should try for a discount.  It's a product that has made lesson planning significantly easier for me, and I highly recommend it.

A Dozen Ideas for the Classroom, and I Found Them All on Pinterest

School begins on August 22nd, so I've been working in my classroom for a couple days each week. I like to work on projects at home and then go to school just long enough to install them.

As you can tell from other posts on my blogs, I am a big fan of Pinterest.  Over the past year I have been pinning lots of ideas, with the plan to implement many of them in the fall.    I've had a variety of projects to work on at home.  Here are a dozen ideas that I found on Pinterest.

1.  Classroom Rules

I've always had the standard list of numbered rules posted in my classroom.  They were succinct and to the point.  Permanent magic marker on a poster has made my expectations for behavior clear.  Then I started seeing some other ways of posting class rules.  Some were painted on wood, like this Classroom Rules Subway Sign on Etsy.  Or this one where you could download a PDF and print yourself.  But none of them quite met my needs.  Instead, I used the computer, scrapbook paper, and a poster frame to come up with my Classroom Rules.

2.  Welcome Sign

I also created this Welcome Sign to go outside my door.  This idea didn't come from any particular pin, but it was inspired by ideas to use picture frames from the dollar store.  It's a lot better and more welcoming than the piece of white paper that I had taped outside my door last year.

3.  Whole Class Journals

All of my students have writer's notebooks, as well as blogs, but I like this idea for Whole Class Journals.  Students take turns writing in a class journal on various subjects.  I set up one for Favorite Places, Family, Pets, Sports, Hobbies, Favorite Memories, the Weekend, and Wishes.  It's a great way to share writing, learn more about each other, and appreciate each other's work.

4. Partner Wheel

A Partner Wheel is something I used last year.  Our class does a lot of collaborative work, but taking time to assign partners can be a real time waster.  There are times that I let kids choose their own partners, but sometimes we end up with more play than work that way. A Partner Wheel can make this a quick process.  You can set the wheels up so you pair strong readers with weaker readers.  You could set it up so girls get paired with boys.  You could make it a random arrangement.  If you have students who are better off not working together, just put their names on the same wheel, and they will not ever be partners, no matter how many times you turn the wheel.

The original blog by Karen Moler has templates to easily make your own partner wheels.  They won't work for me, because I have 26 students, so I need to put 13 names on each wheel. That's proving to be a little tricky. I thought I had it done, but when I recounted I found there were 14 spaces.  Once I have it done, I'm going to make several copies, before I put the names on.  I'm going to make a few wheels, to pair partners in different ways.

5. Back to School Foldable

I like foldables, and we will definitely be using this memoir mini-book.  If you go to the original post on For the Love of Teaching Math, you can download the PDF and view Andrea's step by step directions for cutting and folding the mini-book.

6.  Class Jigsaw Puzzle

Last year, on the first day of school, my class put together this jigsaw puzzle.  Each person made and decorated a piece that included their name.  We assembled it, and it hung on the outside of our classroom door all year.  The original idea for this puzzle poster came from a blog from Germany.  While I had a year of German in college, it wasn't enough to enable me to read the blog post.  I managed to read the picture well enough to come up with this "getting to know you" activity for our first day of school.  It was a great way to show that everyone in our class is unique, and that without everyone, our class would be incomplete.

Hint:  If you decide to do this activity, mark the undecorated pieces so that kid know which is the right side, and where the top is.  Otherwise their work may be upside down or on the wrong side when the puzzle is assembled.

7. Circle Poster

This year, instead of the jigsaw puzzle, my class is going to make this circle poster.  It works on the same principle, and it should be easier to assemble.  This time each person decorates 1/4 of a circle.  I haven't been able to find the original blog post but here is a link to my Pinterest Pin so click on the link to see what the finished poster should look like.  Oddly enough, when you try to go to the blog, it appears to be from a German blog again.


8.  Top Ten Facts About Me Poster

This was another great way to get to know your students and we did this one last yeaar.  I saw a poster similar to this on Pinterest, and if you want them ready made, you can order them from Really Good Stuff.  I got out my scrapbooking "how to" books and designed my own, and then had 11 x 17 copies made.

I tied the project into our Writer's Workshop and grammar lessons.  It was a good way to review sentence structure and talk about writing complex sentences using vivid language.  I modeled the writing process and designed my own poster, demonstrating how to add designs that added meaning to the poster.  Each person presented their poster to the class a' la David Letterman.  We had a lot of fun with it.  I learned a lot about the kids, and it made a nice display for the hall.

9. Finished Work Cart

I've seen a lot of organizational posts about decorating and labeling the drawers on those rolling plastic carts.  I like this one for handing in work.  This has become a big issue for me, because lots of new reading materials were delivered to my classroom and I needed to find a place for them.  We have a new reading adoption, Houghton Mifflin Journeys, but we are not retiring the old one, Houghton Mifflin Reading.  That means lots and lots of little tubs of readers.  I needed the shelf space where I usually have my finished work boxes.

This project proved to be a lot more difficult than it looked, but I like the final outcome.  The blogger, Sue, from The Very Busy Kindergarten,  said that she used double stick tape, but I didn't have any, so I started out using clear contact paper.  That is a favorite beginning of the school year tool for me, but it didn't work very well in this case.  After the top two drawers, I switched to packing tape which worked much better.  I had trouble getting the paper to stick flat against the drawer front.  I was afraid the decorative paper would get torn by students turning in work.

