@Pinterest Revisited

I posted about how I use Pinterest back in July.  I thought that since this is the half way mark in my school year, it would be a great time to share some ideas I've gotten. I love Pinterest more than ever, but I have to be very careful when I go looking - it can be a huge time suck. :) So many lovely ideas, so little time!

Source: saylorslog.blogspot.com via Beth on Pinterest

I loved this idea - I am always looking for questions to ask in reading groups that relate to Bloom's Taxonomy. I used these in a slightly different fashion though. I have my lovely Bloom's Flag - so I chose 2 or 3 questions and added them to the flag for each level of questioning. It isn't perfect - the question cards are keyed to the "old" Bloom's Taxonomy and my school uses the Revised Bloom's Taxonomy. But now the kids have a very good idea where certain types of questions fall - and I have another good visual reminder to be asking those higher order questions!

Source: teachinginroom6.blogspot.com via Beth on Pinterest

We do not require all our students to complete reading logs. Our main purpose this year is to get our kids hooked on reading. And for the most part, most reading logs do not encourage that. We do have a few hard-core kids (perhaps 20 out of 75) who do not meet their goals in AR and who are falling behind academically. We originally had them doing a simple summary reading log. Now we've moved them to this version - and we are all SO MUCH HAPPIER! The kids like the variety and my teaching partners and I like that the kids have more guidance. I found another set of examples here, although most of them won't work very well for my students for a variety of reasons. But it is still a great option!

Source: blogs.scholastic.com via Beth on Pinterest

I love these text structure posters. I added them to my focus wall (which has been revised, like everything else.) The posters hit 5 of the major text structures. There isn't a poster for Question & Answer or for Narrative. I have been considering making one, especially for Narrative. There is so much text written in this structure - but narrative is different sometimes for fiction and nonfiction. It might be a midnight project sometime. :)

You can find my Teaching Ideas board on Pinterest - it is linked to my personal Twitter account.  Are you on Pinterest?  What great ideas have you discovered?

A Nomination Story: Thank You

Imagine my surprise a few weeks ago to walk into a grade level meeting and find my name on a Teacher of the Year nomination form.  My grade level colleagues, teachers from 5th grade, and some Special Ed teachers were all there.  The guy who teaches 6th grade Math put me on the spot, "So, do you WANT it, Bowden?"

My mind was already racing... I've always had a secret fantasy to be recognized in this way. But in my county, just being named the Teacher of the Year at the school level brings a whole host of duties. I'm stressed enough with regular work and some personal issues... So I quickly said, "Heck, no. Vote for me if you want to but..."

I enjoyed greatly sharing the news of the nomination with my husband, daughters, parents and Twitter. It was gratifying to hear their excitement that someone at my school recognized my hard work.  After all, the people closest to me know how hard I work and how much I worry about doing a good job.  After letting go of the awkward feeling of being in the spotlight momentarily, I appreciate the recognition.

I didn't get the title of Teacher of the Year - but I can honestly say that it truly was an honor to be nominated.

So, secret nominator at my school? Thanks for making my year. Thanks for honoring me with your nomination. You'll never know how much it boosted me just when I needed it.

Sites I Use: Class Dojo (@Classdojo)

I'll apologize right now for the number of images in this post. There's 16 screen caps - excessive maybe, but this site can be a little intimidating at first. It is so EASY to navigate and understand once you SEE it though.

Classdojo.com call themselves "Realtime Behavior Management Software." I simply call it AWESOME. We are a PBIS school and track a LOT of behavior data.  Typically we've tracked the negatives - this allows the tracking of POSITIVES too! Which really makes sense.  In the past, I've had to tally behaviors by hand then compile them into a grade level report to be turned in monthly.  Thanks to Class Dojo, my September report was super easy... a few clicks and done. As a CRAZY busy teacher, there is nothing I appreciate more than something that my students enjoy that is also extremely useful to me as a time saver.

Here is the site as you see it upon arrival (image on the left.)  You'll click the yellow button to register.  You could also click the  Tour or FAQ links in the upper right hand corner. (image on the right, below.)

 Give some simple information and you are ready to go.  After registration (or login) you see this screen:

 Clicking the blue "Click here" box walks you through setting up classes, behaviors, and awarding points.

 I've set up a "class" for my daughters to use at home. (We've got issues *roll eyes*)

 I added their names.  It looks like I can select to add in their picture, but I've found that the students really enjoy the random monster/critter that is assigned to them.

 Now I'm setting up behaviors - both positive and negative.  For my daughters I'm keeping it simple. In my "real" classes, there are 8 positives (my choices) and 8 negatives (school-wide tracked behaviors.)  There are suggestions that you can take or leave and the icons are changeable too.  I've used all green thumbs up or red thumbs down.

 Here are all the classes I've got set up - 3 "block" classes, 2 homeroom classes, a demo, and my Daughters.

 Here are the girls, with the positive choices and the negative choices.

 I've awarded both of them points. You can do this by click the child's avatar or by selecting their name along the left side. You can choose which notifications show - a pop-up window at the bottom and sounds, and can turn them on/off for positives and negatives individually.

