The 10 Minute Reading Challenge!

For part of our professional development, my principal and I had spoken about how much time our students are spending with their eyes-on-print during the day and at home.  During our PD today, we asked grade levels to determine the number of minutes their students spend with a book in their hand and eyes on the page.  We also are trying to align our at-home expectations to encourage reading, rather than set time limits, and up the ante for each grade level.  What was our motivation?  Lucy Calkins!!

This book is a great resource for the transition to common core standards, but Lucy also shares some pretty great things.  This is, of course, is status quo for Lucy (do you like how I'm referencing her on a first-name basis...I wish we were that close!).  One of the things she talks about is that all students should have 45 minutes of eyes-on-print at school and at home every day!

As we were discussing this, it made me think about how I apply this to my own learning.  Do I read 45 minutes every day between home and school? No.  Do I even open a book and read on my own every day?  Sadly, no.  How can I set an example for my students if I can't even make connections about my own current reading? So I presented myself with a challenge.  Read for 10 minutes, just 10 minutes everyday.

And here is your challenge: to join me!

Justification for the rules:
1. Setting a goal allows you to recognize that you are striving toward something to better yourself.
2. 10 minutes is a manageable amount of time that you could get done waiting for the doctor, waiting for the water to boil for your spaghetti noodles, or before going to bed.  Also, as I've noticed over the past few days of my own challenge, you might... just happen to...by accident...unintentionally...not on purpose... by chance get really into your reading and spend more than 10 minutes reading!
3. Don't sweat it if you miss a day.  When you start adding time, it will make a day or two of built up time seem unmanageable.
4. It doesn't matter what you're reading...just read!
5. 10 minutes...simplify it!
6.  Yes, I would love to hear your stories and reflections about how the challenge is going for you.  Reflecting and thinking about our reading is important, just as we teach our kids to do. Spread the word of the reading challenge so that we can encourage our students through the reading we do ourselves, and to learn from each other!  So pay The 10 Minute Reading Challenge forward, tell others about it, and let's get reading!

Oh, and it was intentional that I waited until October 10th (10/10) to share my 10 Minute Reading Challenge!  I know I'm corny, but it just seemed to fit with all of the 10s.

My 10-minutes of reading on Monday and Tuesday have been with Lucy and the Pathways to the Common Core book.  Tonight, I read People magazine, but am hoping to get in some more time with Pathways.  It really is a good book!

Until my next update about my journey with the 10-Minute Reading Challenge

Pete the Popcorn and the last day of my TpT Anniversary Sale!

On Friday, we had the two authors of Pete the Popcorn visit our school!  Although I had never heard of the book beforehand, we are always honored to have authors come visit and talk.  As most author visits go, the students really enjoy hearing from "real" authors and seeing that authors are just like us.  They are able to ask questions, see the writing and illustrating process, and see how a thought becomes a book.  

Our visit from Joe and Nick, the authors, wasn't only about their road to becoming an author and the writing process, but more about the message behind the book!  The character, Pete, is a popcorn kernel who wants to be popped some day and eaten.  The lesson is that through encouragement of others, we can all "pop" and become whoever we want to be.  It can fit in with any anti-bullying unit, too!  To make their visit even better, in their 4th and 5th grade presentation, they called up a pretty "cool" 4th grade boy and asked him to call someone else up to give this person a compliment and encourage them.    Unknown to the authors, the boy picked a girl with special needs who has always struggled making friends and hasn't had many peer encouragers.  For her to go up in front of all of our 4th and 5th graders and see this boy give her a compliment brought tears to many teachers' eyes.  

The authors also use alliteration throughout the whole book.  I can imagine the repeated readings and mini-lessons that this book could bring into a classroom!  They've already started writing more books that have encouraging themes and lessons as well.  It's definitely a book with multiple uses in any elementary classroom!

TpT Sale

It's the last day of my celebratory TpT Sale!  20% off of all products for my 1 year TpT anniversary.  Enjoy!

You can even come visit and check out some of my freebies!  The one below is a customer favorite, and easy to use!  Download it today and use later.

Enjoy your weekends!  I'll be back on Wednesday for a great 10-10 challenge!  Not sure what 10-10 is?  You'll have to wait. :)

ELL lessons, my TPT Anniversary, and Currently!!!

ELL Lesson Planning: Make your intro matter!
So I'm sure many of you have learned about the SIOP model, how to implement it in your classroom, and why it's best for your students, but I have really enjoyed being able to see this unfold with my ELL students this year.  With 1/2 of my job as an ELL teacher, I have really been able to see the effects of thoughtful and intentional lesson planning with SIOP in mind.  If you aren't familiar, however, here are the basic components. When I plan my lessons, I now use this as my format.

