Classroom Pets

"Pets in the Classroom" (http://www.petsintheclassroom.org/) is an organization that will help you purchase a pet and items to setup the pet in the classroom. After the pet has been purchased, you can also apply yearly for a sustaining grant, to help pay for the items you need for your pet. Here is my story so far:

Well, I've gone and done it now. I will be getting a classroom pet. What was I thinking? One of my Facebook friends posted a link on her page at the beginning of July. I was intrigued, but not really enough to act on it. Then, the more I thought about it, the more I thought that I would like to give it a shot.

Two weeks ago, I went to the website to apply for the grant. Now, keep in mind that I was thinking about getting a fish. Low maintenance (maybe), not a lot of attention needed from me. Something changed my mind when I was filling out the application, and I decided I wanted to get a guinea pig. Those are cute, I thought, and they are diurnal (play during the day), unlike hamsters which are nocturnal. I also imagine putting the little furball in a plastic ball and letting him run around the classroom.

Today, I received my acceptance letter with my coupons. I decided that I needed to do my research (yep, I did everything backwards.) Apparently, guinea pigs are social, meaning they need lots of love an attention... daily. I am not supposed to leave it in my classroom over the weekend (it needs routine and can get lonely.) Oh, and I shouldn't put it in a ball because it can hurt itself. They chew a lot, and like to be held. Awesome. Apparently I have decided to adopt a small child.

I am still excited about starting this new experience. I will just have to change my approach to what to do with my pet. I will either go shopping tomorrow or Sunday, and get everything together to take him or her up to school Tuesday. I cannot wait for my kids to see the pet. I want them to be involved in his care.

Once I get everything set up, I will post some pictures! Wish me luck. :)

"Teacher Kit," "Class Dojo," and a request...

What an amazing first week of school! Full of ups and downs. I thought I would end this great week by telling you about two apps that I use... and by making a small request!

Teacher Kit is a free app that allows you to store information about a student. And by information, I use it to store contact information: parents names, email addresses, and phone numbers. There is also a feature that allows you to send emails to everyone for whom you have an email address. I use this as an additional way to contact my students' parents and give them information. As of yet, not everyone has signed up for Remind 101, so I use Teacher Kit as an additional tool. There is also a feature that allows you to keep notes (like behavior.)

You can set it up online at http://teacherkit.net/

I am fairly new to Class Dojo. My colleagues have been using it for the past week, and I decided to jump on board. It was really easy to set up on my home computer. I typed in all of my students, and the app gave them each an avatar. I added a couple of positive and negative behaviors. Now, I can simply select a student and select the appropriate positive or negative behavior. There is also a feature that randomly selects a student. The class will not know which student is selected, so they will not know which student I am giving a "point" to or taking a "point" from. Now I just need to align the point system with my existing classroom behavior chart.

Another cool feature is that every student is assigned a code. I can print out the students code (which I will do Monday) and send it home to the parents. The parents are allowed to register for the website and view their student's behavior daily!

Check it out at http://www.classdojo.com/

Personal request: I will be participating in Arkansas' Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure. For the first time ever, I have signed up to help with fundraising. If you would like to contribute, please visit http://arkansas.info-komen.org/site/TR/RacefortheCure/LIT_ArkansasAffiliate?px=14541304&pg=personal&fr_id=3485

Thank you!

Present Me! A web video

There is an awesome website called Present.Me wich allows you to record presentations and send them to others. I can definitely use this in my classroom. Check out my video presentation!

https://present.me/view/86559-a-demonstration-of-present-me

The Finished Product: My Classroom

I am so excited! My classroom is ready for my first grade students Monday. This is the very last weekend before school starts, so I am just taking it easy. I've been working in my room on and off for about three weeks. I hate doing last-minute stuff, so the past couple of days has been smooth sailing. Take a look:

View from the doorway.

Another view from the doorway.

Classroom Library

Writing Center (Prompt will be written on the whiteboard)

Computer Centers, Classroom Incentive (class earns tickets for compliments, 50 tickets earns them a movie on a Friday afternoon), Jobs, etc.

Side of the classroom; shelves containing math activities and tools.

Cubbies for kids to store their scissor, glue, crayons, etc.

Big Books for Shared Reading, table and tubs labeled to turn in items (work, papers, etc), a Listening Center, and the calendar for Math.