 After being awarded points students have little green circles with their totals.  After loosing points, their total drops.  If they have no positives to balance it, their circle turns red and shows a negative total. (Excellent opportunity to talk about negative numbers!)

 To leave you click "End Class." This shows you a nifty summary of the "class's" activity for the day.

 I like to review the reports - Simply click "Report Cards" on the left side and select your class.

 I changed the date to show all of September and part of October (the entire time I've used it.) You can see this class has an overall percentage of 92! The diagram is color coded and labeled to show which behaviors were observed.  The black bar is individual students for the same time period. (I'd love to show you their individual data, but I'm not sure about the confidentiality of it all. Sorry!)  You click a name and a similar diagram and breakdown will appear for the student. I'm going to be tying this into quarterly conduct grades.  I'm working on a written plan for the implementation of Class Dojo.  When it is finalized I'll link it here and on the Documents tab.

I will close by saying that I'm LOVING this site. I'm telling everyone I know about it - I think it is especially helpful for upper grades who switch classes.  Those kids (many of them anyway) still need a visual reminder of how they are doing behavior wise - but they often don't have it because they are migratory during the school day. My 6th graders have completely bought-in to this and are anxiously awaiting the final word on the "rewards" for points.  We are going to start with rewarding weekly then move to monthly.  Ultimately, we'd like to reward quarterly.

What are your thoughts?  Do you track behavior data? Have you got other resources? Please share in the comments below!

21st Century Teacher?

I was at a workshop today (and again tomorrow) when I got a text message that my first class was "out of their minds." Gotta love that! So after talking to a colleague on the way home, I decided to make a video to be shown to the students tomorrow.  And I had so much fun making that one, I decided to make one praising my other 2 classes for behaving appropriately.  If this isn't an example of being a 21st Century teacher, I don't know what is!  Enjoy the videos - and please pardon my:

• crazy facial expressions (bug eyes anyone? and why does it look like I talk out of the corner of my mouth???)
• slightly crooked appearance (stinky old tripod!)
• accent
• wild curly hair

Let's hope tomorrow is a better day for the one class and another fantastic one for the other 2!

(I talk about Class Dojo in the videos, I'll be blogging about it later this week!)

My First Month in 6th Grade Reading

So I've been in school with my students since August 25th. A month.  Time for me to look back and think about how things are going.  And since I only teach reading this year, this is deceptively simple.

The year started with some chaos about what materials I was going to use.  I made a plan to use Reading Street and then changed it to use Elements of Literature.  I'm generally happy with that decision, even though I now have a set of Reading Street textbooks (and leveled readers!)

Why am I happy?  Well, my school has over 100 copies of Elements of Literature.  After a few weeks of using it, I was able to approach the principal and write a permission slip for families to check out a textbook to keep at home.  The kids do not need to carry it with them daily, since we are only using it once a week or so in class.  So this is a good option - the real test will be how many of the textbooks we get returned later in the year.  I'm hoping for the best (but prepared for the worst - I only gave out copies of the books that were damaged in some way, not the nicest ones.  That way not too much is lost if the books aren't returned.)

I've started "centers" as the district expects.  The original centers just didn't work out - not enough accountability, too fun centered, not rigorous enough.  I revamped them (keeping in mind the kids' needs and keeping it simple for planning) and started them again on Thursday.  What a difference!  The biggest drawback is the amount of copies I'm now using.  I hate it but for now there is no way to avoid it.

I need the kids occupied and semi-quiet because I've been asked to assess all my students using the Fountas and Pinnell Benchmark Assessment kit.  This reminds me of my years in 2nd grade, doing DRAs on my (17-20)students 4 times a year.  Luckily, I think I'll only be doing this 3 times a year (now, January, and May) but I've got almost 80 students!  I've been told to start with the lowest and move up from there.

I have 3 classes - a high group with many AIG kids, a low-ish group with my special ed kids, and a low group with kids who have fallen through the cracks.  I really feel the high group needs to be doing more Reading Workshop style things - conferring and spending most of their class time READING.  My lower students do need the structure of centers, at least until their stamina develops. 

We have a curriculum night scheduled with a set of 7th grade teachers - we are going to talk to parents and students about 6th grade and then what to expect in middle school.  I'm really looking forward to this - I want to adapt my classroom (later in the year) to be more like what students will encounter in middle school.  I am fairly confident that students aren't doing centers and meeting with the teacher in small groups, but I could be wrong. The students will benefit from the structure of middle with the support of an elementary school setting.  I'm hoping it will ease the transition, especially for the low performing students.

I'll end with how I've beaten some of the stress - by getting crafty! The giant binder I need to use as a data notebook had an ugly, stained cover.  Here are a few pictures of the cover I made.  (And I can't have a post with 0 pictures!) It was super simple and I'm now looking for fabric to make several more covers - we teachers use a LOT of binders.

How has your year gotten started?  Have you had to majorly revise your plans and expectations?