Goodbye, September!

It has been quite the week. First of all, I have no pictures to share with you. All the pictures I took have the kids in them and I don’t post those ones. Oh, come to think of it, there is one picture. Keep reading and you’ll get to it. 

It was a short week because we had a PA Day on Monday. We were given 150 minutes of “teacher time”, which meant that we could use that time to do what we needed to do; the rest of the day was spent in meetings and workshops. Remember in my last post I said I wrote it in the wee hours of the morning because I had a sore throat? Well on Monday morning I woke up looking forward to a day with no students so I could get a lot of work done. I also woke up with a crazy fever and the inability to swallow. Yep. I had strep throat. I couldn’t even drive myself to the doctor. My mom had to take me because I was so out of it; but once the antibiotics kicked in I knew I would feel up to getting back on Tuesday. So in I went, using my sore throat as a classroom management tool. The kids knew that it hurt to speak loudly, so they did their best to work quietly--for a little bit, anyways. On Wednesday, my genius side came out and I whispered the instructions to them. I have never (and I mean never) seen them work so quietly and independently. If I could have shouted with joy, I would have.

It was a whirlwind of a week with a lot going on. First of all, we wrapped up our September literacy and social studies units on being responsible and accepting differences. We finished our math unit on graphing and comparing data in a graph. It was all done rather frantically because we had a lot of social things going on this week, which meant a few assemblies. Sadly, our vice principal is leaving because she got promoted to be the principal at another school. I’m being selfish. It’s sad for us, but amazing for her. We are all so proud of her, but as she says, it’s not goodbye; it’s see ya soon! We made her cards and surprised her with a special delivery to her office; we joined in on a school-wide gift and made her a page for a book about why she is so important; and we had a great time at her farewell assembly. We wish her all the best!

This week felt super short because of the PA Day as well as our two assemblies and the Terry Fox run. I’m really proud of my kids for putting up with me and anxiety over trying to get it all done. We also had Meet the Teacher night on Thursday which went really well, but it also meant that my OCD was kicked into high gear. Our classroom was spotless. They did a wonderful job. I should have taken pictures to show you what I did for Meet the Teacher night, but I forgot…sorry! And don’t worry, I still intend to post the picture of the week. It might give you a laugh. For Meet the Teacher night, I set out the following on each child’s desk: October monthly calendar, the next weekly newsletter, tips for reading and writing at home, a writing sample, a piece of art work, and the October Scholastic book order. It was a nice way to make sure that all the very important things went home with the parents.

I feel like that’s pretty much it for the week. It was a whirlwind, but we got everything done. Next week I am introducing our next unit. In science we will be learning about daily and seasonal changes; literacy, we will be writing retells; and in math we will be learning about sorting and patterning. I have added some fall décor to the classroom so I hope it helps to get the kids excited for this new unit.

I leave you now with my picture of the week. A few weeks ago I went into Fabricland to buy material and Velcro to replace my poor, torn table clothes. I finally decided to put them up right before the parents arrived on Thursday and this is what I found. The employee at the store put both sides of the Velcro in one bag. Have you ever seen National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation? If not, shame on you. Go watch it now. I honestly felt like Clark Griswold when he pulls out his Christmas lights, plus the frustration he feels when they won’t turn on.

Have a wonderful rest of the weekend!

NTIP and More

This week I had the opportunity to take a day and attend the NTIP introductory workshop. NTIP stands for the New Teachers Induction Program. Not only did it explain all the perks and opportunities for new teachers, but it got me out of the classroom for a day, putting my occasional teacher planning to the test. Having once been a supply teacher myself, I could remember what sort of planning I really appreciated going into a new classroom. I made sure my OT binder was up to date and I left typed up plans. I thought it would be much easier for a supply teacher to read; which led me to realize that my day plan template works well for me and my scribbles, but not so much for anyone else. I went home and remade the template later that night.

Anyways…NTIP! It was a full day of presentations that were pretty useful. NTIP teachers have the chance to participate in a wide selection of professional development workshops; three of which may be full day, out of school sessions. The others are online or after school. You can pick and choose which courses work for you. I want to do about 90% of them (typical for me), so I’m going to have to sit down and really think about which ones are most important for my own learning.

