Well, That Went...Not Well At All

I had my hopes high.  I mean, You-Have-To-Be-A-Pole-Vaulter High.  I should have known better.  But still, I had high hopes.  Bean.  Minions.  Popcorn.  Cherry Coke.  Reclining seats.  Disaster.  I tried.  Oh how I tried, to settle him down.  But alas, it was all in vain.  We had to leave 30 minutes into the film.  He's just not ready for movies.  (I question if he's really my kid...) I will have to wait until it reaches Redbox for me to enjoy the backstory of the Minions and Scarlett Overkill.  But we shall meet, they and I.  Oh we shall meet.  Mwah-ha-ha.  (Evil laughs just don't really come across if you must type them.)

I am starting to think about school once again and it its once again starting to give me the shivers.  Summer just is way too short  - especially when I'm having such a good time with my little Bean.  The first summer he was here, he did nothing.  Eat, sleep, poop, repeat.  He just played there like the small moocher that he was.  The second summer he was here, we had guests staying with us and it was just stressful.  Bean didn't like them so he let me know by fussing when ever they were around.  I didn't like them which I let myself know by fussing whenever they weren't around.  Now, this third summer - now this is fun-- He walks.  He babbles.  He lets me know when he's hungry by leading me to the fridge. We go to the $1 movies and he steals my snacks. He chases the dogs. He plays with his iPad or my phone, or his toys, and he just is really a joy to be around.  He's going to be already a great kid, but when he gets a little older it'll just be MORE.  I'm not what the fourth summer will be like, but it's going to be fun to find out.  

So...school.  So this is what I need to get done.  

• welcome back letter
• name tags
• journal labels
• first week lesson plans

I'm going simple this year.  I'm also downsizing.  If I haven't used materials, books, or other "stuff", I'm getting rid of them.  Tag sale, donation box, other teachers' -  I don't care.  I really am tired of looking at boxes of things that "are still good for something" and then never touching them again.  My teacher-hoarder days are quickly coming to an end.  Please be on the lookout in the end of September when I'll host a gigantic resource book giveaway.  

I LOVE Nap Time

Well, all my good intentions of posting yesterday flew out the window.  Here's why.  Yesterday morning, I took Bean for a drive. No big deal, right?  Wrong.  The drive to get milk was uneventful.  The return home was when the drama hit.  I pulled into the garage and pushed the button to close the door.  That's when it happened.  The spring on the garage door snapped.  THANKFULLY there was nothing under the door when it did, otherwise, I would have been half the size I am now.  But, I was trapped inside the house.  So fun.  With a 2.5 year old.  Who didn't want to do anything but...play ponies (he's learned to skip), draw on the floors (washable markers - Thank you Crayola), play with dad's drills (I hate those things with a passion now), and jump on the bed (Sealy Posterpedic you're earning your keep).  I was tired.  But apart from that, when he DID finally decide to take that long overdue nap, I got stuff done.  And I mean STUFF.

I finished my huge project for Teachers Pay Teachers.  This project was brutal - I wanted to make Fan & Pick cards for EVERY story in the 2nd grade Trophies Basal reader - and I did!  Yay! I have now uploaded the individual sets, bundled the volumes together and uploaded everything to my store.  Oh my goodness.  It was lot of work, but worth it I hope.  Time will tell if it pays off, but for now, the satisfaction that I feel in accomplishing it is enough.

If you are interested in trying them out, feel free to check them out!

Bean has accomplished something as well - he has officially sat through his first full length feature film!  Hip, hip hooray!  Twice a week, Graham Cracker and I have been taking him to the regal Summer Express Movie at the Alliante casino's movie theater.  Tuesday and Wednesday you can see an older film rated G or PG for $1.  One dollar!  So, we've been going.  Each week he lasts a little longer and longer.  Sometimes he plays in the aisle and sometimes he lays on the floor (yuck, but he's a boy and he doesn't care) and sometimes he eats all my popcorn and steals my cherry coke.  But, this Wednesday, the little booger payed attention.  He sat.  He ate.  He drank.  He climbed in my lap and watched the screen.  Mr. Peabody and Sherman is now one of my favorite movies.  Maybe it was the talking dog, or maybe it was the seemingly non-stop action of the Way-Back Machine, or maybe it was the colors, but whatever it was, he WATCHED IT.  BTW, that movie os now on my list in Netflix.  Way to go Beanie!  It gives me confidence that maybe, just maybe we can try to see Minions this weekend and not have to get Graham Cracker to babysit.  Fingers, toes, and everything else are crossed!

