56 days of summer – 35

Today, my goal is to complete the MS for this math book, then let it sit until Monday for another round of editing. I’d also love to finish with my vehicles and get the BB paper cleaned up out of the guest room! I can do mess for a short period, but there comes a point that it wears on my nerves.

Cheryl Ristow posted a video this morning of a teacher decorating his room. It is not all practical, but I do love his enthusiasm. I have done some impractical things in my room (even knowing they were impractical) because I loved the way they looked and HOPE really does spring eternal donchano. I didn’t do themes in my classrooms – well, I did, but the theme was Math. 😉 I’m doing my second one in the library now and I love how the theme can tie things together. I love the filming theme he uses. Got to add that to my Pinterest board!

 

 

Barb Kibler shared a Buzzfeed Link – 35 Money Saving DYIs for the Classroom from 2013. I realize this kind of teacher craftiness is not everyone’s cup of tea, but I’ve tried many of these things. I cannot tell you how many stacking boxes and cans (metal and plastic) I’ve repurposed over the years. Sometimes what I ended up making was NOT less expensive because of covering it (or, yes, even the mistakes I made), but I just couldn’t find something to fit a purpose. I would recommend finding boxes from a source other than the Post Office. Those are clearly marked that they are for USPS use only. But once you start collecting boxes, they multiply quickly.

 

paint chip calendar

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New American Academy in Brooklyn Is an Experiment in Class Size – NYTimes.com

New American Academy in Brooklyn Is an Experiment in Class Size – NYTimes.com.

Title is actually:

60 First Graders, 4 Teachers, One Loud New Way to Learn

Problem is, it doesn’t sound like anyone is learning …

Soap box flash card project

Flash card caught my eye. I’m always looking for some new way to give the same old information to the kids to make it seem new. This blogger does a nice portrayal of the project in pictures.

As it is, it’s too time consuming for something to use at school, but it’s also certainly adaptable. My thinking wheels are turning for sure.

Research design and sampling

The portion of the text I’m working on right now involves research design. The research designs are interesting enough, although I don’t really think I’m all that interested in conducting my own research. However, I have been thinking about things I could do in the classroom that would be quasi-research in scope and possibly beneficial to how I teach. There is the possibility of pre-testing and post-testing and teaching the different classes using differing techniques to see if one method was truly more beneficial than another.

The portion of this section that is most interesting to me however is the randomized sampling techniques based on statistical probability or those not based on probability. That would be the part of research I could enjoy I think.

The next section is on data collection and I’m pretty sure with my background I’m going to enjoy that one.

Kids out at school

We’ve had approximately 25% out. That has been true for my class too. I hesitate to say anything about H1N1 because the only things I’ve heard have come from other teachers and not administration, but apparently it’s out there.

ICK!

Just wash your hands!

Compliments of Bill Nye:

Some education-related articles

State EOG exams open for scrutiny This is your personal EOG. The old tests have been released (at least to teachers) for practice. But, previously you have not been able to see your test and how you were graded – only your grade.

Furloughs hit local teachers hard Teachers are having a hard time fitting the 10-hour furlough time in to counter that pay cut last Spring. Imagine that!

Certification Of Teachers as Painful Farce States play a guessing game with what is actually accepted and not for re-certification. Hours are also an issue. CEI courses are counted one way. College courses are counted another. I’ve actually called the state, talked with one person to get one answer. Called back to talk again and been given different info.

EDUCATIONAL CRISIS Failure to serve the best and brightest adequately.

My Teacher, My Hero Has a great teacher inspired you? Here’s a place to talk about him/her beginning Tuesday September 8.

Wool critters and day 2 of school

School start has gone well except for one thing. The AC in my room has gone out. It went out Saturday during a storm and it came back on in each of the other rooms Monday. I’m still waiting. To give you an idea of how warm things are, it was 109 in my car when I got in it today at 3p. I don’t normally leave ASAP, but having spent three days in a room with no air but fans and window breezes put me in the mood.

I’m enjoying my class. AC aside, it’s been one of the smoother school starts I’ve had.

Between school start and being hot all day, I’m still really tired. I’m enjoying the more visual blogs right now. (I am reading the short ones, but the longer posts are eluding me. Sorry guys 😉 )

Crafty Pods reviewed a book called Wool Pets. Go look at the pix they posted. They are really cute!

Latest pix of classroom

If I said I was exhausted, that would be a gross understatement!

School starts tomorrow with breakfast duty at 7:20a.

Week in review

Going back to school is always an adjustment, but going to a new school is more intense. You have to meet people (and they you), you have to get used to the room, organize it, rearrange it, figure out the culture of the school. They are all a bit different.

I am very fortunate to be on this 4th/5th grade team. There is a new 4th grade teacher too. She is also experienced. The entire team though has been a joy to get to know and extremely helpful. I worked in my room and with the team on Monday and Tuesday. Long days. People kept bringing in math things they found in their rooms. The organizing is huge for me. If I have tiles or pattern blocks, I want them all in the same place. Fraction strips need to all be in a box of fraction strips. Activities need to be organized by objective. It doesn’t bother lots of people if everything doesn’t have it’s place, but it bothers me – to the point of not being able to do anything until everything is organized.

Wednesday we had that great math training on those horrible little seats.

Thursday and Friday – back in the room and meetings. Yesterday morning was great. Everyone else on the hall was in some county meeting and I was all by myself. I flew through the last of organizing the room and going through papers. I signed up for 2-day district web master training at the end of September. Great management system for professional development.

This weekend, I’m working on more file folder games and some computer work and some shopping for things like bird feeders and rain gauges and thermometers. And then Sunday afternoon is open house for school start on Tuesday.

I’ve been getting up at 5:30. That needs to be moved up to 5:00. It takes 45 minutes from walking out of my door to walking into the classroom door. That’s a huge change I’m still getting used to. I broke my alarm clock this summer, so I’ve been using my phone. First night I didn’t sleep very well wondering if I’d hear it. Well of course I did because I hadn’t slept! Last night I fell asleep at 9pm and didn’t turn over until 6am.

Reading has completely gone to the dogs. I do have a light piece of fiction going (or I should say dropping to the floor because every time I try to read it, I fall asleep and drop it). I also realized I cannot keep up with the number of feeds I have coming in. Did some pruning last night.

Yesterday I had two emails from my prof at ECU for class number one in the MLS program. Wishing I’d known I was going to be changing jobs at the same time because I know I would have waited at least a semester to start!

Here are some early pictures of my room. NOT the earliest because desks and chairs were in the middle of the room then. All the stuff on the walls at this point are things the last teacher left. Most of those are gone now. Tomorrow when I go back for Open House, I’ll snap some new pix. I don’t think things will change much now. This is the largest, brightest, nicest room that I’ve ever taught in.