My table for Guided Reading (with work for Monday.)

Side view of the classroom. Met some of my students last night, a few chose to bring their supplies!

A cute apple made by my friend, colleague, and neighbor. I need to remember to straighten it out when I go back Monday. It's a little tilted. :)

My bulletin board welcoming the kids back to school. On the cork strip: gallon freezer bags with construction paper stuck in. This way, I can simply slide the kids' work into the bag and it will be "matted." In addition, I can keep the work in the bag: put the old work behind the construction paper and new work in front. Works great to ensure that I have all of the writing prompts for the Writing portfolios at the end of the year!

Letting off steam

I was going to post about politics in schools, but I feel like I've dealt with so much politics over the past two days, I am ready to give it a rest. Instead, I'm just going to blog about my last three days.

Monday, we met our new school Superintendent who is determined to put our school back on track. He has a lot of ideas about how to make things work and revamp things to make our school appealing to parents and children. Enough said.

Later that morning, we head back to school for a Staff meeting. We discussed changes and new procedures, met new people, and talked about our summer vacation. In the afternoon, we broke into groups to work on the ACSIP plan for our school. I somehow forgot that I am the "chair" of the Math department. Do you ever feel like your sinking with a lot of people around you, but you have no idea who to ask for help? You don't want people to know that you have no idea what you are doing; you'd rather just sink or swim. I swam, and got stronger the more I swam.

Yesterday morning, I went to a Literacy PD. Truthfully, yesterday was so busy, I'm not really sure what I learned in the Literacy PD. I guess it just wasn't very helpful. I did drag out a new resource that I am excited to be using. :)

After lunch, I headed to a Math PD. A very interesting PD that focused on the last year and beyond of CGI. Basically, it was a "what do you need help with?" type of PD where we determined what was learned. I really enjoyed it and can't wait to put some of the new ideas into my lessons.

After a small break with a friend at Starbucks to discuss next year's trip to London, I headed to a Rep Council meeting. You see, I am the Representative for my school for the "union." This is very new to me, and I was caught very unaware of the procedures/protocols/politics of how everything is ran. Let me tell you, I now know what it is like to be thrown under a bus. I also learned how to get up, dust myself off, and keep going.

So that brings us to today. Lead a PD this morning (first time every!), spoke to the entire staff about issues and concerns brought to my attention by the "union" and tried to convince people to join, and then had to meet with the principal and fill him in on the changes the Math department decided to make to the ACSIP plan. I now see teaching as so much more than just kids in a classroom. 

I will be meeting new students tomorrow evening at our school's "meet and greet." I will be seeing a few familiar student and parent faces as well. I am very excited to see the familiar faces and get their opinion as to how the classroom looks compared to last year. It feels to me like tomorrow will be one of the easier parts of my job.

This will be fun!

Here it is... my last "day off" before school begins. Well, before it begins for teachers. And I use the word "begins" very loosely. I accomplished a lot of things over the summer: finished the Leadership Academy, began CGI Year III training, helped set up the book-room at school, and even got a head start setting up my classroom.

This week will see teachers in Professional Developments and staff meeting, meeting with colleagues to plan, starting/putting finishing touches on their classrooms, and meeting parents. Personally, I will be speaking at our staff meeting and helping head a PD, two things I have never done before. I am always terrified when I have to speak in front of adults. But I've been trying to take on the approach of one of my favorite actors; I look at everything as a new opportunity to have fun. In fact, when someone asks me to do something, I reply, "Sure. This will be fun." Some of it is sarcasm, but some of it is to remind me to have fun with the experience.

Today, I am trying to load everything in my car that I will need over the following week: my teacher tote (which still needs to be cleaned out), the items I brought home and cleaned over the weekend to write my new students' names on, and Febreeze and fabric softener to help get rid of the musty smell on my beanbag chairs. I'm sure I will think of a hundred new things to do before I actually go to sleep tonight (which will probably be somewhere around one or two in the morning.)

The highlight of my week is that I get to see my wonderful friends and colleagues, and meet a few new faces. I get to chat about my summer and hear about the exciting adventures of others. We are in this together. Everyone is nervous, stressed out, and excited about the upcoming school year. So for now, I am off to get things together. As for next week: This will be fun!

"Bubbling" with Excitement!