We also received a TON of free stuff; my favourite was the PRIM textbook, which is a teacher’s dream. If your school has one, it’s usually housed in the Special Education classroom because it lists pages of strategies for a lot of different exceptionalities, both academic and behavioural. One thing we did not receive however, was a free pen. I love getting free pens.

So, back to the classroom. Apparently all went well with my onesies while I was gone, and I was oh so happy to see their adorable little faces once again. We have been looking at short vowel sounds, specifically short o and short i. We read this poem called “Friendship” and looked for those words with the short vowel sounds. The poem complemented our big idea that we need to be responsible and kind to one another.

I’ve still managed to get every child in for guided reading throughout the week with a new book. We are practicing what it needs to look like and sound like during independent reading. These kiddos are still transitioning from the full day kindergarten life, where the concept of reading quietly is really quite foreign. I’m not too worried.  They’ll get the hang of it.

We’ve moved onto bullying this week, and started reading stories where someone gets bullied, and how they solve the problem. The kids have been perfecting their sentence writing by responding to the text. They’re also learning how to peer edit and self edit their written work, using the success criteria and their writing goals to make their writing even better. For some, the process is difficult because they don’t all know what they’re looking for; for others, they are pretty good at not just labeling their work as perfect. This is something I’d like to do with every unit, so there’s no harm in starting them off early.

In math, we have been continuing with graphing, and learning to compare objects in a graph. I introduced two more math big ideas: 1) You can represent a number in a variety of ways; 2) You can compare items in a group by matching up the items. This is getting them used to making 1:1 correspondences with the information they see. Most are now getting the hang of telling me how many MORE one set has than the other. This is a tricky concept, but once they got the hang of making 1:1 correspondences, it got a lot easier.

I love when I hear that the kids take something away with them that they learned that day, and share it with their families. One mother came in to chat with me on Friday morning and she said her son started cleaning up the dishes from the kitchen table at dinner the night before, which was something he didn’t usually do. He told her that his teacher taught him what taking initiative meant, and that he wanted to help her without being asked to do it. Hearing that made my morning. As a teacher, you always hope that what you teach your students sticks with them; but sometimes it’s not the academic content that makes a huge difference—it’s the life skills you teach them about how to be responsible and caring people in the world.

Friday morning was a dreary, rainy morning and I just felt like having a little bit of fun with them before the weekend. This was my morning question: “How old do you think Ms. Lawrence is?” I always find it interesting to see a child’s perception of age. WELL. One boy told me he thought I was 19. One girl guessed 50. FIFTY! On average, most of the kids guessed around 30. Then we played a little game of “More or Less” where they had to ask me if my age was more or less than _____. We used the number line to help. Eventually, they discovered my true age and they were pretty excited. Now my one boy won’t think that I’m “too old” to have children. Please see my Unforgettable Moments page to read about that one. 

After our little game and then some guided and independent reading, I brought them back to the carpet to show them next week’s word work game. It is a game called ZAP! It is super easy to make and play. I got coloured popsicle sticks and wrote sight words on them. Every now and then, I’d write ZAP! on a stick. The idea of the game is to pick out a stick and read the word. If you pick a ZAP! stick you lose all your sticks. First person to get 10 sticks wins! The kids LOVED this game.

With just one week left of September, I’m getting the kids ready for their summative tasks. Next week we will be wrapping up our Acceptance and Responsibility unit, and getting ready and excited for October’s new unit. Also, I’m starting to think I need to redecorate my blog. Since I’ve caught the Back to School Plague (I’m writing this post at 3:45am on a Saturday because my throat is so sore that I can’t sleep), I may just work on that later as I lay bedridden, trying to get better. Stay tuned!

I Am Good At…Grade One!

I just wrapped up my second week in our Grade One class, and it was even more fabulous than the first. By now, the kids and I are fairly used to each other, and I am picking up on the best strategies to use for each child. The classroom management piece is really coming along, and before long, all the little bits and pieces about how to listen and be respectful will require fewer reminders. Then we can really get into the fun stuff!

