Well, I have a few somethings... 1. I cannot wait to do Singapore Math. 2. I am finally going to use my Minded crate as originally intended-- as a challenge crate for when students are done with work. 3. I am excited about novel studies. Last year, fifth graders read The Hobbit and one of my absolute favorites, A Wrinkle in Time. I am VERY excited to implement novel studies and seeing how my students analyze them. 4. I am going to be writing a math challenge set of word problems I cannot wait to use. I cannot wait!! This will be a really awesome year. How about you?
Doing a better job of teaching reading and writing standards through much much more time on authentic writing activities.
Staying on top of things because I'll only be working 1 job. :woot: Teaching wise, implementing strategies from The Book Whisperer.
I have mixed feelings about this year so I'm trying to just convince myself that its going to be alright. In any case, in a couple of weeks I can pick up my district issue iPad. It'll be great to have an extra one in the classroom. It was tough when I only had my own to share with 70 students. I know it'll make things better for additional resource to use. I do look forward to using it in many ways for reading and la.
I received a Smartboard in April. I'm looking forward to hitting the ground running in September with it.
We've already started (tomorrow is day 5), but I am doing Morning Meetings this year, and I already feel like it's making my classroom community much stronger than years prior.
1. I'm fully implementing Daily 5 this year in ELA and math. I'm really excited! 2. I'm moving into a brand new classroom in a brand new school building with a brand new interactive whiteboard. I'm very excited about all of that!! We didn't have interactive whiteboards last year.
1. I'm excited that I have transferred to a new school. The student population is very diverse. 2. I will be full kindergarten and not prek/k. 3. This year I want to do more donors choose technology projects. I was nervous because they are expensive and take longer to fund... but I think it will be really good for my students. 4. I'm excited about positive change. Meeting and getting to know new students and families.
The Minded Crate includes 71 options for enrichment for when kids are done with work. As for iPads... They are phenomenal to use in the classroom, and I started interactive notebooks in reading last year, which was beneficial!
I loved my old team, but they had a lot of big projects, and so it limited what I could come up with on my own. My new team is very much... "do whatever you want," so I'm excited to spread my wings and plan my own units/themes/projects. One thing I've always wanted to do is a class newspaper. So excited to give it a go!
Simplifying! Everything is new to me at this school-curriculum, smart board, ect. So I'm working on stripping away a lot of the fluff I use to add and going deeper into the heart of our standards.
I think we're all kind of there, Jem...with CCSS, a lot is new...some standards are gone, others are deeper...we'll all get through it together! Looking forward to sharing the journey and helping each other with ideas as we all get into it!
Me, too, Czacza! My head is swimming right now-I got my teacher's manuals and textbooks from the Librarian yesterday. Three math programs, three ELA programs, two science programs and one social studies program that need to be adapted/integrated into common core. I'll get there, but it's going to take my full focus. Although I'd like to dip my toe into design thinking this year. I've had two workshops on it now-one at Stanford and one through the Disney Museum and I'd like to maybe try it this year.
Learned yesterday that 3rd - 5th will no longer have math texts (quote: "there's so much on the internet"). Of course, our number of copies doesn't go up, lol. If it weren't for the expense of class sets of texts, I wouldn't mind doing without the ELA text (Storytown), but the district can't/won't pay for it, and I certainly can't afford it!
Understandable! We don't need tons of fluff to intrigue our students and provide a phenomenal education for them. You'll do a sensational job this year.
"Number talks" - outlined by a poster here. Also going to take a different approach to Guided Reading with my intervention kids to hopefully see better results than I have the past couple of years.
1. Friday journals (as seen on Pinterest) 2. Being self-contained...although this scares me too.... 3. My totally revamped classroom library 4. Utilizing parents and/or volunteers more to my advantage I'm also hoping to get more organized. I purchased one of those 10-drawer rolling carts, which I am hoping will help. 5 of the carts are labeled Monday-Friday. I have copy, grade, and file drawers, a "sub tub" (which will probably change) and a personal drawer where I can store receipts and copies of our school's reimbursement forms. I NEVER got around to filing for reimbursements last year because we only have x amount of days to do it and when I thought to do it I could never find the form and/or my receipts...I'm hoping this will solve the problem.
I feel fired up about this as well... so fired up that I went out and bought a book on the subject. But the book cost $50. I received it today, but I'm now having a bit of buyer's guilt and I haven't opened it yet (i.e. thinking whether I should return it). I'm wondering if it is even worth the money, since I'm not a teacher. Do you guys think a sub can do Number Talks with classes (if it fits into the learning day of course)? Is it one of those things that has to be done regularly, to be worthwhile?
I'm looking forward to having more time to devote to my "slow rollover." Last year it got cut short after 7 weeks.
