2013-Bring It On!

This will be a short one. Mainly because my ADD brain can’t suffer through writing a long post right now. 🙂

REVIEW of 2012:

Reading-I read a total of 226 books toward my goal of 250. Could not make it to the 250! Will lower my goal this year. That’s how you succeed at something-just lower your goal. LOL. 🙂

Running-Oh, boy. I could go on and on and on and….but, I want to be short today. Well, I’m short everyday since I’m 5’1, but you know what I mean. I started running in January 2012. I.AM.A.RUNNER. 🙂 30 lbs lost. Woohoo! 🙂

 

 

Start-163 lbs                               Now-134 lbs

PLANS for 2013:

Reading– Want to read, umm, all the time. 🙂 I’m thinking a goal of 200 books.

Running-I’ve signed up for a half-marathon at the end of February. I actually think this will be the only half I want to run. I’m not good with training. 🙂

Other– I want to gain more muscle tone so I’m going to start some strength training. I DON’T LIKE strength training so I’m thinking some squats, crunches, planks, lunges, and some itty bitty 2 lb dumbbell arm exercises.

Here’s some stats for my blogging from 2012. Boring stuff. 🙂

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2012 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

4,329 films were submitted to the 2012 Cannes Film Festival. This blog had 39,000 views in 2012. If each view were a film, this blog would power 9 Film Festivals

Click here to see the complete report.

What are your 2013 goals/resolutions?

Anybody else exhausted??

Overwhelmed? Stressed? Tired? Can’t think straight? Freaking out? 🙂

I worked in my classroom for most of the day-come to think of it, most of the night, too! 🙂 It’s looking better….I just still have so much that I need and want to do. My wants get ahead of my needs sometimes!

I did get the desks cleaned off today-and actually went through the stuff that was piled on them instead of just shoving it all into the cabinets-tell me you’ve never done that!

Although I have many, many, many things to accomplish before August 11th, here are the biggies:

1. Classroom library-I want to organize ALL of my books in my baskets with labels-I would also love to put them into librarything.com (we’ll see if that actually happens) 🙂

2. CAFE Conferring Notebook-GOT to get all of this organized, especially since this will be my 1st year implementing it

3. Lesson plan template-I’m “thinking” about revising my lesson plan template that I used last year to something that will actually GUIDE me in my teaching

4. Reading notebooks-I want to get all of this “stuff” organized

5. Writing notebooks-I want to get all of this “stuff” organized

6. Writing-I didn’t do a good job of teaching writing last year, so this is an area that I want to improve on which means a lot of reading, thinking, planning, etc.

OK-I can’t think of anything else right now and really need to go to bed.

What are the things that you are working on for your classroom????

 

12 qualities of a great teacher

Here is a link to an article written by Valerie Strauss on another article written by Chris Lehmann on his website Practical Theory. He lists and briefly discusses 12 things that make a great teacher. Read through them and see which ones you exhibit on a daily basis or which ones you need to work on.

I feel that I exhibit a lot of them, but on a daily basis? Not sure! All the time? Not sure!

I do know that I constantly reflect on my teaching practice, and this occurs on a daily basis. All the time! Sort of obsessed about it! 🙂

Which one is your strongest quality?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/the-12-qualities-great-teachers-share/2011/06/13/AGL64fTH_blog.html

 

Just got hit over the head!!!! :)

I know that a lot of my teaching strategies/styles, etc. need to change, and I “try” to change to better fit my students, but now it’s not a matter of just trying to change, it’s a matter of having to change! Our students NEED us to change in order to help them learn and live up to their potential!

