Kindergarten Smorgasboard Summer Book Study

 

I am changing grades for the 2018-2019 school year. I am going from teaching 4th grade to kindergarten! Sounds like a crazy idea to most of my friends but I have to tell you that kindergarten is my dream grade. 

I've been MIA...

I have been MIA.
I have had no clue what to write about.
I lost my way.
The reason my blog is called 'I get2teach' is because I am excited about teaching yet somewhere along the way I lost what my blog was suppose to be about.

New goal: Focus on my experiences as a teacher!

I am moving to kindergarten for the 2018-2019 school year and I could not be happier! 

Reading and Writing Strategies Book Binding at Staples

Several months ago I splurged and purchased the books 'Reading Strategies' and 'Writing Strategies' by Jennifer Serravalle. I had been looking for ways to improve my small group lessons and another teacher I work with talked to me about these books. I did hours and hours of research before purchasing these books because my school district didn't buy them... I did. They are an investment coming in at around $35 each using Amazon Prime.

I came across several teacher blogs that talked about binding their books so that it made it a little more user friendly. One particular blog post I loved was from Teaching My Friends. Her post about the book and binding are linked below.


http://teachingmyfriends.blogspot.com/2015_07_01_archive.html

I "stole" a picture from her blog of what her book looked like after she had it spiral bound.

Is that not the coolest thing since scented markers? 

So I finally broke down this Memorial Day Weekend and headed to Staples! I live about 35 minutes from our closest Staples location. I have also read that to get the binding completed it takes about 20 minutes (according to the blog posts I have read, no one has taken longer) which works out perfectly because the guys in my life needed to get some shoes and shorts and I had some Kohl's cash to spend. I went in and placed my order and was rather surprised that the gentlemen behind the counter said that it would be an extra $3 to get it finished today....WHAT? Not once I have a read that anyone was charged extra for the same day pick up but okay I'll pay the $3 so I can have my books today. He verified my information and since we have recently moved I had him chance my email address too. He said that he would call me as soon as he finished since we were still going to be in town.

HE NEVER CALLED.

I WAITED AN HOUR AND A HALF.

HE NEVER CALLED.

So my family was finished with our shopping and decided that maybe he just forgot that he said that he would call me but had finished.

NOPE

I walked into the store and he was working on the second book, my first book appeared to be finished sitting on the counter. My heart got excited.

We looked around the store for awhile thinking that he was almost finished with my second book. We even sat in the back of the store hanging out in their office chairs trying to kill time. Still NOTHING.

As my 14 year-old is getting hungry and my sweet husband is ready to fall asleep in the chairs I decide to go up to the counter to find out about how much time we have left until he is finished.

HE WASN'T EVEN AT THE COUNTER.

HE WAS TALKING TO THE CASHIERS.

MY BOOK IS STILL UNFINISHED. 

He came over to the counter and said that he is still working on the second book. I wanted to say, "NO, you are socializing and unfocused", but I didn't (which makes me frustrated because this whole thing just feels wrong).  He said that he should have it done by the time they close tonight...OMG it is 4:30 and they close at 9.

So I asked if I could just change my order and pick it up tomorrow. He said that would be fine.

So here I am on Memorial Day having to drive back into town to pick up my books.

I DON"T NEED ANYTHING FROM TOWN.

UGH

The thing that frustrated me is that when we pulled into the parking lot I was telling my husband how much I love this store and how I could spend hours in there just looking and planning things for my classroom or for my planners. 

Now I don't even want to go back in there.

Is it weird to be so disappointed in how a transaction went down that you decide that you know longer want to visit an establishment again? 

Trying year

So it finally happened.

This is my year.

This is THAT class.

This year was suppose to be the "easy" year. This year was suppose to be the "break" from last years class. Last years class was suppose to be the roughest group since kindergarten, now don't get me wrong...they were rough but man did they try. The attempted everything. They had GRIT, they had drive, they had work ethic.

This year my class is divided.

This year my class is different.

