Five for Friday - New Blog Reveal

I can't believe we just finished our second week of school. It feels like the students have been back for two months! Anyway, I'm linking up with Doodle Bugs Teaching for another edition of Five for Friday. 

1. I absolutely love my new blog design! A big thank you to Lindsey Paull for doing such an amazing job!

2. I tried using a traditional teacher's planner when school first started, but I quickly found that I needed a better way of organizing since I am now in my new role as a literacy coach. After several hours of looking online, I wasn't able to find the perfect literacy coach planner. Feeling frustrated and needing to get organized quickly, I decided to spend a weekend creating my very own, personalized calendar. I really like how it turned out and it has been filling up quickly!

3. Being a literacy coach is a new position for me and I was feeling completely lost and useless until I got this book, The Literacy Coach's Survival Guide. I'm only about a third of the way through it, but it has completely changed my approach to literacy coaching. I'm already experiencing positive responses from the elementary classroom teachers. Thank goodness! I will write a post soon about my top 5 biggest mistakes as a literacy coach and hopefully other coaches in my shoes can learn from my mistakes.

4. I was thrilled to see my 1st Grade Common Core Morning Work packet for September on Teachers Pay Teachers' Facebook page to celebrate my very first milestone. You still have a chance to get the morning work for free until 11:59 CST Saturday 9/5/15!

5. I turned 34 last week...and I finally got a ROOMBA! I've been talking non-stop about how great it would be to have a Roomba for at least a year now. I've used it twice since Sunday and I'm amazed at how well it sweeps up my hardwood floors. Now my boyfriend Chris can stop complaining about seeing my stray hairs all over the place.

Happy new school year everyone! Don't forget to link up!

 

Five for Friday (7/10/15) and TpT Seller Challenge #3

I'm linking up with Doodle Bugs Teaching for another addition of Five for Friday!

Spending a week in Costa Rica with Chris was absolutely amazing. We were both so excited to have a nice and relaxing vacation. Although, I had to lecture Chris about taking care of his things though. I'm sure you can guess which passport belongs to him...

We stayed 20 minutes outside of La Fortuna at the Lost Iguana Resort. We made such a great choice with this resort. There were two different hiking trails on their 120-acres in the rainforest that kept us busy in the early mornings. The staff was very friendly and helpful. Here are a few pictures I took from the resort:

There is so much to do in Costa Rica so it was very easy to stay active while having fun. We did a night walk and a day walk through the Arenal Hanging Bridges Park, kayaked in the Peñas Blancas River, hiked over the lava flow of the 1968 Arenal Volcano eruption, and crawled through the tightest spaces amongst bats and crickets in the Venado Caves.

I'm really scared of bats, so the cave tour was really creepy, but turned out to be my favorite activity. The limestone was beautiful and the water was so refreshing because we got so hot and sweaty from all the climbing and crawling around in the cave. We didn't have waterproof cameras (why didn't we buy a Go Pro??) so we only took a before and after picture of the Venado Cave tour.

I am a little late with the 3rd TpT Seller Challenge: Make Your Masterpiece. I worked on it for two days as soon as I got back from Costa Rica. I'm really happy with the way it turned out. The CCSS aligned 1st Grade Morning Work for Back-to-School follows the same format as my best-selling summer packets with each day including 5 math and 5 literacy problems.

If you like the 1st Grade Common Core Morning Work for Back-to-School, stay tuned for the back-to-school homework packet. Also, my 1st Grade Morning Work packets currently on TpT is aligned to Minnesota State Standards (we adopted CCSS for Literacy, but not CCSS for Math) but I'm working to revise them so that the packets are aligned with the Common Core State Standards. I'm halfway done with the year-long morning work packets, so you can expect the updated version on TpT by the end of July or the first week of August.

I love going out to eat, so I don't end up cooking too much at home, especially during the summer. However, the few times a do cook during the week, I always avoid using fresh herbs simply because I end up throwing 75% of it away. I try not to be wasteful so I usually end up using dried herbs. I was elated when I saw smaller packages of fresh, organic herbs at the grocery store yesterday and only $1.50! I made crusted pork chops last night and they tasted significantly better with fresh herbs.

Chris is slowly moving into my condo and my closets are exploding! Time to look into a closet storage system!

I finished my 3-credit Minnesota Writing Project Open Institute called "Writing Process and Thematic Inquiry: Writing for Social Justice" at the University of Minnesota right before I left for Costa Rica. I learned how important it is to design lesson plans with social justice themes. Bree Picower (2012) suggests that an elementary social justice curriculum is beneficial to help "students care about and critically understand inequalities in the world around them."

I created a lesson plan with the social justice theme of bullying. Bullying prevention needs to be addressed in schools as early as possible. Jensen, Brisson, Bender, and Williford (2013) found "A considerable proportion of students who bully their classmates in elementary school continue to be perpetrators during middle school." Hopefully my proactive approach will be effective at the elementary level, in turn, hopefully deterring acts of bullying at the secondary level.

