Adapted Mind

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Happy New Year!

Is it just me, or does a teacher's "new year" start not in January but really in August (or July...)? I always feel so excited at the start of a new school year, and I make more resolutions, positive changes, and promises to myself at this time than on January 1st. With that, I want to wish everyone a HAPPY NEW YEAR!

This past summer, I started this blog. I have used it is a holding space for ideas that have come to my mind as well as a place to store links to my favorite teacher blogs and resource sites, but now I plan to go full out with my own plans, ideas, and helpful hints.

This post is dedicated to the first week of school traditions I keep in my classroom and all the goodies that come with them.

1. Meet the Teacher Night
A couple of years ago, our school started doing a Meet the Teacher Night the night before school started. The kids and parents can come and drop their supplies off, see the classroom, and meet the teacher before the big day. I absolutely love this because there's no pressure to have any student work up on the walls, and there's no chance of a parent wanting to have an impromptu parent-teacher conference with you while you're trying to meet other parents. I literally know nothing about the kids, so I can't have a conference about them. It's wonderful!

As a way to make the first day of school a little more special, I leave paper and envelopes out with a sign asking parents to write an encouraging letter to their children for the first day of school. While the kids are putting their supplies in their cubbies, the parents are writing a special note and sealing it in an envelope that will be placed on the child's desk for the morning.

Not every parent/child comes to Meet the Teacher Night, so for those students, I write the note to them and give it to them the next day so that every child has a letter.

2. Welcome Back Sack
For a fun treat on the first day of school, a bright sack is on each desk when they walk in. Inside the sack is a letter from his/her parent (see above), a granola bar, and a brochure titled How to Survive 4th Grade. These brochures were written by my 4th graders last year on the last week of school. There are tips for how to  be successful, a list of my favorite things and least favorite things, highlights of the 4th grade year, and a list of what the students can expect to learn. The students enjoy reading these tips from my "alumni."

3. Time Capsules
I started this two years ago and am so glad I did. Each student receives an empty, cleaned out Pringles can. We have a free teacher store where people donate items like this, so I pick mine up in the summer. You could have parents donate these (or just eat lots and lots of Pringles!). The students fill out a survey about their likes and interests of the present time, as well as the cost of a gallon of gas (always fun to compare at the end of the year), and other fun facts. They also trace their hands and feet on a piece of paper, and I use ribbon to measure their height and cut the ribbon for them to keep in their time capsules. All of the items are put in the capsules, as well as a letter to themselves, and then they are not opened until the end of the year. The students decorate a piece of paper to wrap around the tube to cover the label. The best part is when they can open them up at the end of the year and see how much they have grown (physically and mentally) and changed over the course of one school year.

4. Classmate Connections
I found this idea on Pinterest. The students worked with a partner (chosen by me, hoping to encourage students who knew each other not to work together) to create Venn Diagrams of their similarities and differences. You can check out the original post for the download of the activity. They had a lot of fun, and we had an odd number so one lucky student got to be my partner. :-)

These are just a few of my ways to encourage my students at the beginning of the year and get the year off on the right foot. What do you do that makes the beginning of the year memorable and meaningful?

Digital Reading Conference Form

I have been doing reading conferences during Daily 5 time in my classroom for a solid 2 1/2 school years. I am a firm believer that the Daily 5 program isn't being used effectively until you are meeting with students and conducting reading conferences.

Each year, I have set up a large binder like "The Sisters" did with a tab for each student. It was about 2 inches thick and full of papers, dividers, and other items. I lugged it with me from conference to conference, hand-writing notes from the conferences quickly so that I wouldn't miss anything.

Well, the problem with writing quickly is that my hand writing is awful. It looks like chicken scratch. I don't have "cute teacher handwriting." :-( So, I was always annoyed that my binder looked messy.

I saw on a few teacher blogs that people were creating Google Forms to manage their reading conferences. I had never been on Google Docs before, but I decided to check it out.

I used one of the other teacher's forms as a guide as well as my own memory of what my conference forms look like, and I created a very cute, very functional form that I can use during reading conferences either on a computer or my iPad.