To go along with our big idea (that we should accept people’s differences because that’s what makes us special), we read books and wrote about what we are good at. We learned that we are all good at different things, and that’s what makes us unique. We started by reading Giraffes Can’t Dance—a book about a giraffe named Gerald who is made fun of because he can’t dance to the same classic music as all the other jungle animals. He learns that he is really good at dancing to funkier music, and all the other animals see just how unique he is. The writing task for this book asked the kids to write one sentence in response to the question: “What is Gerald good at?” The format of this question guided all other questions we looked at this week.

The other books we read dealt with the same theme: the characters are all different from the others in the books, but they are all really good at something. That’s what makes them special.

Our shared reading this week was a poem called “I’m Glad I’m Me” (sorry, I forget who wrote it). We reviewed what short a, short o, and short i sound like, and circled those words on the paper.

In math, we are moving away from the mystery aspect of the graphs and we are looking at how to transfer the information onto ten frames. The kids are so good at knowing that ten frames help us see groups of five and ten. One boy even connected it to our big idea that “graphs help us see information easily”. He noticed that ten frames are very similar. Smartie pants! I would give them graphs and they had to plot the data on a ten frame. They really loved it when they could work in partners and take turns filling in each box. I also introduced the rekenrek on Thursday and they just loved that. We learned that just like the ten frame, the rekenrek also helps us see fives and tens easily. If we know fives and tens, we can quickly identify the numbers close to them. I made them all their own little personal rekenreks as well. I bought some foam sheets, pipe cleaners, and beads. It was so simple and cheap and the kids loved it. I would give them their own, ask them to “show me ___” and they had to hold it up to show me. The game was a huge hit.

This is a Pinterest picture. I forgot to take a picture of my own. 

The rekenrek helps the students easily see that I have moved over 6 beads. They don't have to count each bead individually. I highly recommend buying a rekenrek or ask your school to buy one. 

Have you ever heard of International Dot Day? I went on Pinterest one night just to peruse for a bit, and I stumbled across a few pins. It’s a celebration based on the book, The Dot by Peter H. Reynolds. The book is about a girl who stubbornly draws nothing but a small dot on her paper because she doesn’t think she’s good at art. Her teacher makes her feel special when she frames the paper. The girl then draws tons of dots and inspires others to make their mark. So…we had a dot party at the end of the week! The majority of the kids wore polka dots (so did I), we read the book/watched it on YouTube, and did some dot art. I made the templates on PowerPoint using different kinds of line to bring back what we learned last week. The kids just loved it. My one student who brought in his show and share today (something that is special to you), brought in a special rock with polka dots on it! They had a blast and asked if we could have a stripe party next week. It’s like they can read my mind. I do, in fact have something planned for a Friday in the future.

Overall, it was a great second week. I can see so much progress in academic and social areas in each of the kids. They now all have reading folders and reading bags with their leveled books, and they just think it’s awesome. I think it’s wonderful and adorable. I’m looking forward to another great week with the kids, as we move even further along with our reading, writing, and math skills.

Happy Friday!

Back to School!

    Well, our first week back to school is over and it was a fantastic four days. I have 18 wonderful little Grade Ones who love being at school, and who are so eager to learn. It’s also great that I teach in the primary hall so that I can see my students from previous years. They always come up and give me a hug. One girl even came up to me at the end of the day while I was getting my kids ready and hands me a scrap of paper with her phone number on it. It came just after one of my boys told me he was inviting me to his birthday party in December, as well as all of his karate practices each week. How adorable is that?!

We are starting up this Grade One school year by learning that we are all unique, to accept differences, and to be responsible. The kiddies are learning how to read and write “I like” and use it in a full sentence. By Friday, we had brainstormed a list of things they like about Grade One and they wrote a sentence. My kids rock! It’s amazing how many of them wrote, “I like my desk”. It’s quite the upgrade in independence from their kindergarten tables, I suppose.

Our shared reading this week was a poem called “I Like Myself”. It’s actually longer than this, but I took a few verses out to make it shorter for their first week back. I don’t know who the original author is either; I had it in a digital file from a colleague.

Each morning, we would look at something different in the poem. One day, we underlined all the words that said “like”, so they could get used to seeing what “like” looks like and sounds like. Another day we looked at the uppercase “I” and discussed why we use a capital {because it’s talking about you and you’re special, so it gets a special uppercase-see how I relate everything back to our big idea that we’re all special?}. On Friday we talked about periods and what our voices have to sound like when we see a period. My little smartie pants even knew what an exclamation mark was and how to read with one. Needless to say, they loved this poem; especially when I let them read it animatedly when it came to the loud, quiet, happy, and sad section.

