Advice to the First Year Teachers

You will make it!  It really isn't as bad as everyone makes it out to be. In my opinion, building a sense of community within the classroom was the best thing I have done throughout the year. Students know that I care about them along with the rest of the class. It has REALLY helped me out. Also, know your philosophy and stick to it no matter what anyone else is doing. I see teachers doing things completely different from me all the time. Yes, I question what I'm doing at times... But it's what works best for me and for my students. Don't try and be a teacher whom you're not. Dare to be different! :)

No More Recess For You!!

Unlike most classrooms in my school, I have decided again a behavior chart. I hate the fact that most are on display, forcing the students to dwell on their behaviors. Also, I feel that students begin to act in a way to receive the reward or dodge the punishment. This isn't really doing much in my opinion. What happens the next year when the students aren't rewarded/punished with the same reward or consequence?  Sounds messy to me. 

My biggest pet peeve?  When teachers take away recess for ANY behavior. You didn't complete your homework? No recess!!  You spoke out during class?  No recess!!  Kids need recess!  There are so many other ways to work on classroom management. If a student is talking, stand next to them, look at them, etc.  If a more serious problem arises, I feel that it should be talked about as a whole. Your classroom is a community and the whole community needs to know what's acceptable/unacceptable. For example, a student rips up a book and doesn't tell anyone. Instead of pointing fingers and taking away recess from one student, talk about it during class so that everyone knows not to do this. As teachers, things may seem very obvious to us... But as students, they don't always know what is expected. 

Am I Doing This Right?

So far, my school year has been GREAT... or that's what I thought. Today, I went into the first grade classroom down the hall during my prep time out of curiosity.  This classroom didn't look like mine at all. The students were sitting in straight rows and quietly working on their assignments. When the teacher would ask them questions, they would silently raise their hand and wait to be called on. I feel that my students are respectful and still listen to me, but they are NOT quiet. They are constantly talking to one another and to me. I have my students in groups so that they are able to talk to one another and help eachother out. Am I doing this all wrong?  Should my students silently be working all day?

HELP!

Stations

This was my first day trying stations with my students. It was definitely a process and will take some practice. There's only one of me so it's hard to be at every station and monitor what each child is doing. I feel that once we get into a routine, it will hopefully flow much better. Practice makes perfect, right?

Each station was working on math. Many classrooms that I have seen using stations usually have a teacher station as well. Teachers sit at this station and are able to work with students in small groups rather than with the whole class. I decided not to do this for the first time because most of my students have not worked in stations before. After my experience today, I did some exploring online. I found a reat great ideathat   going to incorporate next time. One person in each group wears an 'Ask Me' tag around their neck. If anyone in the group has a question, they will ask the student wearing the Ask me tag and they will try and answer it. If they don't know the answer, the person wearing the tag can come and ask me the question and relay it to the group. I think this may be better than twenty-three students running up to me asking questions. Sounds like it may be worth a shot! 

Math Exploration

Today, we had our first inquiry lesson!  It was very basic to get the students introduced to inquiry, and they seemed to like it. 

What we did:

Explored 'math tools'.  Each group had a bucket of math tools to explore. Each bucket that was passed around had a different material in it. For example, one bucket had cubes in it. Another bucket had shape manipulatives in it. Most students did not know what they were but were encouraged to talk within their group about how they could be used in math. I allowed the groups to talk for a few minutes with each bucket.  They came up with some really interesting ideas too!  After we did this activity and the groups were able to give their opinion of what the tools were for, I went over how we will be using these in the classroom for math. This was such a fun activity and they were able to learn what the materials were actually used for. 

Get to Know You

I believe that it is SO important to get to know your students. Students should have the opportunity to get to know you as well. No, you don't have to share every detail of your life with your students, but I don't see why they can't know some things. Do you have a pet?  What's your favorite color?  Favorite food?  What did you do over the weekend?  This shows that you are human too. I remember when I was in elementary school and I just imagined my teacher sleeping at the school and never doing anything outside of school. I don't want to be that teacher. 