One point that the other teachers made about using this type of form versus carrying around the huge binder is that the binder can sometimes be intimidating to students. The more I thought about it, the more intimidated I would be if my teacher brought a 2 inch binder to a conference and wrote things down while I was reading and responding. These streamlined forms on the Internet provide a less intimidating experience for the kids...in my opinion, of course.

The best part about this form is that there is a summary option where you can see helpful, colorful graphs of all of your reading conference form data. You can easily see your students' strength areas and improvement areas in graph form, which I think would be awesome for showing parents at conference time or bringing to a meeting about a student's progress. Schools are now relying on black and white data as much as possible, and this is just another way to meet that need.

Here is the link to the form I made...you will first be taken to the "spreadsheet" view (not so cute). Go to Form and then click on Go to Live Form and you will see what it looks like all said and done.
Reading Conference Form

If you would like to get started, just go here and click on Create and then select Form. You can play around with cute themes and types of questions from there. It's really very easy! Then you can save it to your Google Docs page and access it either by emailing it to yourself or if you can access www.google.com from school, you're set!

I love technology!

Mission: "Binderize"

Binderize. Is that a word? I have been looking into "binderizing" my classroom for quite some time now. I just hate the way I never use my filing cabinets and have tons of files that I find WAY after the fact and wish I would have used during the year. Right now, I'm going through some baskets of "to file" papers and seeing a lot of good stuff I should have pulled out this year. (Insert signature forehead palm slap HERE) I have GOT to figure out a better system for housing all of these valuable files, and a big, ugly, tan, rusted filing cabinet isn't it.

Introducing Mission: Binderize. I have found a few blogs where the teachers "binderized" their rooms and were monstrously happy afterwards. That is what I'm working toward...being monstrously happy at work. :-) So...I need to develop a system that works for me. A lot of the classroom blogs that have done this are primary. Primary classrooms use a lot of themes and seasonal ideas, whereas a lot of times I am going, "Holy crap...Christmas is next week!" and then I just pull of random Christmas Internet pages. Ugh...blah. My point is that we don't use themes and season to drive our planning (unfortunately...because I think that would be so much more awesome)...so I knew that making a binder for each month wasn't going to cut it.

For now I have started just going through files and pitching the old stuff and things I have 100 copies of and dividing the papers into subject areas. My plan is to then go through and divide them by topics/standards. AHHH...my head hurts thinking about it. However, I think if I can get them into some useful binders and have things within easier access, I will be able to see what I have and then actually use what I have...which is probably a good thing.

Wish me luck.

Hardware Store White Boards

For a couple of years now, I have been seeing teachers on the Internet make dry erase boards out of "shower board" from the hardware store. I have always been kind of intimidated by the hardware store, but I decided this morning when we went to buy paint for our sun room that it was time to just ask about it.

So, I made my husband do it. :-)

Thankfully, they knew what we needed! We were at Lowes, and it was near the wood paneling and trim section, not in the plumbing section like you would think. It's called a lot of things...shower board, tile board, smooth bead board, etc...but if you describe what you need to the handy people who work there, they should be able to help you out.

This was a 4 feet by 8 feet sheet for a little less than $12. Bargain! Doing my quick math skills, I knew that amounted to about 32 1'x1' dry erase boards for $12! We sweet talked the lumber cutter guy into cutting them for us, no extra charge, and we ended up with a really great deal.

I slid over to the tape aisle and picked out three rolls of colored duct tape to put around the edges. It's probably not necessary, but it will keep the edges from splitting or fraying, and it will be a little cuter, too!

So, the grand total was around $23 with tax, which included 32 white boards and 3 rolls of fancy duct tape (which was $3.50 each).

I will post photos when I get them all taped and ready!

P.S. I have read that you should buy a wax furniture protector spray to spray the tops of the boards to make sure the marker slides off and doesn't stick. I will be looking into that, too.

Have fun, and don't be afraid of the hardware store!

Daily 5 for 4th {Part Two} Writing

This is the second installment of my series on using Daily 5 in the 4th grade classroom. Click here to see {Part One}.

Writing? Writing. Writing! The punctuation reflects my thoughts about this rotation of Daily 5. I really love writing, and I love to teach writing to my students. This is a really important part of Daily 5 because it allows students the freedom of choosing what they would like to write about all the while practicing a specific skill that you have taught them. I don't think that we as teachers give students enough time to practice skills before we want to assess them, which usually leaves us pretty frustrated because the students just "aren't getting it" fast enough. No wonder! We aren't letting them practice without fear of messing up, and we are expecting that a one time mini lesson will be enough to master an entire skill.