I chose this brilliant book called Nobody! A Story About Overcoming Bullying in School by Erin Frankel from Free Spirit Publishing. I created a lesson plan targeted for 3rd grade students, but it could be easily modified for 2nd grade and 4th grade students. You can download the lesson plan for free for use in the classroom. No part of the download can be used in any other way without the prior written consent from me by clicking on the "envelope icon" at the top of the page.

References

Jenson, J.M., Brisson, D., Bender, K.A. & Williford, A.P. (2013). Effects of the youth matters prevention program on patterns of bullying and victimization in elementary and middle school. Social Work Research, 37, 361-371.

Picower, B. (2012). Using their words: Six elements of social justice curriculum design for the elementary classroom. International Journal of Multicultural Education, 14, 1-15.

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Thanks again to Doodle Bugs Teaching!

And a shout out to Third in Hollywood, Sparkling in Second, Peppy Zesty Teacherista, and Teach.Create.Motivate!

 

Have a great weekend!

Mai 

Five for Friday (6/19/15)

I'm linking up with Doodle Bugs Teaching for Five for Friday! This is the end of the second week of my summer vacation. Since I'm not teaching summer school for the first time in nine years, I thought I was going to have tons of time to relax, but this summer is shaping up to be one of my busiest summers both personally and professionally.

I love creating resources for the classroom, but sometimes I really lack the motivation to spruce the resources up with eye-catching covers to post onto TpT. While it's a lot of fun and the production involved serves as my creative outlet, sometimes I would just rather relax and stare at the TV. Luckily a group of lovely ladies organized the ultimate 4-week TpT Seller Challenge hosted on Teach, Create, Motivate. The first week of the challenge involves revamping a product or cover. I was totally on-board! If you are a seller and haven't joined yet, make sure you read all about the TpT Seller Challenge and join. Here's my first makeover I did on my tally marks product:

My second makeover is the BIG makeover. I spent a lot of time creating first grade morning work for my kiddos that were aligned to the Minnesota State Standards for Math and ELA, but now I've decided to revise it to align with the Common Core State Standards for Math and ELA. Minnesota is unique in that we were the only state to adopt the CCSS for ELA but not for math. Our math standards are currently being reviewed and there are many rumors that suggest we may be adopting the CCSS for math, but who knows. Rumors are rumors. Regardless of our state's decision, I decided to make the change because I got a lot of inquiries asking me to make Common Core aligned morning work. Hopefully I'll be done by the end of July. If you wish to purchase the Minnesota aligned first grade morning work, then you should do so now. You would then have the added benefit of being able to later download the updated CCSS version for no additional charge. It's a pretty amazing 2-for-1 deal!

I just absolutely love miniLUK puzzles. Children are highly engaged with the playful design while reviewing key skills. If you don't know what they are you should watch this short video to learn all about it. Even though it sounds like it, I am not affiliated with this company--I just want everyone to benefit from this great product. It took just two activities with me for my niece to complete the rest of the activities independently. She was able to check her own work too so I was able to keep the other little guy occupied!

Since there are so many approaches to education, teachers constantly need to be learning and being a part of professional learning communities in order to be skilled and effective teachers. My friends and family are always saying, "You're in school again??" Yup! I'm not seeking any sort of degree beyond my master's, but I'm always looking for additional opportunities, whether at the university or at a workshop, to further advance my educational practice. An area that I've never been entirely confident in is my teaching skills in writing, so I enrolled in a 3-credit course at the University of Minnesota called "Writing for Joy and Justice." Our course is based on Linda Christensen's text Teaching for Joy and Justice.  

The final project involves writing a lesson plan that addresses a social justice theme. I chose to address the social justice theme of bullying. I've been busy gathering and reading resources, so I'll share the lesson plan that will be written, in a later post. Anyway, while researching, I stumbled upon this amazing publishing company called Free Spirit Publishing--and it's based right here in Minnesota! Here's their incredible mission: "Free Spirit has had the same mission for more than 30 years: to provide children and teens—and the adults who care for and about them—with the tools they need to think for themselves, overcome challenges, and make a difference in the world." Needless to say, I found many books and resources that fit nicely within the climate I have and would like to continue fostering in my classroom. Here's the first two books (in which I imagine will be the start of my Free Spirit Publication collection):

I wonder how long my two nieces will continue doing the work that I've created. As of now, they don't even realize it's work. They actually think completing these worksheets is some kind of fun! Here's my niece working on her summer packet:

I'm so excited to have fun this weekend and work a little less. I'm going to Rock the Garden (one of the largest music festivals in the Twin Cities) tomorrow to see one of my favorite bands, Belle and Sebastian. And the cool thing? It's happening in my backyard...literally! They are almost done setting up for the festivities that will begin tomorrow afternoon.

Here's a picture taken from my balcony:

Then I'm going to spend Sunday with my daddy (I'm 33 and I'll never stop calling my dad my daddy) and the rest of my family. Happy father's day to the best daddy in the world!

 

That concludes another entry from Diary of a Grumpy Teacher. Until next time, please enjoy your weekend!

Mai