Classroom Organizer

 I have discovered this great website (via Pinterest, of course) that allows you to put all of your classroom library books onto your account and then students can get online and check out the books.  It's called Classroom Organizer. 

Now, I haven't actually used this yet except to enter all the books onto my account, but in theory it sounds great!  There is also an app that allows you scan books in, however, it wasn't that great.  The problem with the app is that not all of the barcodes actually scan in the ISBN number.  I found it easier to simply type in the ISBN on my computer as I can type on a keyboard faster than I can type on my phone.

I will update later about the effectiveness of this website.

I do have two photos of my classroom to update from earlier this week.  It's a disaster, but only because I've started organizing my books into genres and that has led to piles and piles.    My goal is to have an organized classroom library.  So far, all of my books have been entered into Classroom Organizer except for my pictures books.

 I am really excited about this!  It's above my library nook and although it's difficult to see, there are yellow strings going from the bottom point up to the star.  I'll put a clothespin with their name on it and then they move their clothes pin up to the star, which is 30 books.

This is the most awkward bulletin board.  It's super tall and I can barely reach the top.  Last year, I just kept the top section blank because it was easier.  (I did fix the crooked boarder too.  I didn't realize it was crooked until after I took the picture and then forgot to retake it.)

Book Review: How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents by Julia Alvarez

In How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents, the lives of the four Garcia girls are told through short glimpses into each girl's memories and experiences.  The Garcias are an immigrant family from the Dominican Republic who had to flee their home for the safety of the United States.  The four girls have rebelled in different ways and become Americanized, but still have a strong connection to "the island" as they call it. Julia Alvarez begins her novel in a more present time, when the girls are adults, dealing with their adult lives and issues while trying to stay connected to their family.  From there, she moves backward with each chapter until we are finally with the girls when they are are young and back living on the island.

I enjoyed much of this book and was pulled through the first and second section, each of these taking place in the states when they are in their adult lives and then their teen and pre-teen lives.  However, for me the story ended when it moved back to the island before the Garcias were forced to flee from their home country.  In this last section I lost interest.  At first I was curious about why they had to leave, but this was answered rather quickly in the last section, followed by a few more chapters in which we follow the girls on a few adventures while they are living on the island.  None of this really answered any questions for me or tied everything together.  I would have been much happier ending with the episode that explained why they had to leave.

In addition, I felt it difficult to keep the voices of the girls straight.  There are a few chapters told from the Mami's perspective, which I enjoyed, but the rest are focused on one of the four girls.  Unfortunately, switching back and forth from one character to another left me grasping for something that grounded one of them in a place that allowed me understand them.  Voices mingled together and I became lost in which sister was which and who was the oldest.  Maybe this was the point.  Each of the girls (and the mother) refer to the fact that they were known as "the girls" and part of their identity was wrapped up in being a member of this tribe of sisters.  As children, their clothing was color coded.  Each child wore only pink, or yellow, or white.  I can imagine being lost within this larger identity of the family as a unit of four girls, one mother and one father and no individual identity.   Even when they are older, they girls seem to be "the girls" and not their individual selves. 

All in all How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents reads as though it is a collection of short stories about a family of immigrants.  I believe that I would have enjoyed it more had it been advertised as such.  I do recommend this book, but only if you are willing to have a few glimpses into the life of this family.  You will not have a chance to become their friends and worry about them and hope for their well-being.  You will not miss them when it is over.  I give this novel 3 our 5 stars. 

Halfway Through Summer! WHAT?!

Okay, so I feel like I've been a bit of a slacker here.  I started posting and then just stopped.  I've had good intentions to post each week, but there has also been that summer lethargy and it's won out for the past few weeks.  Getting up and running seemed like such an accomplishment, that the rest of my day was a wash. 


No worries, though.  I have been working on some different things here and there over the last few weeks too.  I haven't been a complete slacker, just a little bit of one.  My teacher binder is coming along and I have started filling in my calendar with important dates.  I've also filled up the Notes Section pretty well with ideas. 

In addition, I've been adding more and more to my Reader's Notebook, which is really a binder.  I might have to start calling it a Reader's Binder or else my parents will ask what I'm talking about when their kid told them they didn't have a notebook for my class. 

I've also worked on a few rubrics that I will use throughout the year for weekly and quarterly grades.  There are a few that I can't make yet because it requires the students to become involved in process.  I'm also working on my letter home to parents.


On an exciting note, I got into school today!  My classroom was all clean and tidy and waiting for me.  I've already moved a few things around, but haven't gotten much further than that.  I always feel extremely overwhelmed the first few days I get back into my room.  So many possibilities and so much to do!  Here are some pictures from the before.

