Adventures in Video

Today my heart did little happy smushes in my chest. This was because one of my teachers brought me a little tin full of tasty brownie muffin things and said, "This is just to say thank you from our grade level." 
Awww!
I would have taken a picture, but I was too busy shoving tasty brownie muffin things in my face. Hence the happy little smushes in my heart. However, this did not exactly help me with the next problem: the problem of seeing myself on camera.
I don't know anyone who likes to see themselves on camera. Oh, sure, there are some ego-manicas out there who maybe like to see what they look like + ten pounds, but most people I know spend a lot of time avoiding camera footage including themselves.  
But tomorrow, I am going to deliberately film myself 
I say film as if I am using a fancy camera and not the 'flip video' provided me
doing a guided reading lesson with a group of kids. I'm giving a Guided Reading training on Friday, and I figure the best way to learn it is to see it happen with kids! In order to have the best video possible (the one in which I look the skinniest), I did a little pre-filming filming. Meaning, I took a video so I could figure out the best way to take a video.
I worked with these kids (three special dumplings) yesterday, so we could go through the routine of guided reading and establish some basic principles. These included...
-when I say to point at something, point at it. -while I say something, wait until I'm done saying it to say what you want to say -when I say read, .......... wait for it ........... read.
This was the training portion for the kids. But upon reviewing the video, I came across a few issues that I think I will have to address before making my real video. These included...
- Wearing sleeves. No one needs to see that. - Choosing a blouse more carefully so as to hide my side rolls. - Lowering my guided reading table. It's incredibly high for my short little torso. - Not looking down. It creates additional chins. - Learning how to speak without a lisp. Self-explanatory. - Being smarter. 
And last but not least, putting a sign on the door that says, "Recording in progress." Hopefully this will eliminate the voice-over from my K-2 buddy shouting, "Are you EVER gonna go to lunch?! Is this the SAME group as before?!"
So I have my work cut out for me. I'll let you know how it goes.
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Poetree. or Poetry. Either way.

So I have to train third - fifth grade on guided reading on Friday. This means I get to make a video of myself, giving a guided reading lesson. Video = ew. I'm not the most photogenic.
I guess I'll share it with you when it's done and you can laugh, too.
It's not exactly poetry in motion. And....segue.
So, speaking about poetry, that's what our fourth grade teachers are working on. 
*Just aside: did you know that's how you spell segue? Not like the scooter like the excellent Gob uses on Arrested Development, but like the transition? I didn't know. Good thing I checked.*
Anyway, our teachers have been working on explaining how the structures of poetry relate to their form, so I made these sample anchor charts so they could use them in their rooms. 
Then I took pictures of them for you. Awww, nice.

One of the things the teachers did is to glue the poem into the students' readers' notebooks. Then they took the poem and color-coded these structures in it. From there, they took one of the poems and cut it apart to glue into the "examples" section. 

Do you like my poetree? lol I crack myself up.

This chart is an anchor for the different forms of poetry. This one is a tough one for kids & teachers, I've noticed. (Technically, there are three types of poetry, but we don't work with the dramatic form, so I kept it down to 2, even though three may have been prettier.)

If you notice, there are some weird lines clearly from the back of the paper that criss-cross throughout the poetree. That's because I had to sketch it more than once to make it look right. Cut me some slack, ok? I'm sleepy.

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Praying for fall

I am so sick of summer. I am tired of 100 degree days. It is September, and somebody should tell the weather that.
On Friday, our school went to watch the parade. What parade? you ask. Our feeder pattern high school homecoming parade, which is always the first homecoming event of the district because this school is the oldest in the district; established 1927. This means it happens very early in the football season, aka the second week of school.
The problem with attending a homecoming parade in a desert in early September, even if it is at 9:00 in the morning, is that it is hot. Incredibly hot. It was around 90 degrees and continued to climb. We stood on the side of the street and the children shouted for candy.
"Candy! Candy!" they shouted at the passing cars. "Candy! Candy!" they shouted at the passing cheerleaders. "Candy! Candy!" they shouted at the passing horse.
Some of the time, they actually got candy. That was an adventure in itself. The candy was tossed into the crowd of children. The children dove wildly and shoved the candy into their little ziploc bags. Then they continued shouting "candy" and sweating.
After about an hour of this, one of the sticky, sweating kids told me, "I wish they would throw water instead."
Me too, kid. Me, too.
The rest of the day was pretty gross, mostly because I felt like there was a layer of dried sweat in between me and my clothing. Ew.
The next day, though, a storm blew in and it has cooled off about 20 degrees or so. It is so much nicer. I can wear jeans without feeling like I'm going to pass out. It is lovely and beautiful and I just know it isn't going to last. 
In honor of me pretending that fall has begun even though I know it hasn't, I am sharing my Fall Word Work Pack with you. I will happily email this to the first ten people to follow my facebook and comment here! The pack is appropriate for second and third grade. Includes contractions matching, word family sorting, alphabetical order, and parts of speech in a cute fall theme.
So first ten commenters, follow my facebook, include your email address, and I'll send you my fall word work pack!  And if you miss it, you can grab it at TPT or TN.

