Teaching Conferences - You going?

As teachers we commit to being life long learners. But this learning doesn't just come from school professional development sessions. Conferences are a great way to meet other teachers, learn something new, and refresh your teaching practices.

So where do you start?

• Google your educational interests
  - Do you love using technology? Look for the latest STEM conference.
  - Love TPT? They are now holding yearly conferences! And I hear they are amazing! I am trying to convince my husband but it is the day after our anniversary so....
  - All about 1st grade? Look for conferences focused on that grade specifically like "I Teach 1st!"

I Teach 1st Conference - 2015

• Look through Organizations
  - Are you a member of your teaching association? ( I am! And proud of it!) Look at their upcoming events. Our association has events monthly! I just attended a New Teacher Retreat with teammates and met our TEA President! I also got an article published in our local TEACH newspaper! Talk about member benefits!

TEA Teach Newspaper

• Check good ol' Social Media
  - Connecting with teachers online has sooo many benefits! One of those benefits is that typically when they find a good conference, they share about it. If you see a teacher posting about a exciting new workshop, look into it!
  - I follow some great teachers who present at conferences. When they post about where they will be next I start looking into it if my schedule & finances agree :)

What next?

• Location!
  -If you're willing to travel you can definitely expand your search range. But if you know you want to stay nearby look for conferences in your region. I live in southeast TN so I look for events in Nashville, Atlanta, etc.

NEA Conference in Atlanta - 2014

• Funding
  - Depending on the type of school you work in, you may have funds available for teacher P.D. and conferences. That is how I was able to go to I Teach 1st! Your administrators will be your best source of information on this.
  - Many conferences offer discounts by applying early so if you see an event you really want to go to, apply early!
  - Try to set aside a little each month (or every other month) to save towards your profession. You could use this to buy a new book that may further your skills or register for a conference.

• Need a Sub?
  - You will need administration approval for conferences that require you to miss work. My administrator has always been understanding & encouraging. In our area this is considered a professional day.
  - Plan for a substitute. Leave clear instructions and materials that are meaningful but easily accessible. If you can talk to the class before you may want to assign student helpers.

• Pack well!
  - Some teachers have made super cute packing lists online you can find. The one in my picture  is from Enchanted Kindergarden . You can also Google : teacher conference packing list
  - Essentials: Notebook, writing tools, professional/comfortable clothing, comfortable shoes, toiletries, phone charger
  - Any registration materials
  - A little just in case cash
  - Business cards if you have them! (If you don't you should definitely consider them!!)

• Enjoy!
  - Take good notes. Be ready to share some highlights!
  - Have fun
  - Make new friends! Seriously, networking matters! These are your people! And the connections can last beyond that one event.

So what tips would you add? What are your favorite conferences? I'd love to hear from you!

3 Ways to Rock Indoor Recess

I don't know how things are in your state or district, but around this time every year we end up confined to our classrooms for recess much more than we'd like to be. Between rain, low temps and snow days indoor recess becomes a winter staple whether we like it or not. So I wanted to share a few of my favorite options to use in the classroom when going outside just isn't an option.

1.

My absolute top choice, would definitely be GoNoodle. We use this awesome site throughout the day for brain breaks, but they also have videos specifically for indoor recess. They are longer, 7 -18 minutes, and are grouped by a common theme. These videos are perfect and you don't have to worry about commercials or pop ups like with other sites.

2.

Puzzles!

I use puzzles in my classroom every year. I keep a variety of them including small puzzles for individual students and floor puzzles that students work on together. My personal love of puzzles obviously comes through in the classroom. They feel so accomplished when they finish and often ask that I take a picture.

3.

Directed Drawings

I student taught with a teacher who was an excellent artist. She introduced me to a set of books I had never heard of called "Draw.Write.Now"

They show you how to direct others through drawing pictures. They even include handwriting but I usually allow them to do their own writing about the picture.

This is an example of a directed drawing I saw online for my students to do before Winter Break. :)

So those are some of my favorite choices for indoor recess. What are some of yours? Share them out!

Thanks for reading 

New year - New possibilities

The new year is quickly approaching! And for most teachers this means your year is about halfway through. Time flies when you're making a difference :)

The cool thing about the new year is that it provides a sense of renewal and new opportunities. This is a perfect time to....