Here is my little angel, during my favorite time of day.  Can you guess why? :)

On the couch

In the car

I don't care where he is, if he's sleeping, I can get STUFF done!

Until the next time this happens, 

Shauna

Power Writing In a Nutshell

So I did a little tweaking.  We all do it, right?  You see, hear, read, a good idea and you change things a bit to suit your objectives and viola! Something great!  My something great is called Power Writing.

The gist of it is this - in a typical classroom you have writers and you have draw-ers.  You have talkers and you have shouter-outers.  Your job is to het all of them to write.  For more than 5 five minutes and more than 3 sentences.  Now, with your writers, its not a problem.  The problem is that you can't get those ones to STOP writing.  But with the others?  Pulling teeth from a snake.  Ain't gonna happen.  So I had to do something.

I went to a training.  The training was boring.  It was all day.  It was in a little room with long tables and a trainer who was obviously a talker.  And face it, I am not , I repeat, NOT a listener.  (At least not a good one.)  Most of the training I was doodling away in my journal or I was jotting down random thoughts (not a new past-time, I assure you) but I wasn't really paying attention.  After lunch, it was more of the same. Until the trainer started mentioning Power Writing.  My ears perked up and I sat a little straighter in my chair, and I started paying attention.  I am glad I did.  This is what I learned.

Writing is hard.  (I've never felt that partly because I am a writer.) Kids have an ever harder time at writing because they don't know yet WHAT they want to write about or What kind of writing they are good at yet.  So power writing is a great tool to teach what kind of writing that kids (and adults) like to do.  Here is how it goes:

• Give your class two topics.  For example: Best Birthday Ever and Sharks of the Deep.  As you will notice, one topic is more of a narrative while the other is a informative/report type writing topic.  What they choose is a beacon to what type of writing they like best. 
• Give the class one minute to think about their topic.  No talking - just thinking.
• Give the class ONE MINUTE to write.  Here's the catch:  You have 5 rules that you MUST FOLLOW:
• No talking - just writing
• Sentences must be complete (Capital letters, correct punctuation, and spelling must be correct as you can make it)
• 60 seconds to write only.
• You must write the ENTIRE time.  
• When the timer is up, circle your last word. 

When the time is up, have students circle their last word and count their words.  Then you fill out a chart.  Looks like this:

If you have 5 kids that wrote 9 words then write 5 in the box 0-10.  If you have 3 kids who wrote 15 words, then write 3 in the box 11-20. 

Have them put their writing in a folder and put it away.  Tomorrow do the same thing over again, this time with two new topics.  The students will try to race each other and themselves to write more than the day before.  Fantastic huh?  

But...I had to tweak it.  I liked the minute thing but I knew after a while my students would get bored.  And they did not disappoint me.  This project lasted a week.  SO I knew I had to do something.  

I upped the ante.  Now you had two minutes.  Then 5 minutes,  then we tried 7 minutes.  We got up to 10 and I had 90% of the students working that whole time.  The other 10%?  Well, they decided they could draw.  I decided to call home and have a chat with mom and dad.  Amazingly, the next day that 10% were with the rest of the class.  Coincidence?  I'll let you decide.  

The kids loved it, but I still felt that I needed more.  So my project was born.  Building Writing Stamina through Power Writing.  

I added prompts.  Not just the basic narrative vs informative working ones mentioned above, but GOOD prompts.  Prompts that made them think. Prompts that made them laugh.  Prompts that gave some the shivers and quivers.  And you know what?  IT WORKED! I had students begging for Power Write time.  They would ask if they could do it for a center.  They would ask if they could do it after they were finished with their math.  They wanted to do it before, during, and after every subject.  

Now, I can't give away all my secrets.  What would I have left to blog about.  Nut-in.  So if you want to know all about how to build up your students' writing stamina using competition, then click on the link below and you'll be taken right to my store-step and you can acquire your very own copy of this magnificent resource!  What are you waiting for?

Click on the link here.  

Now, lets all take a collective moment to shout out to me for posting two days in a row!  Yahoo! 

Now tomorrow is Wednesday and I will try to blog about who was fantastic on America's Got Talent the night before.  (I love that show but I wish they would show more of the not-so-talent that they have on there. Howie, are you listening??)  

'Till then, 

Shauna

Quiet Time and Changes

Good Monday Morning to Y'all!  I have been remiss in not posting anything as of late, but as the title suggests, quiet time is at a premium at my house and changes are a-comin'.