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People Like Candy, Right?

So, I wrote this post last Sunday....but this is the first time I have sat down since then, so I'm posting it today.

I have just completed my first week of being a Schoolwide Project Coordinator. aka. Literacy Leader.

It was kind of cool. At first I was very, very lonely. My room was exceedingly quiet and I was a little depressed. I turned on my ipod dock and listened to some music as I worked to keep my ears busy. You know your ears are always busy in the classroom, and this was sad and silent. It helped a little. I had a lot to do, but I didn't feel very useful. In the classroom, there is always some little person in your face who needs you right now! But this was different. I was preparing things for much later and I felt not very helpful.

But then teachers started to schedule meetings to plan with me and I set up a daily schedule for myself. I said things like, "Sure, I think I'm available on Wednesday at 1:45" and "I can put that together for you - no problem!" and "I have some sample anchor charts up in my room if you'd like to check them out," and I feel useful again.

Tomorrow is my first official planning day with teachers. They have a modified schedule every Tuesday to allow for a 90-minute planning period instead of their usual 45-minute-scramble. And I'm the one who's supposed to help them plan!

I'm excited and nervous at the same time. I hope I'm helpful enough. Because I've had a lot of my time wasted by people who intended to be helpful to us during planning....... but not so much. I'm trying to be very well prepared by breaking down our curriculum and having a planning document ready. I'll share those with you in the next couple days.

More important than all my instructional preparation, though, is the candy. I think candy is a pretty essential component of a successful planning meeting. I mean, it doesn't always have to be candy. It can be a variety of other sweet or salty snacks, but in my opinion, the tastier, the better.

I mean, people like candy, right? So I'll be like, "Here's some candy! See? I'm nice!" and I'll make through friends through the subtle art of coercion. I'm not above it.

A while back, I saw this absolutely precious idea on pinterest and it has really stuck in my mind. 

  I first planned on doing something simpler a bag of candy with a clever tag that would take seconds to assemble for the around forty faculty members I am trying to get to know
but then I remembered the cute pencils a masterpiece of candy cleverness that would take hours to assemble for the many faculty members I previously mentioned
and I thought, "PERFECT!"  

TIP: Buy rollos that are in rolls. I went the cheap(er) way out and had to glue my rollos together first. About a third of the way through, I remember thinking, "Whose stupid idea was this?!" and I was not happy with whoever that was. I also considered just giving people tubes of glued-together rollos and kisses instead of making them into pencils, bt I thought that might be weird.

Finally, upon nearing the home stretch, 

I was proud and happy.

P.S. - after the fact - they were a hit. People DO like candy.

You can get the directions at Simply J Studio and then you'll be suckered just like me. Have fun gluing and making new friends. Grab the cute labels below if you're on a roll with some sweet people too.

Candy Pencil Craft Tags

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Must Have materials for Reader's & Writer's Workshop!

As soon as I saw Lindsay's Linky Party, I knew I had to link up. The problem was I have been a little braindead when I get home. It's like the hamster in there is so exhausted from running all day that he just keels over and zonks out for hours at at time. Don't ask me questions after 6:00. My answers don't make any sense. 

But I definitely had to link up with Lindsay's Linky Party, and I just needed to wait until my brain worked well enough to do it

I Looooooooooove Reader's and Writer's Workshop. To be honest, my Writer's Workshop is a modified version - I find that students need smaller chunks of independence and so I spend more time on a ping-pong instructional method than WW allows for, but I love the ideals.   Now, be prepared. This next section is a teacher's nightmare.   One year, my whole campus was contaminated with mold. Seriously. Mold. The swamp coolers (lame excuses for air conditioners) stopped working and it rained. A lot. Considering we live in a desert.    The library, full of lovely books, became a swamp, and we lost everything in that library. Everything.  They had to throw out all the books. 
Isn't that awful? ALL THE BOOKS! IN THE LIBRARY! HAD TO BE THROWN AWAY BECAUSE OF MOLD!!!   Holy cow, right?!   Because our campus was full of old, and therefore, uninhabitable, we were displaced. Without our stuff. Three weeks before school started, they said, "Guess what! You're going to be shipped across the city. Every day your kids will ride the bus for half an hour - all of them - and sometimes, you will ride the bus, too, to monitor the kids!   AAAACCCKKK!   Also, you won't have access to your stuff! All your classrooms are being sifted through and we are throwing away things we think are contaminated with mold!   HEART ATTACK   But you better meet accountability.   So we started the year in an old building no longer used as a school. We rode the bus for a week out of every four weeks. And that was pretty awful.   The word essentials took on a new meaning for me, because that was all I could afford to buy. Again. And pray they didn't throw our stuff out. Which they sometimes did.    This is what I considered to be essential:   Classroom library   A well-stocked and engaging classroom library is necessary for kids to make good book choices and learn to read independently. I tried to have books at a variety of levels to match my readers at a variety of levels. Series books always seem like a good addition to the classroom library because the kids can get hooked and then you've got a reader. Nonfiction is always great too.  