I currently have 20 kids. I have 20 sweet, fun, and wonderful little 5th graders that are trying to figure out their world. Unfortunately, I have about 9 that just don't seem to care as much as the others.

Background of my kids:

I work in a Title I school and our Free and Reduced lunch rate is extremely high.

Most of my kids have been labeled "poverty".

I have 9 kids that just won't do their work. It doesn't matter if it is in class or if I send something home to work on....they just won't do it.

I have talked to their parents, I have adjusted assignments, I have sent them to the principals office (which I NEVER use to do), I have taken recess (which is cruel), I have yelled, I have calmly talked to them to try to come up with a plan. I have read book after book and watched a ton of YouTube videos and spoken with other teachers.

NOTHING IS WORKING! 

I have a student that is extremely smart but not medicated so he is a huge distraction to the other students and myself. I have a student that has been placed in our gifted program that will stare off into  space and when redirected will look like he is working but doesn't. I have held him out of the gifted program until he proves he can do the fifth grade work and yesterday I made the mistake of trusting that he finished his 6 problems in math and I sent him to gifted before checking..........and I find out later that he didn't even do a single problem (and we worked for over an hour in class on the worksheet). 

I am at a loss. I do not know how to motivate these kids who consistently do not do their work.

I am frustrated which is making it worse. I want to leave the profession every night and I find myself disgusted at their lack of work ethic and annoyed that their parents don't care either.

So how do you fix it?

If they are being raised in a house that proves to them that their parents do not care because they do not follow up or require them to do their work, how am I suppose to get them to work in class?

I Am...

I am getting ready to turn 42.
I am a wife of 21 years.
I am a mom to an 18 year old man-child and a 13 year old little man-child.
I am a teacher to 5th graders.
I am a dreamer of being a kindergarten teacher.
I am a cusser..like bad.
I am opinionated.
I am a whatever is on my mind, comes out my mouth speaker.
I am impatient.
I am a bad driver.
I am a bad housekeeper.
I am talkative.
I am an unorganized mess.
I am a paper hoarder!
I am a sticker addict.
I am a "let's try that to see if it works for me" journal/planner/binder collector.
I am an ink pen slut, as a hop from pen to pen still not finding the one that satisfies my desires.
I am a paper clip making, yet they just sit on my table getting in the way collector.
I am an inconsistent blogger...notice my last blog post date!
I am a grudge holder.
I am honest.
I am trying to change.
I am a work in progress.

With all of my faults I would like to think there are just as many if not more good qualities. However, lately I have found myself living in my faults. Which had lead me to visit a blog I have followed for a few years now called: http://www.swtblessings.com

The author of the blog is a girl named Shannon. I want to be Shannon! She is cute as button and nothing but positive and happiness comes from her blog. She does put honesty out there so you don't think she is one of those "unattainable", I have my crap (totally not the first word that came to mind) together women.

She has a Scripture Study that she posts out on her blog once a month...totally free.

My goal is to complete this study in the month of September. Which it never fails, I decide to do something and I am already 5 days behind. Does that happen to anyone else? It is like I set myself up for failure but this month I am not going to worry about it. My goal is to finish so I started with Day 1 today and will work to get myself caught up over this three day weekend.

And it starts....

I am referring to the craziness of having both boys in Spring sports. Chris' knee has healed from surgery and he started playing Lacrosse again this past weekend. They had a tournament in Republic and we went 3-1! This was a huge weekend for Chris because the kid that was playing backup Varsity goalie for him has been kind of a punk and refuses to listen to advice and I guess seems to know everything there is to know about Lacrosse....and our team went into last weekend dead last with a record of 0-6. Chris did an amazing job and the last game of the tournament was his best yet! He is hoping to go to college and play Lacrosse.

Chris #38 - Lacrosse Goalie

 Chris #38 - Team Captain

Chris #38 - I love this picture! 