Wrong! 

My first two years of doing Daily 5, I used Writing as a stand alone rotation, meaning that everyone had to do it daily, and it wasn't combined with any other rotation. This year, I combined Word Work and Writing and let the students choose between these two, and I have to say that I wasn't all that pleased with how that turned out. I noticed that very few students were choosing to write, and as a result, I don't believe the writing was that great as compared to the first two years. In the first two years when the students rotated through Writing daily, they were filling notebooks with pages of creative writing, and they were excited to put pencil to paper. This year felt like more of a struggle, so you can guess what I am planning to do this year-- yes...go back to keeping Writing as its own rotation.

I have a variety of tools that I set out to help unlock the writer's block that students sometimes get when you tell them to "go write" for 20-30 minutes. I have story cubes, little story starters, and journal calendars that I print and give to the students from Busy Teachers Cafe. I have been giving them each a calendar to keep in their notebooks for idea inspiration, but I think this year I will just print one copy and place it in a binder with the other writing tools.

To be honest, the other tools I mentioned were barely used. Students seemed to have enough idea inspiration on their own with the help of the in-class activities we had done on the Ideas trait. I plan to not use the story starters and cubes this year. What I do want to use is this idea, which uses classroom journals on specific topics (sports, seasons, animals, etc), and the students can contribute and write their own entries in the topic-specific journals. This will give the students the great opportunity to read what other students are writing, too, which I think is really important for ideas and inspiration. 

I am also going to have a binder full of travel brochures, magazine/calendar pictures, and greeting cards that can offer inspiration for struggling writers. 

Lastly, I plan to have a bin where students can place their journals at the end of the day if they would like me to take a look and read what they wrote. They can mark the page they'd like me to read with a sticky note and then I can read that entry and provide them with a little feedback. This is not to be confused with grading the journals. The students need to feel comfortable writing without criticism.

What to take from this post...

1. Give students the opportunity to write freely each day.

2. Older kids tend to not need the gimmicks and writing "toys" that younger kids need.

3. Give students the opportunity to have their writing read by you without criticism. 

Stay tuned for the next installment of this series, which will be for Read to Someone!

Daily 5 for 4th {Part One} Word Work

This is the first part of my series devoted to how you can make Daily 5 work for 4th graders.

It was about 3 years ago when I discovered Daily 5 by following the blog of a teacher who I thought was just amazing (and she still is). Blogging wasn't "all the rage" back then, and Pinterest wasn't even created (think of all the free time you had back then!). I was excited to discover a teacher who could elevate me from just a solid, textbook oriented teacher to a teacher full of new ideas and innovative ways to teach valuable material to my students.

One of the books that this teacher kept referencing was the CAFE, and I kept thinking..."What is that?" After some Google work, I discovered what it was, and I was then led to The Daily 5, both books written by Gail Boushey and Joan Moser. I bought the books and dove in head-first, eager to change my style and be "this" type of teacher.

I quietly integrated The Daily 5 into my classroom in my 3rd year of teaching, and then by my 4th and 5th years I was singing its praises to anyone who would listen. The other elementaries in our corporation also began reading the books and observing other schools who used the methods, and before we knew it...Daily 5 was happening in numerous classrooms in our school system.

This made me really happy, but I was also met with resistance from colleagues who didn't know how meaningful it could be to upper elementary students. To their credit, the books and videos did seem a little young for our age groups, and they were right to be skeptical. Without seeing it in action, it was difficult for the intermediate teachers to jump on the band wagon.

One of the aspects of Daily 5 that the intermediate teachers struggled with was Word Work. Many teachers don't like the idea of students "playing" with items and doing what seems to be mindless practice on spelling words-- and how important are spelling words anyway? With our time being allotted mostly to reading and math, it was difficult to see the importance of making time for Word Work.

I continued to keep Word Work in my rotation because I wanted the students to have a hands-on component to their learning, and I do believe that spelling, vocabulary, and sight words are important. I also hate worksheets with a flaming passion, so if this is way for the students to practice those word groups without writing the word 100 times each, then sign me up.