Hint:  The next time I do this, I will probably only cut paper to fit the front panel and not curve around the edges.  Also, I just randomly chose paper.  I do like color, but next time I think I will coordinate the colors a little better.  It's okay for now.  I like the fact that I can just pull the entire cart over to wherever I am working in the room.

10.  Tiger Pride

I have several bulletin boards in my classroom, and I needed some new ideas.  I saw this idea for a Proud Wall.  Students decide what goes on this Wall of Pride.  I like the idea of letting kids choose work that they are proud of and would like to share with others.  This can also be a showcase for artwork and writing that is not necessarily the result of assigned work.  We are the Phillips Tigers, so I put together this Tiger Pride bulletin board.

11. Binder Clip Mailbox Labels

I have been using the same set of mailboxes for at least 8 years, and before that they belonged to a friend who has since retired from teaching.  It can be tricky to get the labels for the new class of students to stick on the mailbox slots.  I never would have thought of this solution on my own, but I saw it on Pinterest.  Label binder clips and use them as your labels.  Easy peasy!

Hint:  If you want to write the names with a permanent marker or use clear labels like I did, buy light colored binder clips.  I didn't think of this beforehand.  I solved my problem by putting a small piece of white paper under the student name, so that they could be seen.

I also used the same idea to label my file baskets.

12.  Owl Display

I like owls, and I have been wanting to make them part of a display.  I've seen ideas like this pin and this one.  I don't have this one together yet, but I am in the process of making owls.  Here's another opportunity for me to use my scrapbook supplies.  Each owl will have a student name on it.  My caption will be "4th Grade is a Hoot!"

So that's it;  a dozen ideas to begin my school year, and I found these, and lots more, on Pinterest.  I have been teaching for 25 years.  Twenty-two have been at the same school.  Things get old and worn out in that time.  I've had a lot of fun putting these projects together, and I like the fresh new look it has given my classroom.

Pinterest Hint

I have been bookmarking or pinning these ideas over the past year.  If you are on Pinterest,  be sure that you pin the actual blog post that has your information.  Sometimes it was the blog that got pinned and not the post.  This makes it hard to find the information when you want to go back to it.  That's something I've learned the hard way, as I've been looking through my boards.

If you would like to look at my Pinterest Boards you can find them at  http://pinterest.com/barbaraday/.  I have boards on lots of subjects besides education.  You are free to view or follow if you're interested.

School Supplies

These teapots arrived in the mail yesterday.  The little blue one is to take to school, and the lime green one is to keep at home to get me ready to go to school each day.  You have your idea of school supplies, and I have mine.

In all seriousness, it is important for teachers to take good care of themselves.  I hear lots of teachers in my PLN talk about giving up their teacher desks and moving their supplies out of the way to make more room for their students.  What do you do to nurture yourself in your classroom.  For me, it's having a nice cup of tea.

Welcome Cards

I just made a trip to the post office to mail Welcome to 4th Grade cards to my new students.  This is a tradition at my school. A few weeks before school begins, all the teachers mail a letter or card to their incoming class. We've been doing this for more then ten years, after our staff read the book Parents on Your Side by Lee Canter.

Sometimes I use my Stampin Up Stamps, but this year I decided to update a design I used two years ago.  I created a word mosaic using my students first names.  The word mosaic was created on the website, Image Chef.  I created the card using Print Shop, which is a software program.  I use Print Shop a lot to create name tags, labels, signs, and posters.  I will talk more about that in a later post.

Mailing the welcome cards is a sure sign that the adventure of a new school year is about to begin.

The Class List is in the Mail

This week, I received my class list in the mail along with the welcome back letter from my principal.  That is a sure sign that the beginning of a new school year is just around the corner.

I have really enjoyed this summer.  Over the summer I have enjoyed reading, knitting, and spending time with family and friends. It is the first time in a few years that I did not work a second job, and therefore I feel rested, recharged, and just a little bored.  The extreme heat this summer has kept me inside more than I wanted to be, thus the boredom.  A little boredom is a good thing, because I feel excited and ready to head back to school.

I really love this time of year!  August is a time of year that I get a little crafty, making things for my classroom.  The classroom and the school year are a clean slate.  I can continue things I started the previous year or I can completely change them up, so it's time to reflect on things that worked well, and others that didn't.  It's the time when I begin putting together my 4th grade learning environment in a room that is so spanking clean that the floors literally gleam.

One of the things that worked well last year was the book shopping days in our classroom library. On their book shopping days, students browsed our collection to select three or four books that they wanted to read during the coming week.  Prior to last year, my classroom library tended to be a place where some people hung out and wasted lots of time, but did little reading.  This approach was suggested by people in my PLN and I was amazed by how well it worked.

Last year I made the light blue curtains. On book shopping days we open up the curtains so people can browse the books stored behind them.  I really liked the clean look that it gave our classroom, so I decided to curtain off the messy shelves where I house my teaching materials.  I didn't have more of the light blue doggy fabric, but I remade these denim curtains from curtains that used to hang in my son's bedroom.

My desks are arranged, and some of the books have been passed out.  I'm sure this floor plan will be the first of many.  I change desks around frequently.  I like to have students seated in groups, but I don't like them facing each other.  Some kids need more personal space than table groupings provide.  Once I meet the kids, I will know more about what works for them.

We have brand new reading books this year, so I am excited about that.

My new class rules poster is up, and the welcome sign is outside our door, but there is nothing on the bulletin boards, nor do I have any of my computers set up.  There is lots more to do, but I am excited about the progress I have made.  Teachers officially report on August 21st, but I will be going in for a few hours a day, at least twice a week.  School begins for us on August 22nd and by the time the kids arrive, I will be ready.