This will be my library area.  I have a rug to put in there and on the left I have a "Reach for the Stars" reading wall that I'll be using this year.  Every five-ten books they read, they move their name up the string towards the shooting star.

 This is my teacher area.  The table to the right is both extra work space for me as well as a meeting place for individual or small conferences.  Oh yes, and it can be used as "extra special seating" for those who are in need of such a thing.    (Take at lot at the bulletin board.  It's a mess.  My file cabinet and mailboxes hide a section of it and it just looked stupid, so I moved the border over a tad and recentered the calender.  It looks a little odd, but whatever!)

Yes, the desks are all turned upside down.  I have no idea why they do this, but they do.  I hate these desks, by the way.  I wish I had tables or bigger desks.  These are awful!   Anyways, that corner back there will be an area for literature circles to meet, or a small group to meet and read together.  I have some crate seats I'll be working on this week when my mom comes over to help me out! 

Not sure what to do with that big old bulletin board.  Notice that the background doesn't touch the ceiling.  It's weird.  Maybe I'll use it as a station to pick up work or something of the kind.  It was my "extra credit" area last year. 

 The great big giant closet full of junk!!  You can't see the top of the closet, which is also full of junk.  During the school year, most of that is out in the room somewhere.  Lots to do!

Most of my time at school was spent moving things around and then moving them back.  I might even move those sames things again.  Ehh.  Whatever.  It's how I work.  While I was there, someone brought me the things that I ordered with my classroom allowance.  One of those things was a cardboard mailbox system.  I already have two very nice sets of mailboxes, but it's still not a sufficient amount (even with what I have now) for my classes.  I see over a hundred kids each day.   So I allocated some of my money to this:

 It took me at least 15 minutes to figure out this first part of the assembly process because there were no directions.  None.  I was even thinking that maybe they sent me the wrong thing because there is no way that those pieces will make a mailbox.

After 15 more minutes of searching the internet, I found the instructions and was able to win!  My new set of mailboxes.  I wish it was another color and considered taking the whole thing home and painting it black.  But that seems like a lot more work because I'll have to take it apart again and it took me over 30 minutes to figure this sucker out.   No way is it coming apart right now.  Maybe next summer.  

I promise to take some more pictures as I finish up the space.  I might not get too much more finished in there.  In fact I'm always afraid that as soon as I have everything up, I'll be told that I'm moving rooms.  So the walls will stay bare for awhile still.  So will the bulletin boards. 

Tomorrow I'll post about some of my reading adventures from the past few weeks.  I want to get myself into the habit of posting at least three times a week. 

The Teacher Binder

So I promised some pictures of my teacher binder and here they are! 

**Remember, I'm still building this and it will probably change as we get closer to school and then throughout the school year as well.

Calendars

- I have a monthly calendar and it's broken into sections.  I've purposefully left the dates off so I can print out the same thing next year and just enter in the correct dates.

- I've broken up my tabs into two-three months section.

 These are my planning pages. Obviously I'll probably have to tweak them a bit when I get my teaching schedule, but I made the boxes large enough for small post-it notes, which I think will be the way that I go this year.  I'm so tired to erasing and rewriting plans due to assemblies, early dismissal days (I always seem to forget) or other things.

 

I actually have this "Looking Ahead"  section first. 

Planning Notes

I have sections for Class Lists, Ideas, Meeting Information (any notes that we get at in-service meetings) and RTI/IEP information for students.

I already have some notes in my binder for the things that I want to work on this summer and ideas for bulletin boards, classroom set up, and more!

 That's my start so far and I need to update my tabs.  I used some old ones that I had left over from the years past.

Tomorrow is my day that I spend up at school helping with our summer lunch program.  Not sure what I will get finished, but I'm working on making the seat covers for my crate seats.  I found this on Pinterest, so I can't take credit for it, but it's a great idea.  I'll try and post some pictures as soon as they're finished.

Organizing, Planning, and Reviews!

SUMMER ORGANIZATION TOOLS
I stopped by Target for a few random things today and amazingly I walked out with much more than I had planned on buying.

Look at these!  They were in the dollar section!  I was really excited to find them and bought ten of them.  There were some bright green ones as well, but I am sticking with black.  I haven't decided yet what to use them for, but I know one of them will be used for pulling names.  I'm still brainstorming other ideas. 

I also picked up a few different note pads and pens and pencils for my reward box.  I love Target.