New model mini-library in my new room.

Nonfiction shelf with book display on top.

This was a nonfiction nook I had several years ago. Loved it.

Chart Paper

I use a lot of chart paper. I chart everything. Once my hunny came into my classroom and was asking about things on the walls. "They look useful," he said. I said, "They're supposed to be." He thought it was interesting that everything was in my handwriting - I don't use pre-made posters very often because I think that kids look at them, say, "Oh, that's nice," and then forget. I chart everything out with the kids during my lessons and then very occasionally I'd use a nicer version, if I thought it could do the same job. These are some reading and writing charts through the years. Oh, how things change but how they don't, too. 

These are the sample charts I have in my room now as a literacy leader. Exciting to share with teachers! Guided Reading Binder, Table, and Tools
I did a whole post a while back on guided reading and how important this structure is to me. My guided reading binder documents all of the work I've done with students and is a great source for a number of things. You can check that post out here. -Planning future instruction -Demonstrating to students and parents how their child has grown -Supporting the RtI process -Asking for help from support staff by showing evidence

 Last year's guided reading setup

 This year's guided reading setup

Mentor Texts I use mentor texts for both reading and writing instruction. Our  mentor texts become our buddies in reading and writing, and we try to connect everything we do back to the texts.  These are some of my favorites.

Click here and here for a post about Tomie DePaola's books.

Click here for a post about using In November.t

Reader's and Writer's Notebooks Students have to write about their thinking and they have to try things in writing. We use our notebooks constantly and I've had students fill up one spiral and need another.  

Included in this freebie is a sample cover for a Reader's Notebook.

And last, but not least, Post-Its!

Big ones, little ones, yellow ones, pink ones, all varieties! 

We use them to mark our thinking in our books: shared reading and independent reading.

So go check out the linky party to get some great ideas for growing your reader's and writer's workshops!

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New Kid on the Block

This was my first week in my new job. 

It was weird.

This school feels funny because it's the same building as my old school, even though they're across town from each other. Both buildings have been remodeled, in different ways, but the majority of the school is the exact same building. It feels like I'm still in my old school but all the rest of the staff has been replaced by pod people. Except that they're much nicer and more excited to try new things than pod people would be. I think. I don't really know very much about pod people.

I'm lucky that everyone was nice to me because I spent a lot of time walking in several different directions before actually figuring out which direction I wanted to go. And trying to figure out what my job was. It's so different to be out of the classroom. I hope I'm ready for that.

I'm not going to have little baby bops on Monday, the first day of school. Instead, I'll be supporting teachers. I will prepare materials for planning and model lessons. I'll plan trainings and assessments and analyze data. And no little faces will follow me into the classroom every day. And no little fingers will make pencils write on paper scritchy-stratchy. And no little people will give me special hugs like I'm so important.

Boohoo.

But I'll deal. Because no little naughties will give me dirty looks. And no little naughties will give me heart attacks on state assessments. And no little naughties will make me drown my sorrows at home in a box o'wine. But it's still sad.

Speaking of box o'wine... that's totally happening right now. It's been a busy week. I kind of lost track of days and just lived day to day because I am still learning what is expected and how to manage my time in this new position.

This week, I helped train for the district in writing. I'm also part of something called (oh gosh) a leadership team at my school. Yikes. On my campus, I provided training in balanced literacy with a focus on the shared reading component. I'll share those materials below in case you'd like them. (It went very well. It made me feel a little better in a new place. The teachers were so kind and receptive. An aside, bloggers and readers: if I wasn't a blogger and inundated by your constant great ideas, I don't think I would have had as much to share, so thank you thank you thank you for being inspiring.) I'd like to help teachers try new ways of doing things they already know how to do. I'm excited to share Reader's and Writer's Workshop with teachers at my new school (3-5. K-2 is doing Daily Five).

Tomorrow (I promise) I'm linking up with Lindsay at My Life as a Third Grade Teacher for her Must Haves for Reader's and Writer's Workshop. 

And today, you can grab my training materials for shared reading. I included a balanced literacy overview, schedule, and some shared reading planning documents. Hope they're helpful!

Clipart from KPM Doodles

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