I saw this cute idea on Pinterest. It's a gift for the students when they come back to school. I have never given the students a "back to school" gift, but this seemed real easy. I just bought some bubbles (I think Walmart has them in packs of eight for $2.97), printed out labels with the message, put the labels on blue construction paper, cut the labels apart, punched a hole in the paper, used ribbon to secure the message to the bottle, and used scissors to curl the ends of the ribbon. Like I said, pretty easy. Took about one to two hours to make 24.

The original Pinterest message said, "I've been bubbling with excitement to meet you." I changed my message from "meet" to "see" because I will have some of the same students that I had last year. I am moving from teaching Kindergarten to teaching First grade this year.

I am really happy with how they turned out. Now I am just hoping that the bubbles actually work!

A few more websites...

Well, I have finally reached my last week of summer vacation. Our district officially returns to school on August 12. The kids will follow a week later. I am hopeful that I will have a lot to share about my classroom experiences in about three weeks!

Right now, I thought I would tell you about two FREE websites that are very useful in classrooms:

Math, Language Arts, Science, and other subjects. Games for kids of all ages. FREE! I plan to put this as a bookmark on my kids' computers. They will be able to access the websites during Math and Literacy centers.

http://www.e-learningforkids.org/courses.html

This website will allow a student create and narrate his or her own stories. Wouldn't that be a great incentive to get a student to finish his or her writing assignment and do a good job? The class can vote on the top three stories, and then those students can create their story and bring it to life.

http://storybird.com/

Now for a  few personal Pinterest links. The first one focuses on Kindergarten skills. It was created by a group of Kindergarten teachers as part of a technology project through the Arkansas Leadership Academy.

http://pinterest.com/pintergarten/

These are links to my own personal Pinterest board. I refer to these boards for ideas of things to do in the classroom. I also update these boards pretty frequently. Feel free to follow the boards!

 http://pinterest.com/kimberlymard/organizational-tips/

http://pinterest.com/kimberlymard/crafts/

http://pinterest.com/kimberlymard/math/

http://pinterest.com/kimberlymard/literacy/

http://pinterest.com/kimberlymard/articles-links-motivation/

One more website: https://delicious.com/ This website allows you to save website addresses to their website. When you log in, you can access your files from any computer. For example, if you are looking for exciting websites for you students at home and find a few you like, you can put the information in the Delicious website. Then, when you get to school, you can open the website and find your stuff.

That's it for now. Enjoy! And feel free to comment. :)

Classroom-Ready for the New Year... almost

I have put together about 90% of my classroom, and I am so excited! I threw away a lot of stuff at the end of last year. Now my classroom is very open and the kids have a lot of room to walk around and work. I finally have a teacher "desk," and spent about four hours today connecting my printer to my computer. (I didn't have the cd and had trouble downloading/installing the correct drive.) It truly is the little things that make us happy. All I need now is my list of students, so I can get their names put on things. I am truly ready for this year to begin!

Take a look at my classroom!

This is the front of my classroom. I have a SmartBoard! Over on the right is my "desk" and my table for Guided Reading. On the left is my easel. Up on the whiteboard is my Behavior Chart. In front of that is where the kids are going to turn in their work, folders, homework, notebooks, etc. And to the right of the table is the Listening Center.

This is the left side of my classroom. There is a big bulletin board to display student work. I have four sets of shelves divided into Literacy and Math. The shelves have games, center work, activities for the kids to work on. There is a little area that looks crowded, but those things will come off the counter when school begins.

This is the back of the classroom. There is a chart towards the right that the students use to select their jobs for the day. The big red rectangle is the class incentive. When the class receives a compliment (from other teachers, as a class), they earn a ticket (which is put on the wall.) When the class earns 50 tickets, the students get to watch a movie on a Friday afternoon. There are three trapezoid tables, one will be for the writing center, and the other two are for the computer centers. Off to the far left is the classroom library.

This is the right side of the classroom. There are hooks for the kids to hang up coats and backpacks. I have a lot of books stored on the shelves above. You can see the carpet that the students sit on during their lessons. There is also a better picture of my Guided Reading table. If you notice the "tubs" on the rectangle tables... those are used to identify which table a child sits at: green, blue, red, and yellow.

That's it! That's my classroom. As I said, I need to get some things labels. I also need to get the kids assigned to their seats and their cubbyholes so they can store their supplies. That will be done the week after next. My next project is creating Welcome Back gifts for my students.  :)