SUMMER PLANNING EXTRAVAGANZA
This week my plan is to set up by teacher binder as much as possible.  Obviously I can't really put this together.  For one, I won't have finalized class lists until a few days before school.  Also, I don't know what my teaching schedule will be yet.  So I want to be able to tweak things, but have a good solid basis for my teacher binder before we get there.  Then I can just fill it all in as I go along.   I'll try and post some pics of it as it begins to take shape over the next few days.

I also want to buy and make my crate seats.  Although I haven't seen crates at Target or Bed Bath and Beyond.  I did find them at Office Max, but they were $8 each and I didn't want to spend that much.  I'm going to Walmart tomorrow to see if they have them in.  I think I might have to wait a month or so, though.   I hope not.  I have plans man!!


READING UPDATE
I just finished Half Brother by Kenneth Oppel last night.  (Stayed up until midnight to finish it!)  I'll be honest, at first I thought I would be dragging myself through this book, but after the first couple of chapters I was hooked.  Half Brother explores animal experimentation and our responsibility to animals as humans through the eyes of a young teenage boy whose parents are scientists.  As part of an experiment, his parents bring home a baby chimp to be raised in their home as a part of their family.  I was very appreciative of the way Oppel had Ben questioning his parents, his friends, his mentor, and himself throughout the novel.  It was believable, just as believable as the relationship that forms between Ben and his "half brother" Zan.   I definitely recommend this book.  I think it's one that my students will really enjoy as well and I'm looking forward to sharing it with them.

Summer Plans

Even before school let out, I was mentally making a list of things to do over the summer.  Reader's Notebook.  Rearrange room.  Deal with my class library.  I was as ready for the year to be over as my students.  I needed a new start.  I felt like I needed a redo for the year. 

I don't think my year was especially bad.  In face I'm sure that I did ten times better this year than I did the last two, but after attending our IRC Conference in March there were so many things that I wanted to change.  I loved the experience, but I felt that my classroom was inadequate.  I used some ideas, but there were many areas that I just couldn't change in April with two more months to go!

Somewhere at school I typed up that list and saved it or printed it out and stuck it some place I would be sure to find it....  And now I have no idea where it is. 

Probably a good thing, though.  I need to rethink a lot of those plans.

Included in my summer plans was, of course, a lot of reading!  I needed to finish rereading The Hunger Games, Catching Fire, and Mocking Jay.  Then my husband had been bugging me to read Abraham Lincoln Vampire Killer for about a month ("before the movie comes out," he kept telling me).  I continually put him off as I was reading this or that, but with so much time during the day I finally took up his offer.  I was hesitant, but couldn't put it down.  Then I turned to my list of informational texts about education (which is what I was SUPPOSED to start with, but had gravitated instead towards my other books).

There are about four of these books I've gained throughout this year and have only had the chance to skim through here and there. I was to read these first before buying any more educational books.  Then, while on Pinterest and searching through other teachers' blogs, I kept noticing one title that kept surfacing.  A title that I hadn't heard of over and over and over again until just recently.  The Book Whisperer.  (Maybe I've had my head in the sand, or just stuck in other books.  I don't know why I haven't heard of it until now.) I decided last night to buy this book on my nook so that I could start reading it right away. 

I was up until about 1:00 am.  So now I'm thinking that my lovely Summer To Do List is probably better off where ever it is.  Although I'm only about 50 pages in, I already have my mind circling around what to do with these ideas.  I mean she's right.  I have to wrap my brain around how I will be implementing some of these ideas.  How will I make this work in my classroom?  How will I convince my administration that this is the way to go address our concerns with RTI and struggling developing readers? How will I make it work for my 50 minute class periods and still include our practically brand new reading text books?   

So, for now I have started a new To Do list.  Many of them are things that just need to be done no matter what as I finish reading The Book Whisperer.  When I have finished reading I will begin to add as I tweak my classroom plan. 

My To Do's

• New classroom set up--figure this out so I can move this around as soon as they let me back in the room (move bookcases to make a reading nook, use sliding boards to display work, back bulletin board for celebration of books read)
• Make my own reader's notebook and use over the summer (started this and have been using and tweaking so that I will know how I want students to utilize theirs and have an example).
• Use the classroom organizer app to catalog my books.  
• Arrange books by subjects--my library is a disaster with books simply put into the shelves where ever they might fit.
•  Make crate seats to put in the reading nook
• Read Read Read!!!

Starting Out

This is my first attempt at a blog and I will be posting some of my experiences and ideas for teaching.

As a teacher of middle school students I have quite a few interesting stories to tell.  I am excited to share my ideas and knowledge as well as gain ideas from readers.

Stay tuned as I muddle my way through this experiment!