• Lesson Preparation
• Building Background
• Comprehensible Input
• Strategies
• Interaction
• Practice/Application
• Lesson Delivery
• Review/Assessment

My biggest aha, especially with small group reading, is that your anticipatory set, background knowledge, and preview of the text, may take more than one session.  With your "typical" students, your intro may be short and quick.  In order to make texts comprehensible, this is one of the greatest areas of impact to allow students to make meaning.  Don't forget to make your introduction matter!

TPT 1 Year Anniversary...and a sale!
I must first say thank you, thank you, thank you!  Today marks my 1st full year on TpT, and it has been an absolute ride!  Not only do I feel grateful to everyone for your comments, ratings, and purchases, but the personal notes about how it has helped your class or a specific student just warms my heart.

In honor of all of YOU...I'm having an Anniversary Party!

Come on by to visit the sale here!

October Currently
Well it's the beginning of a new month, so what else is to be expected, but Farley's monthly Currently!  I am always baffled with her creativity and the seasonal theme she integrates.  Another home run, Farley! Visit her site, and link up to share your own Currently.

Evaluations, Halloween Writing, and a Giveaway!

Well Fall is officially here, my jackets are out, and morning bus duty has been a bit chilly...I know it's only September.

Evaluations
Now that school is in full swing, my principal and I are beginning our observations as a part of our new evaluation system.  Indiana has put a a new evaluation plan in place, which is rather complex, but the teachers in my building are awesome, and are going along with ALL of it!  **Lucky me!**
As I begin entering classrooms, I hesitate a bit because I remember the feeling when someone walked into my room.  Sometimes I was ecstatic, because I wanted my principal to see the awesome things happening.  Other times, my thoughts were a bit different.  As I begin my routing of walk-throughs, observations, etc. I wanted to get your feedback.  In one word, how would reflect on your feelings when your evaluator walks in?  I'd love to read your comments, since I only know what my feelings were!

Halloween Writing!
My very first unit on TpT was created almost one year ago...and it was awful!  I didn't realize it was awful at the time.  I actually thought it was great, out of this world, ahh...my first time to use licensed clipart.  Holy cow!  Ever since then I have improved, edited, and revised.  When I looked back at my Halloween Writing unit, I realized how far I've come.  When I say this, I don't mean that my cover looks better, or the pages are more creative, but they are designed for real, student work.  I revamped my writing unit to make it better for my students, and more thought out.  Click on the pic below, check it out, and see what you think!

Giveaway!
Finally, my good friend Natalie over at Teachery Tidbits has hit 500 followers!  I know! She is awesome! She is having a week long giveaway with a winner everyday!  She has so many ways to enter that are easy and fast.  You can even win my Student Led Conference Binder for her Day 2 giveaway.  Head on over to her blog to show Natalie some love and congrats for getting to 500! Click Natalie's link below to go to rafflecopter and enter!

I hope you all have a great end to your week!!

I placed 1st in my Age Group*!!!

Yep!  You read it right!  I placed 1st in my age group for a 5K I did yesterday! But let's go back a bit...

My school district has a foundation that supports educational grants and school initiatives.  They were holding a 5K as a fundraiser yesterday.  We were highly encouraged to participate in one of two ways. We could either volunteer at a water station or split timing location or we could run the 5K.  Well the choice seemed pretty obvious for me, especially when I heard that volunteers had to show up at 5:30am!  My start time wasn't until 8:00!

I called a friend to run it with me, and we headed for the start line.  As I looked around, it was a decent turnout, but definitely not the largest crowd I've run alongside.  My friend, Lindsey, and I finished the race, grabbed water and a banana and headed for the car.  Later that day, I received a text message that we had won our age group!

Okay, now I've run, but I'm not a great runner.  I've done a lot of different distances, but I'm not a sprinter by any means.  I was shocked!  I ran to my computer, pulled up the results, and this is what I saw:

Ha! Yes, go back and look at that.   Go on.  Study it.  Look really hard.  Yep, you got it!  There were only 4 in my age group! At a whopping pace of of 9:19/minute I placed 1st.  Notice the asterisk in the title of my post?  Well that's because there were only 4.  Since I left early I didn't get the trophy, but I'll be back later in the week to show off my hardware after beating 3 people!

Lesson of the run...and placing 1st:
If you ever need a confidence boost or something to reenergize your running (or teaching) efforts, sign up for something small and casual.  Sometimes going in without expectations makes both the task and the result even more enjoyable.

And yes, now you can laugh again about having only 4 people on my age group!

Enjoy your week, and set some small goals along the way!

My first two weeks as an Asst. Principal!