At the same time Lacrosse season so is baseball! This year we moved Kyle to a different baseball team. He started playing for the Midwest Nationals 13U Red. When we first tried out for the team we had no intentions of leaving our other team, we wanted to see what his skill level was compared to area baseball players his age. Well his coaches (dad coaches) got wind of it and thru one of their son's informed Kyle that he wasn't invited back to play baseball for his old team. One of the dad coaches accused me of not teaching my kid what it means to be loyal, which is very ironic because his kid had the worst sportsmanship on the team....so......we happily walked away.

Boy are we glad that we did! The Nats as they refer to themselves actually pay their coaches and the exposure the older boys get to scouts is amazing. 

Kyle is L-O-V-I-N-G it! His teammates all get along with each other, no one thinks they are better than anyone else and they are encouraging and supportive.

His nickname as given by his teammates is BEAST. With his other team he played mainly 3rd base and catcher (until the coaches kid needed a place to go and then we lost out on catching). The Nats have said that Kyle is an Utility player and they have had him on every base with a main focus on Short stop. He doesn't seem to care as long as he gets to play!

This is our last weekend home together as a family because for the next several weekends one of the boys has games in one state while the other has his games in another state. I couldn't imagine having three kids!

Code.org where have you been my whole life?

If you have not checked out www.code.org and are wondering where to get started in teaching your students or your children how to code....this is the site for you.

You get a free account!

You set up your classroom and add your students for free!

You get to send them a link to sign on with their own username and secret password for free!

You as the educator get free lesson plans to help walk your students thru the basics and they are aligned with Common Core standards for free!

Your students have access immediately for free!

THIS WEBSITE IS.....FREE!!!!!!

I may have just peed a little in all the excitement! 

So I am one of those people that learns something new or gets something new and instead of waiting patiently and figuring out all the nooks and crannies before I roll something out....

I just right in and take the approach that we will all be learning this together so let's see what happens. Now there are pros and cons to this approach which I learned a little yesterday while throwing my ENTIRE class into the world of Coding!

PROS: 

This engagement level, buy in level was thru the roof!!!! (and of course no one came in to evaluate during this process but instead they wait until the worst possible moment and decide to join my class....has that happened to anyone else?)

The excitement and eagerness was amazing. When discussing the different aspects of the program I had total engagement and about 106 questions.

Leverage...those students that usually do not get their work completed or who lolli-gag around and waste time. Totally got their work done since I told them that they would not be allowed to participate.

CONS:

They lost their minds with excitement. Classroom management went out the window a few times because they were so excited and had 106 questions. With the questions they had they also dropped their brains and decided that everyone needed to shout out their questions at the exact same time.

Skill levels- I have some that can barely sign onto the computer and others that flew thru the first course. So this is only in the CONS section because of the lack of control it offered since we are all learning this together.

How I Rolled this Puppy Out...

For you control freaks....you might want to look away at this point!!!

I rolled it out first by discussing my expectations.

I explain to them that my number one responsibility is to teach them 5th grade standards. I even went as far to say that I legally have to do this since the state requires me to teach certain standards. I went on to say that if they cannot keep up with their 5th grade work then I will not be able to teach them the fun stuff even through I can tie it into the standards it is not required by the state. Further more I explained to them that my principal (who is amazing and so very open to new ideas and concepts, #myprincipalisbetterthanyours) will only agree to this if I can prove to him that they are getting everything they need.

Then I started them with paper lessons in the classroom. When I set my class up I got to pick which course I wanted to start them with. 

I chose Course 2 for two reasons: #1 the age group fit and #2 it says to start with course 2 for students that can read. Finally a decision that didn't take a lot of thought process!!!!!! Bonus!

On the Teacher Dashboard there is an option of Lesson Plans and Resources:

This is where I printed out our classroom lessons for the day before they moved into the computer program.

If I had to do it over again in a perfect world I would have started the paper lesson plans on Monday and worked thru several of those before putting them on the computer. But I rolled this out on a Thursday and we have computer lab on Thursday.

Stay tuned for more information about this program...this post is getting long!