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!

 

Monday Made It - 7/13/15

I'm thrilled to be linking up with 4th Grade Frolics for Monday Made It. It has been over a year since my last link-up!

My sister, Linh, is very crafty so she is always inspiring me in many ways! Over the weekend, I helped her set up this amazing art corner in her house for her kids. It was really simple. My school is moving into a new building in one year, so I will definitely set this up for my art wall in my new classroom.

We first put the "Every child is an artist" decal from Amazon on the wall. This decal also comes in other fonts too on Amazon for about $14. 

Then, we used little white hooks from Target and screwed them right into the wall.

We used twine and connected it to the ends of the hooks. Yarn can also be used too, but twine is more durable and doesn't fray as easily. The clothespins look like the standard size in the picture, but they are actually mini-sized clothespins from Michaels. It doesn't matter what size you use though.

I will obviously use the white Command hooks in my new classroom so there is no damage to the wall.

The revision of my 1st grade morning work packet bundle is still in progress. The morning work packets I have up on TpT are aligned to Minnesota State Standards so the math review includes concepts like counting collections of dimes, nickels, and pennies which are not part of the 1st grade CCSS. After receiving requests from a few of my followers, I decided to revise the morning work packets so that the skills are aligned to the CCSS. It's been taking me a long time, but I hope to have them ready by the end of July or the first week of August. If you have already purchased the packets, you will be able to download the revised files soon!

Teachers are flocking to Periscope. It's exactly what the teaching community needed to connect with each other to offer teaching tidbits, stories about life, and support. I will be hosting my first LIVE Periscope broadcast today at 2:15 p.m. Find me @msmaihuynh. I will be posting a reminder on Instagram, so don't miss out on my introduction!

If you can't make it at 2:15, the video will be available for 24 hours for you to watch. You won't be able to make a comment, but you will be able to give me hearts by tapping on the screen.

Thanks to Cher from Mrs. Harrison's Hive for such an inspiring Periscope last night! Also, I joined Angie's (of Lucky Little Learners) Periscope this morning and read her "25 Periscope Tips" post, so I'm feeling a little more at ease. You have both given me the courage I need...I'm still nervous though!

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Thanks to Tara from 4th Grade Frolics for hosting today's Monday Made It. Click on the image below to join the linky!

As my good friend Stacy used to always say to me, "Walk with a purpose!"

Mai

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 

Gone are the days by the pool, And here we are back to school!

I swear, I didn't mean to rhyme :) I'm linking up a little late with Doodle Bugs Teaching with my Five for Friday (on Saturday).

1. I work with some of the most talented and creative people. I was gone for three days at the Minnesota Reading Corps Summer Institute (more on that below) and when I came back on Friday, this is what I saw:

We were thrilled to meet the kiddos and their families at our school's open house earlier this week. The children were excited and and seemed eager to return to school. I have a feeling this school year will be one of the best!

2. While we have been putting 12+ hours each day decorating and organizing our classrooms, we have also been spending a lot of time digging into our new reading curriculum, National Geographic Reach, which so far seems to be the best curriculum out there for targeting the high percentage of our ELL students. There is also the standard version too for schools with a lower percentage of ELL students, National Geographic Reach for Reading. 

I really like what I see so far. The curriculum is completely aligned with the Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts. The carefully aligned standards are taught through content with a huge emphasis in science and social studies. The textbook is filled with all of those exciting and beautiful pictures we have seen all of our lives in the National Geographic magazines. Also, we have access to several exclusive National Geographic videos that are tied to the content we are teaching in the classroom.

And here's my favorite part: this curriculum encourages teachers to, well, shut up! Admit it! We teachers talk way too much! The teaching guides give the teachers specific academic language frames during each activity to increase peer-to-peer interaction. Language proficiency will only happen if we give our students ample opportunities to interact with each other. Less teacher talk = more student interaction = increased language proficiency!

What experience have you had with the National Geographic Reach curriculum? Please share with me!

3. At the end of the last school year, I gave the first grade and second grade classroom teachers a summer packet that I created to give to their students on the last day of school. The classroom teachers gave the students an incentive to complete and return the packets during the first week of school. Several of the students came to our open house rushing to their previous teachers to return the completed packets. We were stunned and might I add, proud! The parents and families of our students were very appreciative of the modest amount of work we gave them. I hope the summer review has helped them retain what they learned last year. I guess we'll see!

Anyway, after seeing the summer packets I created, a few of the teachers asked if I had plans to make morning work following the same format. My original answer was no because it's so much work, but over the last couple of weeks, I was able to put together 1st grade morning work for September. I'm committed to the project now, so stay tuned for the rest of the months...

 

4. I am now the internal coach for our school's Reading Corps Tutor. We are so lucky to have recruited a full-time tutor that will be working with Tier 2 children, 1:1, on a daily basis.

While I'm thrilled we are receiving the extra support at our school, I was a little bummed that I had to miss three days of professional development to attend the training for internal coaches. I was happy to be back at school on Friday. Being gone for three days felt like being gone for three months!

I don't know too much about Reading Corps and its potential impact on students and the school as a whole, so I will share what I learn along the way!

What experience have you had with Reading Corps?

5. I love my new home! Each morning I step onto my deck and this is the view I have of downtown Minneapolis.

Click the image below to join the Five for Friday linky! Thanks Doodle Bugs Teaching

Enjoy the rest of the weekend and happy new school year!

Mai