The important thing is creating age-level appropriate activities for the students, giving them choices, and making sure that the kids aren't "playing" with the items and are actually working. There are ALWAYS going to be students at every grade level who will want to fiddle around with the items instead of use them effectively, but it is up to the teacher to make sure that child knows what is right and what is wrong.

My Word Work activities have varied slightly over the years, and I have some ideas for new activities for this year. I will start with listing and describing what I did this year. Beneath each activity, I will discuss any adaptations I am going to make to the activity or if I am going to scrap it all together.

1. Magnetic ABC Letters: Purchased from Target Dollar Spot-- Students use my chalkboard to spell out  words.
{This is a popular activity. What I will change this year is I plan to buy a couple of inexpensive magnetic cookie sheets and the students can take the letters back to their desks and put them on the cookie sheets. Being in the front of the classroom on the chalkboard creates a lot of noise with the plastic letters and other students tend to watch the students using this activity too much. Also, you inevitably get a finger nail scratch on the board...AHHHHH!}

2. Play Doh Words: I buy one large variety pack at the beginning of the year and it lasts the whole year through-- Students roll Play Doh into "worms" and create letters/words out of them.
{This one was not as popular this year as it has been in years past. Instead of creating "worms" first for the letters, I am going to show the students how to flatten the Play Doh into a sheet and then I will include a plastic tool for engraving the words into the Play Doh. The rolling into "worms" wasted a lot of time, and some students only got through a couple words before time was up.}

3. Clip Words: Buy the wooden clothespins from the laundry section at Target & popsicle sticks-- I write a letter on each clothespin and then the students clip the letters to the popsicle sticks to spell words.
{This activity was just OK to me. I think what I will do this year is set up in the corner of the room an actual clothesline where the students can clip the clothespins to the line. I may even combine the ABC cards activity with this one and have the students clip the ABC cards on the clothesline with the clothespins.}


4. Picture Words: Use the Picture Words Activity Sheet-- Students draw a picture in each box to represent a word.
{This was always popular, and it least it was easy to supply because it was just a computer print out! I am going to be marking activities as "Vocabulary Only" for our reading vocabulary words, and this one will be one of those activities. Drawing pictures for words helps with understanding meaning, but not necessarily for understanding spelling.}


5. Flashcards: Students have their own lined 3x5 index cards-- Students write the word on the front and the definition on the back. They can keep these for practice throughout the week.
{This will be one of those "Vocabulary Only" activities.}

6. ABC Beads: I used small ABC beads from the jewelry section and pipe cleaners-- Students string ABC beads on the pipe cleaners to spell words.
{The pipe cleaners, after repeated use, began to fray. I am thinking of putting this activity into rotation only as a special activity and using elastic bead string.}

7. Dry Erase Boards: Students write spelling words on my small dry erase boards.
{This was definitely a popular station. Students would race to get one of my 10 boards. I think this year, I will laminate pieces of white card stock and use them as dry erase boards for this activity. My dry erase boards are pretty nice and they showed some wear when students wouldn't erase their markers all the way.}

8. ABC Cards: I used colored index cards to write one large letter on each-- Students spell the words letter by letter out on the floor or at the desk.
{See above on #3}

9. Pasta Words: Buy the elbow, bow tie, and rotini pasta-- Students use the pasta to spell out words.
{This is another activity that was really popular a couple years ago, but students didn't seem to into it this year. I think this will be a special rotation activity, too.}


As you can see, I have a lot of changes I would like to make to my activities. Of course, these activities will be all new to my new students, but I am also ready for a change. I have always wondered if it was best to have a wide variety of activities or if I should limit it to keep the choosing and the management to a minimum. I think I will start this year with 6 "permanent" activities that are there all the time, and then I will have one extra "special rotation" activity every week or two that either incorporates a seasonal component for the holidays or uses some of the special manipulatives like the beads, Play Doh, or pasta. The kids would probably be more excited and motivated if they could have something "new" every now and then.

I have pinned several activities on my Pinterest board that I am wanting to try this year, including Scrabble, keyboarding, sand boxes, texture writing, and many others. I will do anything to keep my kids motivated and excited about learning!

I will be back to add {Part Two} of my Daily 5 for 4th series, which will be Writing!