Preparing for the final stretch

     Spring break is coming to an end and the final quarter of the year starts on Monday. I decided to work both optional workdays this week to try to get ahead for the upcoming weeks.  When I walked into my classroom the first workday my room was a complete mess.

       Thursday I wrote out a to-do list and tried to knock out as much as I could.  By 4:30 I realized that there was no way I would get lessons planned and my room organized so I decided to work again Friday.  I am so thankful I did as I got everything I wanted to accomplished. I planned a poetry unit which will last me at least 3 weeks and I wrote out 2 weeks of Social Studies lesson plans. Walking out of the building on Friday was a huge relief.

Although it isn't completely clean, being able to see the table is so nice!

Compared to the before picture, this is a major improvement!

Decided to try groups again, hopefully this isn't a huge mistake at the end of the year.

Bulletin board I created for my poetry unit.  The leaves have the vocabulary
they will be learning.  On the trunk of a tree I will post a new poem each day we will read together.

      Third quarter was very hard for me.  My students lacked motivation to learn and their behavior was just terrible.  This seemed to be the same for most teachers in our school.  It really started to suck the love of teaching right out of me.  There were times when I questioned whether or not I could even do this for another year.
    Once those thoughts started going through my head I had to take some time to step back and look at why I was so unhappy.  Before starting my first full year I had these big dreams of getting every student in the room to be excited to learn, to become teacher of the year, to never have to give any failing grades, to have parents who supportive and wanted to help.  The reality is that those dreams were just a set up for a big let down and there probably isn't one first year teacher in the world who could actually accomplish all of those things.  Sure this year has been stressful and not what I expected but without challenges in life there would never be room to grow.
   That being said, I decided in order to bring back my love for teaching I have to change myself, not the kids.  Being able to get ahead on lessons and having a reorganized room will help me with a fresh start for the last quarter.  I also wrote my students a letter that I will be giving them on Monday.  It pretty much says that I want to make the last quarter the best that we can and that I have a lot of exciting things planned. My students could tell by the end of the last quarter that I was getting burnt out and I want them to see that we can all come back from Spring break refreshed and ready to give it our all.  I've been having long talks with God to help me back this quarter much better.  I'll be entering the classroom Monday with excitement in my eyes and hope that I can it returned from even just a few students.
   Good luck to everyone else as we are all on the final stretch!

Currently...April

It is a new month which means it's time for Farley's Currently. 

    Right now my niece and nephew are over at my house.  It is nice to get to spend some time with them over Spring break.  We have been out of school since last Wednesday.  Tomorrow and Friday are optional days and I decided to work tomorrow just so I can have the rest of the weekend to relax and not think about school.  This break has been much needed and I've tried very hard not to think too much about work.
    My goal over Spring break was to finish at least two books.  I've been doing too many other things for that to happen thus far but one book I really want to try to finish is The Hobbit.  If I have time I'd also like to read The Glass Castle.
   Friday is my dad's birthday and Saturday is my niece's first birthday party.  I need to get some shopping done before then but both of them are pretty hard to buy for.  My dad has every tool you could think of and my niece probably already has every toy made for one year old's.
   My advice to leave work at school is something I need to really listen to myself.  It has been such a great week knowing that I don't have to think about school for a while.  I need to get in the habit of leaving work at school and not thinking about it when I get home.
   For now I'm going to enjoy what is left of Spring break!  Have a great week.

Happy Easter!