Introduce a new rule or classroom procedure

Often teachers feel that if a procedure or classroom rule isn't succeeding there isn't much that can be done. So not true! Teachers have a lot of power in their classrooms and one of the greatest powers is the power to CHANGE!
-If they just can't remember to clean their desks, institute a "Desk Monitor" for the new year.
-If they always argue about how to line up, have them line up in number order or reverse number order to switch it up.

Reflect on what has been accomplished so far

The new year usually brings a focus to new goals and resolutions but there is value in reflecting on what has already been accomplished. This is important with adults as well as children! This means that reflecting on your teaching career and goals can be beneficial to you as well, super teacher!

But also take a moment and write about what you and your students have accomplished so far. This could be individually done or completed as a class.

Focus on goal setting

There are many resources and activities on Pinterest, TPT, etc. that provide some structure to goal setting, especially tying in the New Year theme. I personally wanted to start the year in August with student goals but the back to school commotion totally distracted me. But of course I don't have to wait until next August to give it a try. So when I head back to the classroom in about a week these are a few tips I want to keep in mind.

Goal setting tips:
-Goals should be centered on student input (otherwise they won't be motivated)
-Display them or have them easily accessible (otherwise they may be forgotten)
-Track progress, not just completion (otherwise students may get discouraged)

But before you head back....relax!

So now that you have some ideas to get the new year started on the right track....head back to the couch and soak up the last few days of relaxation. Do some reflecting and goal setting for yourself. It is a time of renewal after all...make sure you're giving yourself that opportunity as well!

Pray for Woodmore - Ways to help

As many of you may know, a school in my community was greatly affected by a tragic bus accident this past Monday. Although it was not my school many of us in this city were indirectly affected. My principal lost a cousin, two of my students had family members on the bus...it has been a truly trying time.

I appreciate all the prayers and kind words sent our way at this time. Our little teacher community really reached out and helped make things a little easier.

I wanted to share some information about how you can help this school and community for those wanting to help.

-Online Donations can be made HERE

-Checks can be sent to the "The Woodmore Fund"

Made payable to the Community Foundation of Greater Chattanooga

Please mail to 1270 Market Street, Chattanooga, TN 37402

-You can text "WOODMORE" to 91999 or call 423-265-8000 to donate.

Thank you for thinking of these children and families. 

Morning tubs - Im lovin it!

Seriously I don't know what took me so long to finally try morning tubs as an alternative to morning work! I have been using them in my first grade classroom for the past two weeks Monday - Thursday and still doing our traditional journal on Fridays. My students are coming in excited to get started in the morning and it's from one little adjustment.

So what are morning tubs?

They are baskets or tubs filled with items the students can use independently or as a small group. I currently have 14 students and use 4 tubs. I spent some time looking through the manipulatives and items in the classroom that I had. I thought about what I could allow students to use freely without worrying about a cost to replace if damaged. I also wanted the tubs to hold items that students could devise their own activities with. 

How do I implement them?

Each morning my students come in and write down their homework. On Mondays they all come to the rug in case I need to explain new tubs briefly or arrange new student groups. I have 3 rules for morning tubs and we often review them before beginning.

1. Be safe

2. Make smart choices

3.Stay in your space

Then I place students in the different areas of the room where the 4 tubs are spread out. I put some on rugs, others at tables. I set a timer for 15-25 minutes and students are allowed to basically have some free play time with the materials. Afterwards I set the timer for a minute, they clean and return to their seats. The next day they rotate to a new tub. They catch on to the rotation cycle pretty quickly.

What do I put in them?

There are tons of great Pins and blog posts about what you can put in morning tubs. I looked through a few blogs and what I had in my cabinets. My first two weeks we used the same materials but in the second week I switched up the groups of children.

Letter cubes- Leap Frog dominoes- Plastic shapes - Plastic links

Leap Frog Dominoes

Plastic shapes

Other items I am considering

Magnetic boards and letters or numbers - Dry erase workbooks and markers - sorting items like buttons - base ten cubes and rods -  math cubes - number bonds - sentence building cubes - peg boards and rubber bands 

Why should you look into them?

