Schedules and Decorations

Our schedule was changed again but hopefully this will be the last time. There are four language arts teachers in my school. As a 5th grade group, we are going to implement CAFE and Daily 5 in some fashion. I can't imitate it exactly because I don't have the same amount of time and my students are a little older than the students that Daily 5 is geared towards. I thought I would share how I'm going to allocate my time. I teach two sections and each section receives approximately 90 minutes for reading. I put this schedule together today. The black font is my first class and the red font is the second class.

My Schedule

2o12-2o13

Bellwork	7:45-8:05
Whole Group Reading	8:05-8:35
Small Group 1/Weekly 10	8:35-9:00
Small Group 2/Weekly 10	9:00-9:25
Writing	9:25-10:25
Switch Classes	10:25-10:30
Bellwork	10:30-10:50
Specials/Plan	10:50-11:35
Whole Group Reading	11:35-12:05
Lunch/Recess	12:05-12:50
Small Group/ Weekly 10	12:50-1:15
	1:15-2:15
Small Group 2	2:15-2:45
Clean Up/Dismissal	2:45-2:50

I explain in an earlier post how I adapted the Daily 5 and created the Weekly 10. While I'm working with a small group, the other students will be working on their Weekly 10.

I'm almost finished setting up my classroom for the new year. All I have left to do is decorate one bulletin board and put my library books in baskets and label them by genre. I'm not sure exactly what I'm going to do for my bulletin board. I want it to focus on reading. I have a few ideas but not convinced what to do yet. Here are some pictures of my classroom. This is just for the start of the year. As we move into reading and writing strategies, I will display more content oriented items on my walls. For now, I just put up decorations so that the information I eventually put up will hopefully not just become wallpaper.

Bulletin board in my classroom. It has questions on it that we will be studying this year.

These are the books that I need to put in baskets. I will also have my small group table back here when it comes in.

I need to invest in some more indoor recess items, don't I? It's slim pickings!

Forgetful Moments, Libraries and Flying Burritos!

I haven't written a post in a while so I sat down a few hours ago with an idea to blog about but I got interrupted and now I can't remember what it was! I should have seized that moment but didn't and now that moment is gone. I'm sure it was life altering news too! :P Even though I can't remember what I wanted to say, I still want to write so I'll just talk and see where my thoughts take me.

First, I have to say that I have only THREE weeks of summer left! I cannot believe that! I'm not dreading the start of school. I just don't have everything ready! I have been working up in my room 3-4 days a week for at least 3 hours a day...usually more. I have so much I want to do!

One area I'm working on is my library. I've been trying to reorganize and liven it up. I decided to use the library app from booksource that I mentioned in a previous post. I really like it. It will keep my library organized and the checkout system is more efficient than what I have now. If you already have a library system that works for you, then this may not be a benefit to you. But if you need a system overhaul or one put in place, then you might give this a try. I'm not completely finished with my library area but here is a picture of what I've done so far.

You might notice that there aren't any library books on the shelf. That is because they are on the floor as I am in the process of organizing them by genre. But I at least got the decor on the wall. I'm thinking of printing off a few quotes from different books and posting those on the wall as well along with the copy of the cover of the book they came from. One quote I have in mind is from To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee.

" You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view- until you climb into his skin and walk around in it." -Atticus Finch

Another quote comes from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory:

 

"So please, oh PLEASE, we beg, we pray, Go throw your TV set away, And in its place you can install, A lovely bookshelf on the wall."

And maybe a random, silly one like this one from Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief: 

“Ever had a flying burrito hit you? Well, it’s a deadly projectile, right up there with cannonballs and grenades.”

Voices and the Daily 5

I wish I could turn the voice off in my head. The teaching voice that is! Now don't get me wrong, I absolutely LOVE being a teacher. However, this summer, I have not been able to turn the frantic voice that is worrying about school, off in my head. I would love to silence it from time to time so I can simply enjoy time with my family or just to relax without being anxious about plans for next year. Instead, if I'm not scouring the internet or reading a professional development book, I worry that I am frittering my time away and I won't get it all done! Is anybody else this obsessed during the summer? Or is it just me?

Part of my issue is that we are starting a new reading format next year. I want to figure out the ins of outs of how I want to run this program. I've decided to incorporate The Daily 5 and the CAFE system into our reading routine. Those are new to me as well. And I'm not able to simply borrow it exactly how they describe it in the books because it is geared more towards the primary grades. So I am going to have to adapt the program to fit my classroom. I have a few adaptations running through my head.

My reading block is only an hour and a half. That poses a problem. Ideally I'm supposed to spend at least TWO and a half hours on my literacy block. Well, it is just not possible. I wish it was. So I'm leaning towards doing two independent work blocks a day instead of 4-5. This would equal 10 blocks a week. Since all the research stresses how important it is for children to just spend time reading, they would "Read to Self" once a day. This would give them 2 1/2 hours a week of reading. This leaves 5 blocks to divide the remaining Daily 5 categories. I will cover "Listen to Reading" with our Read Aloud. That leaves: "Read to Someone", "Word Work" and "Work on Writing". We are still required to teach out of our basal reader, so the story and the lesson that week will determine how many of the three remaining blocks are required. Some weeks I might want to work with vocabulary more so they would have two blocks of word work to fill. Another week, if we have a long story, they might need two days to read to someone. So here is an example of how one week of this schedule might work. The students would keep track of what they did during each block on this chart.