Community circles are my way of breaking this trend. Students are able to pick a topic to talk about and each student will share something on that topic. It can be as simple as "what did you do over the weekend?"  I make it a point to share along with the students so that they know I am human and have a life as well. 

The Bully Bucket

In order to build my classroom community, I believe that the students should be able to share with me the 'not so nice' things going on as well. I know that many of my students can be shy and may not feel comfortable telling on one of their fellow classmates, so I created a bully bucket. This allows students to anonymously tell me about something that hurt their feelings. I think that this is so important because it not only allows me to keep an eye on certain behaviors, but it also shows that I truly care about each and every student. 

Survival of the First Day

I survived!  And it really wasn't as bad as everyone makes it out to be. My students are so sweet, yet so full of energy!  It's going to be a great year :)

I think I mentioned in another post that I was going to try and allow my students to create their own rules. This surprisingly worked really well!  Of course, we got some silly rules such as "no picking your nose".  I couldn't help but laugh. We began by reading David Goes to School by David Shannon. For people who haven't read this, it's about a boy named David that is constantly getting yelled at for his behaviors throughout the day. I used this to get my students' brains thinking about the rules. And they did a fantastic job!

Another thing we did today was give out jobs to each student. I want each student to contribute to the classroom and feel like they have a role. I found these cute wooden people at Michaels (the craft store) during the summer and the students were able to create their own person. I posted the different jobs and went over what each job description was today. Once the students were finished creating their stick person, I placed them all in a bucket. I would read the job and then choose one or two people for that job. I plan on rotating these every other Monday. 

Two Days!

Two days until the students come!  I was able to meet most of them last night during our annual ice cream social. That really calmed my nerves and made me more excited than anything. I have twenty-three first graders... How exciting!!

As you can assume, the desks are setup and my classroom is finally in order. I have six groups of desks; four in each group (one extra got a potential new student).  Each group has a bucket in the middle for pencils, erasers, etc. for the groups to share. Once again, this was planned in order to continue building that sense of community. 

Speaking of building a community... I forgot to mention the rules of my classroom:

There aren't any...

YET! 

I have decided to try and allow my students to come up with their own as a class. I will let everyone know how this goes! 

The First Day is Near!

I'm so excited for the school year to start, yet so nervous! I have been attempting to setup and organize my classroom for what seems like forever. I feel like I spend every waking moment in my room trying to get ready for the school year. Will I ever actually be prepared though? At the beginning of the summer, this classroom was a chaotic mess. Every closet, cabinet and cubby had random things throughout. I don't feel like this classroom has been cleaned out in ages. Old curriculum books, fake money, calculators, posters... anything you could imagine is in this room. Sounds like a good thing for most teachers, but I have never felt so claustrophobic. Great resources to have, but why have three spots for fake money and five spots for bulletin board materials? I just don't get it. The beginning of my summer included clearing EVERYTHING out, even if I knew I was putting it back in. This classroom needed some organization. I have now strategically places everything in their spots. Books are by topic and are marked with reading levels. I will try and upload pictures soon. I have placed the books low enough that they are accessible to the students so that they can freely choose their own book. I'm hoping to get the students in a routine where they know which reading level to choose on their own. The walls of the classroom are pretty empty at the moment. I plan on posting student work around instead of using my own resources that may be 'cute'. I believe students benefit from seeing their own work along with their classmate's work posted. I also have created a spot where students can hang up work that they are proud of and want to show off. I plan on each student being able to choose one piece of work to hang up. Students should bring materials for the classroom (colored pencils, markers, crayons, pencils, etc.). My dad built me an awesome community-type station to place all of these items. I will make sure students know that they can use things out of this station as long as they return them. I am using this to begin the sense of community throughout my classroom. Better stop blogging and continue to work on my classroom. I will post pictures of some of the things I mentioned as soon as possible!