Play time!

It seems so hard to squeeze that extra play into the day. We do brain breaks, use hands on learning, and incorporate technology but at times a student just wants to play pretend. I have overheard the cutest conversations as they come up with a game to play together with the items. It doesn't matter that they aren't using the letter cubes to build words, I could have them do that in a center later. For now they can pretend to build a fort!

Social Skills

The students are working together as they share, or all decide to make imaginary cakes with plastic shapes. They are using the manners we work so hard to implement when asking a friend to "Please share the triangles." I am all about giving them time to build the skills that help them work together.

Less on the teacher

This may vary based on the makeup of your classroom schedule but I have a little less of the responsibility on me when we use morning tubs. I used to have students writing in journals daily and occasionally I was collecting them and grading/checking them. It was a mundane task for sure. Now we just write once a week and I can grade that without collecting them.

Students place the tubs in the correct spaces for me after I show them where they belong on Monday. They also clean up quickly afterwards, I give them a minute and give shout-outs or treats to the team that does it quickly or works together without arguing (which sometimes happens!). 

While they are working on tubs I call individual students or small groups to my table for RTI time. I can pull them away without worrying they are missing out on crucial learning. It also allows a bit of a buffer time for some of my students that may roll in a little late!

So with all that I say....

Think about trying morning tubs! Do some research! Try it ou!

I've never had students come in so excited to get to their morning "work".

And a little more play makes for a better day :)

Counting on: Some ideas for little mathematicians

Howdy guys!

The school year is in full swing and it has totally kept me busy! My goal is a post a month and September totally slipped by me. I'm sure you guys know how that can be :)

So let's get back into it with a post on one of my favorite subjects, Math

Counting on is a task my kiddos tend to struggle with every year. It seems that when adding their instinct is to start at 0 or 1 even when given a specific number.

Example: You ask your mathematicians to solve 5 + 3. They begin by counting from 1 to 5 and then trying to add three more. Sound familiar?

The goal with counting on is to have students begin with a known value and add more. In the example scenario of 5 + 3 a student who is efficient in counting on would pop up 5 fingers and count 3 more by continuing in number order  "6...7...8".

We have to practice this skill intentionally for the students to understand that you don't have to begin at 0. Here are a few ideas...

1. Create and refer often to a good visual or anchor chart

This visual from Top Notch Teaching explains counting on in a clear and concise way. You could print it or recreate for your classroom. 

(The link explains counting on in greater detail and has a game to practice the strategy.)

2. Practice with manipulatives

We used cubes to model the math problem we were solving. Although counting on usually begins with the larger number, in this case it was still effective beginning with the smaller number. In this particular activity we were focusing on not starting at 0. Students  touched each cube to continue counting in numerical order. 

So in the picture they used cubes to count and say "5...6...7...8..9"

3. Practice with a 10 frame

We used 10 frames in page protectors to practice counting on when dealing with a missing addend.  We picked a number and drew that many counters. In this case it was six. Then they had to count on to make 10. Once they get some fluency within 10 we will expand to use the second 10 frame for bigger equations.

Their equations read 6 + ___= 10 and they had to find out the missing number was 4 by counting on.

We continue to practice this skill in math centers and with our math curriculum. 

Do you have some tips and strategies that help make this concept clear for your students?

Please share!

Thanks for reading

5 for Friday: Back to School!

Hey yall! Linking up for

So let's get rolling!

I'm married!!!!

And it was the best day ever!!!!

We don't have all our pictures yet but here's a sneak peek

We honeymooned in Mexico! Neither of us had been out of the country so that was quite a fun adventure to have together. Can't wait to travel more with the Mr.

Registration Day really feels like the start off to the year because we get to meet some of our kiddos. Each grade usually does a little theme and this year, as usual, my team rocked it. And those are our school colors :)

The classroom is put back together and this year it was record time since I spent the past few weeks recuperating from an awesome wedding and honeymoon!

Panoramic pic of classroom

Door

Entrance

Writing Area

Library

Desk

Reflection Area

(Trying it out this year)

Not much else to say except I survived the first week and today is Pizza Friday in our house so I'm greatly looking forward to that. :)

Link up! & Have a great weekend!