   Spring break has finally arrived!  I have been counting down for this for so long and knowing I get to sleep in tomorrow is super exciting.  However, the start to my Spring break hasn't been all that perfect.  I have had a cold for the past couple of weeks and this weekend a lot of my family got the stomach bug which didn't make for the best Easter holiday.  We did have a wonderful church service this morning though with a beautiful orchestra. I always enjoy seeing our church packed and everyone singing together in a joyous spirit.
   My plans for Spring break are to relax, spend time with my amazing boyfriend, catch up on some reading and possibly get ahead on some school work.  School is really the last thing I want to think about during the break but I know that if I do get some work done then it will make going back to work much easier.
   I haven't had time to post in a while but a lot has been happening at school and in my life.  My students were pretty crazy the last couple of weeks before Spring break.  We finished reading Where the Red Fern Grows and started the ancient America's unit in social studies. So far my students are enjoying learning about America and I know they will become even more interested when we start the middle ages soon. I'm not sure where I will go with language arts after the break.  The fourth quarter is all about poetry and reviewing for the EOG.  I think I will do one more novel and then go into a poetry unit.  I really want to spend time planning out poetry well so that my students see it as fun and not something that is hard to understand or extremely boring.  
    Cheerleading tryout season is also in progress.  I had a parent meeting last week to explain the tryout process.  I'm still having parent emails or calls almost everyday with some kind of question pertaining to cheerleading. I'm looking forward to tryouts themselves but I am not looking forward to having to cut so many girls.  I do not like to be a heart breaker.
   As for my personal life, I'm now dating a wonderful guy, Buddy.  It is amazing to me how just when I think being with him can't get any better, it does.  He makes me laugh, he makes me smile, he listens to me after a long day at work, he is a gentleman, he is a strong Christian and he is all I could have ever wanted & more.  I have a lot to be thankful for this Easter.

God bless!

Five for Friday....late

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     This week was full of ups and downs in my classroom.  There were times when I almost wanted to give up trying to get my students to learn anything and times when I was rejoicing because they wanted to keep reading!  Here are my five random things from this week.

1) I FINALLY started to teach pronouns this week.  We had been reviewing parts of speech up until now and I'm happy to say we are finally learning the sixth grade language component.  This week we focused on subject and object pronouns.   We made an anchor chart that they are responsible for memorizing and understanding. I'm really excited about starting pronouns, but the look on my students faces about making this chart was as if I was speaking another language.

2)  After reading some very interesting parts in Where the Red Fern Grows I had my students do discussion posters.  I put them into groups of four and taped a page of the story to it that they had to respond to.  They also could respond back to their peers which made for some really interesting discussions.

3)  I have started to utilize I Can Statements more in my room.  I bought some already made I can Statements from TeachersPayTeachers.  I laminated them and posted them in my room.  I draw a random student to read the I Can Statements for the day/week and then have another student explain how we learned that statement at the end of the day/week.  It was great to hear my students actually saying how they learned what I wanted them to learn.  I will be doing this as a closure any day that I have a minute or two of extra time.

4)  Pencils, Pencils!  I have tried almost everything I can think of to get my standard group to keep up with pencils.  I've tried buckets on their desk with pencil sharpeners which somehow always seem to get gone.  I even try to check them at the end of the class period and students can't find them anywhere!  Even when students have a pencil they always are having to have it sharpened.  The sharpener on their desk doesn't work somehow so they just have to get up and use one or else they won't have a pencil.  It has become ridiculous so I went out and bought a bunch of mechanical pencils.  If they need one they have to write their name on the board, erase it and give it back before they can leave class.  I'm hoping this will work because pencils are just taking up too much class time.

5)  One of the rules for object pronouns is that it is used after a preposition.  Of course this meant that my students needed to be able to recognize prepositions, so we broke out in song in order to remember them better.  For anyone who wants their students to learn prepositions try The Preposition Song by The Bazillions.  My students loved it so much they were telling me they posted it on Facebook! Have a listen, it's quite catchy.  By the end of the week my students could all name the most common prepositions.

I'm so thankful that it is the weekend. I finished my lesson plans yesterday for next week so I'm going to try to think about school as little as possible.  My weekend has already been off to a great start with a date to a trampoline park yesterday.  After attempting to do flips on a trampoline and still being scared, I gained much more respect for my cheerleaders who are able to tumble on the gym floor.  Only three weeks until try outs for next year get started...but why am I thinking about that?