 

August 13-17 Requirements	5 blocks of Read to Self (R) One per day 2 blocks of Read to Someone (RS) 2 blocks of Word Work (WW) 1 block of Writing (W)
	Block 1	Block 2
Monday
Tuesday
Wednesday
Thursday
Friday

This is just a very rough sketch. Hopefully my ideas will continue to evolve so I can make this work for my classroom. I have a few more ideas but I'm going to go for now. I'll write about the other ideas next time. In case you are unfamiliar with the books I mentioned, here are some links. :o)

Here is a link to the website of the authors of The Daily 5  and The CAFE Book

Shopping and a Blog

I'm still loving that it is summer break but I'm working at least part of every day on getting ready for next year! Yesterday I met with one of my colleagues up at the school and then worked in my classroom. Today I did one of my favorite things...shopping for my classroom! I went to The Apple Tree in Tulsa. On my list of things to get were pencils and bookmarks for the first day, posters for my 40 book challenge, new border for my library area and a welcome poster for outside my door. I decided to go with a Dr. Seuss theme just for the entry to my classroom. I will hang this poster

by my door. And I will use this border

around my door. I will post a picture after I get it all put up.

After shopping, I came home and began perusing the internet for more ideas for my classroom. I came across a great blog! Teaching My Friends! She has so many great ideas. I'm sure I will use many of them.

P.S. If you are interested in finding out what the 40 Book Challenge is, you can read about it in Donalyn Miller's book, The Book Whisperer. I will explain the way I do it in more detail in a later post. :0) Hope you are having a great summer!

The Marshmallow Challenge

I wanted to share with you something that I did on the first day of school last year and am excited to do on the first day of school this year. It is a great community building project and an entertaining way to break the ice and begin to get to know each other. During the last few days of school, I asked students to write down their favorite memories of 5th grade and this activity was on almost everyone's list...including mine. It is called The Marshmallow Challenge. You can find out more about it here: The Marshmallow Challenge

It does not cost much and with these few ingredients, students are quickly working together to win the challenge. They encourage each other and even cheer on the other teams. It is neat to see the different ways students approach the same problem. I enjoyed it. The students enjoyed it. It was a great success.

These are students from my 5th grade class.

A Good Problem To Have

I am reading a lot of professional books, blogs and articles this summer to prepare for next year. But with all this reading, I feel like my head is going to explode! I have so many ideas in my head and it is hard to figure out which ones will work for me. So many great ideas are out there and there is no way to do them all. And there are so many differing and sometimes conflicting theories about what works best, so it is hard to determine which direction to take. I want to figure out what works for me and my students and combine different elements of these different ideas so that my teaching is the most effective. One website that I have been looking at since last year but wanted to really dig deep in this summer is WritingFix. It has a wealth of information and I LOVE all the free resources but I don't even know where to begin when I look at the home page! But I guess having too much information is a good thing and better than not having enough. I can't imagine if we didn't have the internet to help with our lesson planning. Can you?



So Many Apps...

There are so many apps out there for educators. Some of them are great, some not so great. However, I came across one today that could really be a time saver...if it works the way I envision. I downloaded two different versions. One was free. The other was only 99 cents. The apps are to help you with your classroom library. If it works like it says it can, all you would have to do is scan your books and then they are automatically loaded into your iPhone, levels and all! We use Accelerated Reader at my school and I love that it would have the AR level AND the AR points!! You can also use it as a check out system. If this works...it is a teacher's dream!

Here are the two apps I downloaded:

Book Retriever- 99 cents

Classroom Organizer-free but you also have to create a free account on the Classroom Organizer website.

**I've messed around a little with both of them. So far with the books I have at home, neither application has recognized any of them so I would have to input the data instead of being able to just scan it. The Book Retriever main page seems easier to use and understand than Classroom Organizer but using the Classroom Organizer app along with the website seems to have potential.

If you know of any other apps like this, especially ones that you have used and like, please share!! I would love to find the best application of this type!

Teachers Are Lucky, They Have Summers Off!

Haven't we all heard that before? Well today, I, along with two fellow teachers, spent about three hours meeting together at school to begin planning for next year. We made plans to meet once a week this summer. Such dedication! :D But yes, teaching does take a high level of commitment and dedication. If we only put in work during the hours of 8-3, our students would not be getting the best education. We have to use our "time off" to make sure we are ready for the new group of students we will be meeting in August. So today began our busman's holiday. (I'm showing off the new vocabulary I learned from Gretchen Rubin's book called The Happiness Project.)

In addition to meeting with my colleagues, I began working on the virtual writing camp I mentioned in my last post. I was supposed to start yesterday, but I forgot! I'm excited about participating and working on my writing. I began Monday's assignment and will tackle Tuesday's a little later today.

On a final note, I ordered a book from Amazon that a fellow teacher and friend recommended. It is called Teach Like a Champion by Doug LeMov. It looks great! I can't wait to read it.

Schools Out for Summer!

First let me welcome you to my blog. Thank you for stopping by! I am Tricia and I teach 5th grade language arts in a small town in Oklahoma. Next year will be my third year teaching. I found it difficult to come up with a name for my blog but love the one I finally decided on. The TLC part is a play on my initials. ;o)

Yes, school is out and let me tell you it is a glorious feeling! I love my job. I love my students. But after putting so much of myself into my career all school year long, the summer is always a welcome break to relax, rejuvenate, reconnect and of course, start preparing for next year. By the time summer is coming to a close, I am always ready to get back into the classroom and meet my new student family that will be with me for the next nine months. But I truly love my summer breaks. One reason I love them so much is because I can slow down and really delve into blogs, books, websites, magazines and anything else that I can get my hands on that will help me be a better teacher. I love learning new and better ways to do things. I also love developing my own original ideas to use in my classroom. Summer gives me the time to do these things.

I'm looking forward to my summer and spending time with my husband and my kids, relaxing and of course discovering all things teaching. I will share my favorite things here.

Happy Summer!