Seeing that it has been nearly two weeks since my last post, you can see how my first two weeks have gone!  I have been really busy with late nights and fast food drive-thru menus, but it's been great!  I wasn't really sure how I wanted to type up this post, but I know several of your are following me on my journey in pursuit of your own admin. career or just as a teacher looking through a different lens.  I thought I would do a pro/con list that could go on and on forever!

Pros
1.  Going into every classroom to read!  I wanted to get to know the 600+ students in my building, so I thought I'd start with a read aloud and introducing myself.  Although this took nearly an entire week to get to every classroom, I have to say it was time well spent.  Here are the books I read.

 

Kindergarten & 1st Grade                         2nd and 3rd Grade                                4th and 5th Grade

If you have not read The Junkyard Wonders, it is a MUST READ for you and your students this year.  pre-read it, though, because there will be a part that gets to you!  Promise!

The best part of this were the emails that I received from teachers afterward about my lesson.  Here is the one that made it worth it for me:

"I had my class write letters to their parents for Parent night tonight. As I'm going through them I noticed that most of my class "named" our classroom. They started these letters after you came in on Monday and read to them. Most of the class named our room "the fishbowl" (which I thought was very appropriate!). I did find it very sweet that one of my new students named our classroom "the junkyard." At the end of her letter she tells her parents "P.S. The Junkyard means full of different kinds of kids that are all special in their own way."

2. I'm one of the first faces they see when they get off of the bus.  I thought that bus duty would get old, but seeing those smiles ready to come in the building is so great!  I know that my reactions to them set the tone for the rest of their day.  What a great feeling to do this!

3. Kindergartners on the first day of school!  I've never really experienced the "pulling a child from their nervous, worried, scared to death parent" but it was actually good.  Although it was hard in the moment, making the phone call to mom or dad later in the day to reassure them that their child was eating next to their new friends and playing at recess with others was really fun.

4. I get to check in with students and be an extra motivator for students.  Compliments from the "office" go a long way for them and it never gets old for me.

5.  I am learning a range of things everyday.  This is everything from the need for a picture menu for our ENL students to retooling our dismissal procedures for safety to seeing how great my teachers are in action!  Going in and out of these various items keeps me on my toes but has increased my learning exponentially.

6. Flowers from some great friends on my first day of school saying how much they miss me, but how great I'll be in my new role.

Cons
1. Not having my "own" students.  I'll be honest, this has been really hard.  So much of what I have worked for in my life is to learn about education so that I can welcome a class on the first day of school and guide, motivate, and lead them to new learning for the next 180 days.  This has been a definite adjustment, and I may have shed some tears a few times about it.

2. Not knowing silly procedural things...such as how car riders work, how to do announcements, etc.  This sounds so minute, but when you have to ask questions all day long because you don't know how certain things work, it will make you feel incompetent at times.  I know it's a part of the process, knowing a new school, etc. but it's hard to swallow everyday when you are supposed to be guiding this staff.

3. The long hours at the beginning.  With three nights for meet the teacher night, a PTO executive committee meeting that went until 11pm, and an online virtual class on Wednesday nights, I have been tired exhausted!  The hubs has really stepped up, though, and made dinner, took care the washer that broke, and kept me together too!

4. Missing the "easiness" of my old building.  I knew everyone, a lot of the families, all of the procedures, and had that comfortable feel.

5. Nothing to wear for Sprit Day tomorrow!  I need to add to my repertoire of school spirit wear! :)

Well, thanks for reading all of my thoughts.  I'm out for the night!

Ready, Set, SALES!!!

THE BIG SALE IS HERE!!

TpT has geared up for one of their 3 HUGE sales of the year, and I've jumped on board!  With my whole store 20%, and TpT offering another 10% off, you get up to 28% off (after all the crazy math stuff that I don't understand) all of the products.  It's your lucky day!

Don't have time to get the units prepped now? Keep the items you buy in your purchased items section for when you are.  You'll be glad later that you did!

Farley from Oh' Boy, Fourth Grade created this great graphic, so I thought I'd do what great teachers do and steal, beg, borrow, give credit also!  Don't forget to enter BTS12 when you checkout out.  Click on the image above to connect to my store.

Here are some of my most popular items, and then some of my cheap and easies!  

Some are less than $1 with the sale!

A 78 page document with everything you could need for Data Binders and Student Led Conferences

A variety of options for many grade levels to adjust the level of difficulty/content in your study of weather. 

An all inclusive 2-week poetry unit with a variety of writing papers, types of poems, and options for publishing.

It's only $0.78 on sale!  What a steal!  

An easy game of I have, Who has for basic subtraction!  

This is only $1.08 on sale!  Another steal!  

These games are great for beginning of year review, subs, and extra practice!

Happy shopping, and don't forget to leave your ratings afterward, so that you get your TpT credits for future purchases!