Class Dojo & an apology

Sorry for the absence!  We are in the middle of our beginning of the year benchmarking window.  I have been spending every spare second in the classroom benchmarking the kiddos!  These tests take between 45-120 minutes PER CHILD!!!  Needless to say, I have been super busy!  In turn, I have to take all work home to plan and grade, and.... well..... the blog has been put on the back burner.  I'm hoping to be all caught up next week.  I'm also sorry for the turn around delay in Thursday folders. 

Anyway, Class Dojo is up and running!  This is my first time using it, so please be patient while the kinks get worked out.  Here is an Idaho teacher's video that show the program:

Right now, I am requiring the kids to get at least 50% positive per week.  My students are required to get a parent signature when they get below 50%.  Also, Parents, please send me your email addresses!  This way I can email the report directly to you.  It is easier to see in color.

Coming up:
Wordly Wise 2 Test on Thursday
Science Test next week



P.S.- Great news!  They fixed my laptop today!!   YAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Starting to get it together....

This year has started off pretty rough.  It may not look that way to everyone (at least I think that I am faking it!), but it has.  I use technology A LOT.  A LOT, A LOT, A LOT, A LOT.  My laptop is still out of commission.  My iPad had to be sent back to Apple because the problem is internal.  This means I cannot use my projector and ActivBoard.  EEK!!!!  This is how I teach!  I am going crazy without it!  The good news is that they finally have my desktops and printers up and working.  Baby steps I guess!  Now I have a new problem- I am supposed to begin assessing the class in reading fluency and comprehension.  Well, guess what!  The program we use is computer based.  *Bangs head against the wall*  Sigh.  I do have the desktops, but they would be very awkward to use.  I will stop rambling about my technology woes now.

In other news, I am starting to check a few things off my to-do list.  Remember one of the pictures I posted of our first day?  Well, I have finally had time to drag a ladder in the classroom and hang them up!  First, they turned out super cute.  The kids were quite creative.

Now, this is what they look like up on the wall!  I put them off center because I planned on hanging something else to the right of them, but it was too tall.  So now it is bugging me that it is off center, but I am so not taking them all down and starting over!  I am terrified of heights, and doing this once was bad enough!  I had plans to make them all turned a different direction (because I have symmetry issues and I knew I could never hang them all straight and evenly spaced), but my need to get off the ladder ASAP ruined that idea! 

I'm pretty sure I mentioned before that I am a blog stalker.  The idea is not mine!  I found a 5th grade blog via Pinterest, and I stole found the idea there!  


 

September Currently

I had to take a break from school stuff and do something fun!  Here is my September Currently!  Please note that my text boxes are MUCH better aligned.   It is a minor improvement, but it IS an improvement ;)

Coming up... Week 2!

I hope everyone has had a restful long weekend!  We did a ton of things last week that allowed me to gather data and other information.  I am still reviewing it all, and I hope to share it with you all soon!  In the mean time, I wanted to let you all know what is coming up this week. 

Enhancements start this week.   Mondays will be Music, so we will see Mrs. Shue for the first time next week.  Tuesdays will be Art.  We have a new art teacher this year.  I deleted my email that had her name (oops), so I will share that later. (Sorry!!)  Wednesdays will be P.E. with Mrs. Earnhardt, so make sure to wear tennis shoes!

Our school benchmarking will happen this week.  This determines who needs to be placed into RtI, and also who needs some enrichment. 

Finally, we have a few tests coming up this week.  Thursday will be the Science test over chapter B1.  It was only two lessons about cycles.  They need to know the Nitrogen Cycle, Carbon Dioxide-Oxygen Cycle, and the Water Cycle.    Friday will be our Wordly Wise Lesson 1 test, as well as our Math test.  The math test will include place value and exponents.

Until next time,

First Day

Happy first day of school!  I woke up early, got to school early, and then it all went down hill.  Rapidly.  I needed two sheets of paper laminated.... The laminator was broken!  Then, my laptop wouldn't work.  Neither would my iPad.  Somewhere in the fray, I lost my back-to-school rules and procedures checklist due to the technical difficulties!  Once I discovered that, I ran to the desktop computer and found a generic one.  (We may have to revisit rules and procedures again tomorrow, because I am sure I left something out!)  Then, I plugged my laptop in (I only needed a pages document), and the projector projected everything blue!  I was frustrated and decided that I would just use my phone to project the Class Dojo introduction video.  My adapter was missing.  I had to borrow another teacher's.  Needless to say, it was a rocky start!!!

