I love having kids reflect in journals on paper and take notes in notebooks; however, I've enjoyed using Google Slides as digital reader's notebooks. Read here to get a set of slides you can adapt and use for free.
You've tried all your tricks. You're fed up with the behavior of a student. You need help. You need an individualized behavior plan. I think I can help.
Currently, my 2019-20 classroom of 27 spans K-9th grade reading levels. In this post, I share my plan for different levels of readers, structures that guide my planning, and the importance of flexibility in meeting student needs.
We're in the people business. We need to examine our beliefs and constantly make room for ourselves to grow not just in learning new tech tools for distance learning. I want to interact with others in a way that creates a better world.
My personal journals had always been something of a mix of scrapbooking, diary entries, flaps of papers with short stories, pasted in notes, etc. The rise of Bullet Journaling speaks to my love of creativity, planning, and writing. In fact, my favorite subject to teach is Writing. When you google bullet journals, though, you’ll see layouts that make you cringe under Pinterest Pressure. Smashbooks, on the other hand, are meant to be messy. They went through a quick flash of popularity some years back; here’s theK&Company introduction to the smashbookif you want to see a video of the idea. The description at the front of my K&Company smash book says:
“It’s OK. Just smash it in. There’s always room, just like the junk drawer.
Nothing’s right. Nothing’s wrong. It’s all YOURS. We say glue in the gladness.
Google Slides are great for Collaborative Work! Think about collaborative story writing, number sense routine discussions, jigsaw reading, and more! See my periodic table project for one such idea.
I wrote a letter to my class the day that school closed for the year. It made me cry a little so I didn’t send it off. Everything was sad enough. I added a piece today because we had a great (3/4 of a) year together and this journey online is a bit unforgettable too. My class this year is fun online; I feel lucky that I get to do this with them. At the same time, my heart aches for their losses as the capstone year of elementary school. It may not compare to the loss of graduation for a senior, but their young hearts are broken nonetheless. Many have waited for these special events since Kindergarten. Their life will move on for sure, but there’s so much loss tied up in this pandemic. This is just a little slice.
This week as I kept typing the links to "classrooms" I have been missing my real classroom. This whole video chat stuff is good. It's better than email. It's better than digital worksheets, but it's not a classroom. A classroom is another home. I miss the space we can say is ours.
Surviving Sex Ed: I have to tell you - it’s pretty hard at times to keep a straight face. This was never something I really considered as a student preparing to be in the classroom. Here are some of the things that have happened to me while teaching “sex ed” that I find ironic, hilarious, nausea inducing, and just bizarre. If you’re needing a laugh, I bet something here will make you chuckle.
Often the advice to new teachers is to just survive your first year, learn more your second year, hone your craft your third year, then just get golden. Absorb all that knowledge. Keep learning, growing, expanding your resources. Build your toolbox! You’ll do great! Now, I love sorting through resources. I can flip through a... Continue Reading →