Watch this video to see what I’m talking about!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGvl5dg3l2M&feature=youtu.be

Thoughts on Waiting for Superman

My teaching partner and I watched the documentary film “Waiting on Superman” a few months ago (with snacks of course-we wanted to feel like we were at the movies even thought we were in a 20X20 classroom!). We couldn’t believe the bias of this film-they totally gave a skewed vision of public schools, teachers, and unions or professional organizations! Now don’t get me wrong-I am ALL about improving public education, public schools, the teaching profession, and the list goes on! BUT-let’s spread the blame around fairly and evenly instead of putting it all on the backs of teachers, unions, and public schools. Anyway, I could go on and on and on and on-but I’ll save you from that! 🙂 I recently subscribed to a 5th grade teacher’s blog and wandered upon one of her posts about this particular film and wanted to share it with you! It was very enlightening AND I AGREE WITH HER!!! Right on sister…..

http://juiceboxesandcrayolas.blogspot.com/2010/10/my-response-to-waiting-for-superman.html

Good-bye to my 6th graders

Friday (May 27th) was our last day of school! Whoopeeeeee!!!! 🙂 Hello summer! 🙂

But, I will miss my wonderful 6th graders! Mr. Brady and I had 38 wonderful, well-behaved 6th graders this year. We took a picture of them on the football field waving good-bye! Here they are:

They made a poster for me, and they made one for Mr. Brady-here is a picture of mine.

On our last day of school we got out at 12:30 so hardly anyone came to school that day (it was actually one of our makeup days from the winter storm). There was one 2nd grade teacher who had NO students show up, some teachers had 3 or 5-I HAD 9 GIRLS THAT CAME TO SCHOOL. They had a blast!! They helped me with some stuff-then they played mad libs on the board, we went outside, we went to lunch, then they wrote their own play and acted it out twice!!!! It was so funny and cute! It is amazing the creativity that they can exhibit when you just get out of their way!!!! Here is what they wrote on the board before they left school that day-

Teaching Blog Addict Author!!

I have been invited to become an author on the AMAZING “Teaching Blog Addict” blog:

http://www.teachingblogaddict.com/

I am so excited to be a part of this fabulous blog where teachers can connect with each other from all over the world! I have always searched the internet high and low for teaching ideas, but just became interested in blogging this year. IT IS TRULY ADDICITVE!!! I am in my 7th year of teaching (6 years in Kindergarten and this year in 6th grade). I love to learn new things and can’t wait to begin this awesome journey of blogging on my own blog as well as the teachingblogaddict one. Feel free to follow along with me so that we can learn together! 🙂

What I want to be…..

It’s getting crazier and more chaotic the closer it gets to the end of school!!!! Why do I not ever remember this from year to year?????? I need to charge up my superpowers so that I can become………………………

I have lessons to plan, papers to grade, things to copy, emails to send, students to teach, students to discipline, meetings to attend, field day to organize, PTO event to work, certificates to complete, fundraisers to attend, money to collect, attendance to take, books to read, and a classroom to manage!! 🙂

Calgon-take me away!

Busy, busy day!

Our kids had their 1/2 day of play today-if they sold at least 3 tubs of cookie dough for the school fundraiser they got to go outside and play for 1/2 of the day so we were missing 1/2 of our kids from 12:00 til the end of the day. The rest of us watched a movie! 🙂 Which means that the 1st half of the day we had to try and teach everything and swap to teach the other class and swap back. WHEW!!!!! Tomorrow is the 2nd half of this reward plus we have our high school award day which will take about an hour, so……. what to do tomorrow???

I think I will give a fresh read test (cold read with comprehension questions), partner read poem, practice readers theater, and that might be all we get to. We have 12 days of school left, and even though I am ready for summer vacation I almost would like some more time with them to try out some different things that I want to implement next year!!!!! 🙂 It’s always good to try out new things with the class that is used to you before you get a brand new class and try to establish rules, procedures, routines, etc.  🙂 At least that’s my motto!

I really wish I had about another hour in the school day (or more) to be able to do all that I want to do! 🙂

Next year I hope to implement the CAFE literacy model along with the Daily 5-both of these were created by The Two Sisters. I will hopefully be posting more about these later-you should buy both of their books-they are fabulous! These two models create independence, critical thinking, and include lots of individual conferring with students. I’m excited!

Love my chair!!

I bought the MOST COMFORTABLE chair at an antique store yesterday for my classroom!!! 🙂 I tried not to use it too much today! 🙂 I have recently started gathering my 6th graders on “the rug” for read aloud, mini-lessons,etc. Some of them sit on the rug, some of them sit in the chairs from the reading table. I LOVE MY CHAIR!!!!!!!