Each morning after our shared reading I would send them back to their desks with a booklet that went along with the poem. They had to complete the activities inside explaining when they were loud, quiet, happy, sad, messy, and clean. They had to draw a picture and write a sentence. Some of them finished, but most put their hearts and souls into the pictures and forgot about the sentences. I didn’t really notice because this was going on as I was pulling kids to read with me so I could assess their reading levels. I think I got to all but three kids. Pretty impressive, I’d say!

In math we are learning about graphing, so on our first day together we made a graph about how we felt about the first day of school. They loved it, and now we have it on our math wall to admire everyday. They were really good at analyzing the information in it, and I couldn’t believe my ears when one boy said he noticed that if you combined all the people who were sad, happy, and nervous, it equaled nine. Genius. The rest of the week we talked about parts of a graph and introduced our Big Idea that “Graphs help us see information easily”. We tacked that up on the math wall as well. I was so impressed with how much math we got done in that first week. We built a graph on how they get to school, we answered questions, and by Friday, I already had them in pairs working on a mystery graph. The task was to see if they could come up with an appropriate title for the information in the graph. Some got it right away and others struggled a bit. We will be doing more fun mystery graphs next week! Thanks to my colleague who created this graph to use last year :) 

In social studies we are learning how to be responsible. So far, we have talked about how to be responsible at home. Some of the answers I got were so cute! “I am responsible when I’m nice to my cat”. Poor kitty…

We’ll be completing the rest of the booklet as we learn more about responsibility throughout the month of September. The social studies period was also a great time to slowly introduce our Tribes Agreements. My school uses the Tribes training so as the kids get older, the consistent use of these agreements throughout the grades should make the behaviour come naturally. So far, we have talked about what Attentive Listening, and what Appreciations look like and sound like. We brainstormed some ideas, and now all I have to say is, “show me what good listening looks like” and they all snap into a criss-cross sitting position, hands in their laps, and eyes on me. In Grade One, they love when I show them appreciations, so as soon as I thank those who are doing what they’re supposed to be doing, everyone else strives to do the same. It’s wonderful.

In art, we are learning about one element of art: line. To go along with our celebrating differences unit, I gave them all an outline of a person and their job was to make themselves, but the t-shirt had to be designed with at least three different kinds of line. Their creations were so cute. This is a picture of mine that I used as an example. I know what you’re thinking: “Wow, Ms. Lawrence! You’re quite the artist! And I had no idea you were a Simpsons character”.

I tried my best, okay?!

Let’s move on to this week’s learning centres. At the Writing Centre, they had to practice writing “I like” and then draw a picture of what it is they like. Once they were finished that, they were allowed to practice their writing on the big white board. Dry erase boards and markers are just the bee’s knees to Grade Ones.

 Click for a copy

At the Math Centre, I wanted to see their abilities when it came to counting by ones. They had to identify how many of each picture they saw. On the back, it was the reverse; I gave them the number and asked them to draw that amount. It also allowed me to assess their number writing skills as well.

Click for a copy

At the Art Centre I had them draw a picture of what they did in the summer. One girl drew a beautiful picture of the Niagara Falls all lit up at night. Sounds like a great summer!

At the Computer Centre, I’m teaching them how to use Tumblebooks. I love this website. It’s going to take some time teaching them all how to use it, but they catch on quickly.

Finally, at the Storytelling Centre, I set out some toys for those kids who just need to play and use their imaginations. Keep in mind; they’re coming from two years of play-based learning in kindergarten, so they still need that time to learn through play.

One of my biggest struggles with the centres was realizing the emotional turmoil many of them went through when I told them they had an assigned centre for the day. In kindergarten, they were allowed to roam between the different learning centres. In Grade One, I have them in groups that rotate between each centre throughout the week. They’ll get the hang of their new routine.

