Quick Note

I found another benefit of teaching in a portable today; we still have heat when the boiler in the building breaks. Tell me, how are kids supposed to learn when there's no heat in the building and they're still cold, even while wearing their coats all day? Some things in education just need to be fixed and someone needs to find the funds to do so.

Still a negative of teaching in a portable, walking in the rain and jumping over puddles to anywhere we have to go. I'm figuring out the path between the puddles from my door to the building.

Update

Ok... it has been FOREVER since I have posted. I'm sorry for any of you who follow my blog. As most of you know, the start of school is crazy!! I have been trying to take pictures of things that I knew I would eventually blog about, but I'm sure I've missed a bunch of stuff.

Just before the start of school, my wonderful dad finished building my mailboxes. Aren't they beautiful?!? They look even better up close! Each slot has a number to the left and they have been amazing! They save so much time! They are near my desk so as I grade papers in the evening or when I'm given handouts from the office, I can throw them right into the student's box. 

On parent night, I did a few things that I had seen on other teachers' sites and it made the night run very smoothly. First, I had students fill out this Parent Night Kid Quiz which I found for free on Teachers Pay Teachers. The kids filled out the left side and folded the paper in half so their parents had to fill out the other side and couldn't see the answers. Then they could check their answers and write a note. The kids LOVED reading their parents' notes in the morning! 

As parents walked in the door, I had this desk set up. Parents could pick up a star if they could help to provide some of the extra supplies that we'll need this year. I forgot to take a picture before Curriculum Night so these are the stars that were left over. 

I like to offer parents handouts at curriculum night, but don't want to make a bunch of copies if parents don't end up taking them. Instead of making copies, I just provided one or a few copies. When there is only one copy, parents can sign up on the post-it and I'll send a copy home with the child the next day. Then, I only need to make copies for the parents who are truly interested. 

I've received a lot of compliments on my chart organization. I can't remember whether I saw this idea on another blog or adapted what one of my coworkers did last year (sorry!). This year, I am labeling my charts so students can go back to review them without them taking a ton of wall space. I have two spots for reading charts and two spots for writing charts. As I make new charts, I put them up right on top of the old ones and add a post-it with the topic of the chart. It makes it easy for students to flip back to the chart they're looking for and looks organized, avoiding that visual clutter that seems to take over in some classrooms. 

Since taking this picture, I have changed the post-its to start on the left side. I'm not sure why I started them in the middle at first. 

Tonight, I saw this idea on Krazy About Kiddos. Lately, my students have been urgent to talk to me while I am conferring with other students. I am going to revisit our conference norms mini-lesson soon, but I am also going to add this light to my conference table. When I reteach the mini lesson (about how to get help when I'm conferring) I will also make an anchor chart (and reprint it on smaller paper) to put right next to my conference table so I can just point to it if students try to interrupt me. 

For any new teachers or future teachers reading this, I wanted to share this graph with you. There is also an accompanying article here. I found it very accurate last year and think that it still is this year. Last year, I don't think I ever reached the rejuvenation stage and feel that even my reflection phase was shortened and replaced by a longer disillusionment phase. I'm hoping for better this year and so far I feel better than I did last year at this point in the year.