Once the technology component of our day was done (poorly because you can't see much off of my phone), we moved into some basic things.  First, I had the kids decorate their names.  These will be displayed on the back wall once they are all finished.  They turned out GREAT and I can't wait to hang them and get a picture of them all!  In the mean time....

Then, we decided to define some expectations.  Here is our paraphrased chart of everyone's job:

Finally, we set the ground rules for behavior, expectation, and what our classroom needs to look like/sound like.  I will compile the answers to the questions and post about it later.  But here are a few pictures:

 What you don't see is all the learning style surveys I made the kids fill out.  We are going to be big on data this year, and we are laying the foundation.  (I'm sure they found it terribly boring, but it helps me assess our needs.) 


Overall, I think it was a pretty good first day.  It went buy super fast and I am E-X-H-A-U-S-T-E-D!  I can't wait for tomorrow when we get into routines!

Snacks and Water (Oops!)

I COMPLETELY forgot to type something about snacks and water bottles in my information packet.  I AM SO SORRY!!!!  Since our lunch is at 10:55, students may bring a healthy snack to eat in the afternoon.  Also, students are permitted to bring bottles of WATER to school.
Again, I am sorry for the oversight!

Our classroom

Setting up my classroom typically consists of tweaking things from the previous year.  I spend maybe two half-days on it.  Not this year!!! This summer all of the classrooms in the main building were tiled.  (We did have carpet.)  We had to pack up our entire classroom for this project.  It ran a little way over schedule, so we were not able to get into our classrooms until mid-August.  I am normally DONE with my classroom by that time!!  Panic set in!  I called in a few former students to help me.  When I walked in, this is what I had.

Things Piled in random places. (And writing still on my white board!)

More things in random places.  Hello heavy (and full) filing cabinet!

I have no words for this!  Some of this stuff didn't even belong in my room!

I wish I had taken a close picture of all the boxes piled in the back.  The mountain is in the backpack nook behind all the furniture.   Honestly, I was terrified of it!

After several hours of hard work by me and my helpers, it began taking shape.  Here are a few pictures of the end of Day 1:

I did spend a few more days working before I was satisfied.  I have only taught science and social studies for the last few years, so I had to do some changing to turn my classroom back into a traditional one.  I THOUGHT I was done with my classroom, but I had a few ideas over the weekend.  So I will be changing a couple of things.  But here is the (almost) finished project:

The computer area still needed a little work.  Mrs. Ungerer and I fixed it up after this picture was taken.

I put these polka dots around the backpack nook.  I found them at Dollar Tree and three packages did the trick!  They are hiding peeled off paint!

Alright.  Enough of the general classroom pictures.  Here are a few specific things in our classroom that we will be using this year.

This is our book check out system for our classroom library.  I somehow got a bit crooked and my OCD is going nuts over it.  Anyway, the kids will write the title of the book they are borrowing on their card.  I am trying this for the first time this year.  I have 'lost' an average of 50 books a year in the past, so I am trying to prevent that!  

This is our Boggle board.  I will be changing the letters out every other week or so.  It is a great literacy activity for students to do when they finish their work early.  Notice that my squares are MUCH straighter on this bulletin board than the book check out one?  Well, I was stapling instead of gluing.  Plus, I had an INGENIOUS epiphany while trying to figure out how to keep the squares straight without help from anyone.

I tacked a yard stick to the bulletin board! This kept them straight and evenly spaced!  I have no idea why it took me 6 years to figure this out!

I measured from the top of the bulletin board, pushed in a tack, measured the other side, pushed in another tack, and hung up the yard stick.  SOOOO easy!!!

Poker chips with numbers on them....  I thought about having y'all guess what these are for.  However, I don't think I have enough people reading the blog yet to actually get the answer in a timely manner ;)  They are bathroom chips!  Every day each student will receive two bathroom chips.  They can use the bathroom at any time that I am not teaching the entire class.  This ensures me that kids aren't spending too much time in the bathroom (and missing instructional time as a result).  I have used this method before, and I finally got smart realized that if I put clear fingernail polish over the numbers, they won't wear off mid year!

Check back soon to see our classroom in action.  And all that blank space on the back wall?  We will be working on filling it up on Monday!  Oh, and sorry for the semi-blurry iPhone pictures.  I was too impatient to wait for it to focus....

See you soon!