I’ll leave you with some other pictures I took of the room this week. It’s really coming along. Although, I will have to make a stop at Fabric Land {the store I dread more than anywhere else in this world. My mom used to drag me there when I was a kid. It was awful because it was a) boring and b) located in the downstairs portion of a plaza, which just emphasized the feeling that I was in a dungeon. It still haunts me}. But I really do have to go because sadly, those one dollar table clothes around my learning centres did not last one day without being torn *sniff, sniff*.

On the first day of school, I get a knock on my door and my mom is standing there with a bouquet of flowers for me in a ducky vase. I have the best mom ever. Check out the Unforgettable Moments page to read about the conversation that followed. 

My first day of Grade One picture. Except we cheated a little bit. We forgot to take the picture on the first day, so this is technically my second day photo

Our anchor chart about different kinds of line

I posted their sentences about what they like about Grade One. I gave them all their own pictures to paste on, so I had to blur them out for the blog.

 They've done a great job at keeping track of the days and weather with our daily calendar time in math

 These are the books I've read to them so far this week

Our success criteria. The yellow is just general classroom SC, and the pink is for Literacy. We are going to fill in the rest of the Literacy SC next week as a class.

Time to enjoy the weekend with lots of family events to attend. Oh, and marking-lots of stuff to assess this weekend to get ready for next week; but I don’t mind because I love what I do. Have a happy weekend, friends!

Currently

My friend, Sam (who has an amazing First Grade blog) is really great at connecting with other bloggers in the teaching world. I always like reading what Silly Sam is up to, and I thought I’d give this little project a go. Maybe it will help me connect with more Grade One teachers. It’s called CURRENTLY and it seems as though it’s a way to let other educators know how you’re doing in your non-teaching life. Here’s mine:

Listening:

My boyfriend recently bought Final Fantasy XIV and he’s obsessed. Some women get super annoyed with their gaming men, but it really doesn’t rile me up. In fact, when he’s obsessed with playing, it allows me to obsess over planning, pinning, and blogging. We both indulge in our obsessions, which is a healthy thing to do. Having different interests keeps life interesting.

Loving:

Life! At this time last year, I was a new grad living in a world with no teaching jobs around me. I was bummed and discouraged; but then with a lot of hard work, patience, and determination, things began working in my favour, and now I’m teaching my own Grade One class. I have a man who loves me, and the most supportive family you could ever ask for. Life is good.

Thinking:

I am a planner. I get a euphoric feeling when it comes to planning anything; especially school. With school starting tomorrow, I have learned that I can’t exactly plan my week as I normally would because I don’t know the abilities of my students yet. I have to keep telling myself to plan one day at a time this week because this is normal. I have to keep the anxiety down and just go with the flow of the week.

Wanting:

Before I finished university, I made sure to visit the dentist and optometrist before my coverage under my mom’s insurance ran out. The thing is, even though my teeth were clean and my prescription hasn’t changed much, my beautiful glasses have had their day. After four years, I still really love them (that’s probably very rare), but the paint is chipping and they just don’t look nice anymore. So, as soon as my benefits kick in, I’m heading straight to the optometrist once again and I’m going to get new frames.

Needing:

I sleep in mixed pajama sets; usually a pair of bottoms and a random shirt from some sort of event or tourist attraction. I have more shirts than one would ever need and three pairs of pants. One of those pairs I have had since Grade Seven and the other pair has a hole in them. That leaves me one good pair. Heaven forbid I ever have to (for some reason) be in public in those pajamas; it would just be embarrassing! So I really need to go buy some new pajama bottoms.

Goals:

1. I was really good at attending the gym on a regular basis last year. I felt great and I enjoyed going (once I got there. I usually whined about it on my way). Then life got busy and going to the gym at 6:00 after work made me tired just thinking about it. I’m back to working right down the street, so I’ll get some work done at school, then head to the gym. I should still have my evening to lounge and unwind at home.

2. Like I said, I’m addicted to planning. The other day I bought some stuff at Michael’s and my boyfriend made me leave it in the car so I wouldn’t be tempted to work on it. The freedom of my evening was really nice. So once a week I’m going to leave all school stuff aside and just do something enjoyable.

3.It’s been an expensive journey getting to where I am today, so my third goal is to develop a strict repayment system so that I can have at least half of my student debt paid off by the end of the year. My mom’s an accountant so her professional guidance should help me stay on track.