Currently March

Since March is starting on a weekend I have time to do Farley's currently early this month.  I can't believe it is already March though.  Now if only Spring could hurry along as well.

I'm currently listening to my Spotify Playlist which includes some songs that I have fell in love with.  If you have never heard Paul McDonald & Nikki Reed then you should really listen to some their songs. I'll put one of my favorites at the end of this post.

I'm loving Test Prep Fridays because of how much I have seen them help my students.  Not only is it helping them become better test takers but it's also aiding their comprehension skills.

March Madness starts in a couple of weeks and I'm trying to think of ways I can incorporate this in my class.  I talk sports with my kids as much as I can and they love it, so I know they would love creating a bracket in class. Not sure how this would tie in to Language Arts though.

I'm desperately wanting some watermelon flavored frozen yogurt.  The last time I had some was last year at Freshberries in Raleigh.  They only have the watermelon flavor at certain times and the last time I visited Raleigh they didn't have it.  I guess I need to start trying frozen yogurt places around here.

I am needing warm weather so badly.  My students are getting restless and they need to be able to run outside and get rid of some of that energy. I am also ready to break out my Spring wardrobe.  Sweaters and long sleeves are getting old.

The last part of the currently had to be three words using the first letter in your name.  I said I like jackets, only because without them I would freeze in my classroom.  I love joyrides and taking daytrips.  I don't really hate jellyfish, but it was the worst J I could think of. I'm sure I would probably say I hate them if one were to ever sting me.

Grammar, Grammar, Grammar!

     I have belabored parts of speech since the beginning of the year but my students STILL don't understand the basics.  I've spent days of each part of speech and provided plenty of examples. We watched all the Schoolhouse Rock videos and did activities with each. I guess grammar is like multiplication facts, they just need to study more. Sixth grade grammar is mainly all about pronouns which I have only barely touched on.  I'm debating on continuing with the basics or just moving on to what they have to know for this year.   I think I'm going to try at least a few more things before moving on.
    One idea I had was to let students print the lyrics to their favorite song and have them color code the parts of speech.  Another thought I had was to have students make a chart on construction paper of the different parts of speech and then glue words from newspapers to go under each.
    I'm really hoping that next year my students will have a little more of an understanding of the basics.  It's been hard this year because it will be the first time students are actually tested on grammar.  I don't know that some of my students were ever even taught parts of speech before at all.  I have a lot of work to do with them, but luckily this is one of my favorite things to teach!
    What has worked for you when teaching grammar?

Test Prep Fridays

      It may seem to be early to start preparing students for their End of Grade tests but I'm already starting to teach test prep skills.  I noticed my students really struggle with reading for a large about of time and then really trying to answer questions.  My goal for Test Prep Fridays is to help build endurance for reading long passages that usually aren't too interesting.
     Each week I usually am working on one or two specific standards that I then assess on Fridays.  For example, the past two weeks we have been working on standard R.L.1 which relates to showing textual evidence and making inferences.  I try to pull Social Studies passages that relate to what we have been studying and include several questions that really make my kids think.
     I made an anchor chart in my room that reminds them of strategies to use when taking a test.  We talk about things like reading the questions first, rephrasing the question into our own words and underlining important words.   To start the lesson we go over the anchor chart and I model a passage with them.  Next, they are on their own to use the strategy and show what they know.  We grade their answers in class and they keep a chart of how they are progressing each week.
    Although this may not be the most fun activity, it seems to be really helping my students be able to read for a longer amount of time.  The rest of the week we are reading engaging novels that most of the class enjoys.  To make these test style passages more exciting, I have my students pretend we are detectives and search for "clues" for the correct answers.  We get out colored pens to write on the tests with and sometimes use dry erase boards to write down our thinking about the test questions.  Everyone loves to write with something other than a pencil so if this helps my students stay more involved in my lessons then I'm all for it.

How do you prepare your students for EOG's?  What are some strategies you use to help your students be able to read for a longer period of time?