So, first of all, I have been muddling through my summer reading list and I really like the book "The Power of Our Words: Teacher Language That Helps Children Learn" by Paula Denton.  It has made me rethink how I must sound to my students.  Here's the background why I think that I'm not as smart as I thought I was.  Before moving to 2nd grade, I taught 5th graders for about 3 years.  5th graders!  Hormonal, stinky, emotional, and temperamental 5th graders! Holy speed stick Batman! I used big words.  I told them what to do and held high expectations that they would do it.  And, for the most part they did.  Teaching reading was a different kettle of fish that it is now.  Math was different, as was writing.  Everything was different.  (Not that is a bad thing...just different).  Well, move on down to 2nd grade and once again, its different.  I found myself teaching kids to learn to read instead of reading to learn.  I found myself teaching kids how to add, not what to add.  For someone like me, who was firmly planted in an upper elementary mindset, the change was hard.  Not only hard, but downright DIFFICULT.  I still at times find myself struggling with 7 and 8 year olds.  I'm not perfect, I just wish I was.

However, with the influence of this book, I feel that this coming year might just be the best one yet. The first two focus points for me as of right now are:

• I am going to focus on making statements rather than questions - for example "Everyone go back to your seats now" versus "Can everyone go back to their seats now?" I see now that even though the later SEEMS respectful it is actually asking their permission if its "okay" for them to head back to their seats, when in reality, I'm the one that supposed to be in charge of the room.  So, statements it is and no more asking permission from my students to do something.  

• I am going to focus on finding time to notice students positives - for example I can say "I see you are trying many different ways of solving that problem.  That takes persistence" instead of saying something like "Great job trying to solve the problem.  I like how you are trying different ways."  The first as I am learning, focuses on subliminally telling students that I have confidence in them and helps to provide hard evidence that they should believe in themselves too.  The second tells a child that I am pleased with their work and in order to continue to please me they will do the same motion over and over again. Well, that's out.  My pleasure derives from them learning, not blindly doing to get a "great job" to pass my lips.   

Yet all this takes time, practice, planning, and patience.  I have to physically plan to look for these type of interactions.  Which in turn means I have to focus myself to be on the lookout for them.  I don't want to do all this self-introspection on myself only to fall back into the same old patterns of old where I revert to the gold old "Great job!" or "Great! I like it!"  Basically after all this long winded pontification what I'm trying to say is - false praise is no praise at all, and I'm going to to my best to stop it in my classroom.   

Will all this take time?  You bet.  Will I stumble and fall?  You bet.  Will I try my best to stand back up each time I do and remind myself that I am learning too?  Yes.  Will I berate myself for failing? Yes.  Will I look myself in the mirror and tell myself that I can do better next time.  Yes.  Not perfect - just trying.  Which we all are, either in education or not.  We are all not perfect - just trying our best.  

More changes?  Yes.  Bean is changing each and everyday.  just this week, he has come into the "self-realization" phase of his development.  What's that you ask?  It's where he commandeers the use of my phone and scrolls until he gets to pictures of himself and videos of himself and he will keep himself occupied for hours on end looking at ... himself.  (I really can't blame the poor kid, I mean he's just the most handsomest kid in the known universe to me.  Uh, look at exhibit A &B).

I have a ladykiller on my hands.  And I am his first victim.  Yet, I would willingly do it over again in a heartbeat for him.  He is my joy.  

Until the next quiet time,

Shauna

Fan and Pick Cards and a FREEBIE!

I have been busy these past few days.  I just finished uploading a few new products to Teachers pay Teachers and I'm here to 1) promote them as any good seller would, and 2) to give one away!  

Basically, they are sets of Fan & Pick Cards correlated to the 2nd grade Trophies basal readers.  My goal is to create a set for every story in the book - that's 30 stories! Did I know that before I undertook this project - maybe.  But, as I am now 2/6 the of the way into it, I can't stop now.

What is Fan & Pick?  Basically it is a Kagan strategy for cooperative learning.  Designed to be played in groups of four, it can be played in pairs, only the two students have two jobs to do instead one.  Fan & Pick helps students in six major areas of learning:

• Teambuilding 
• Social Skills 
• Communication Skills 
• Knowledge Building
• Procedure Learning
• Thinking Skills

These are the rules.

*Each group gets their own set of cards.  (In my classroom, I photocopy the cards onto colored paper to help with organization.  I also laminate them for durability.)

*Students are numbered #1-4

1. Student #1 holds the cards out in fan and says, "Pick a card, any card" to Student #2.

2. Student #2 then picks a card, reads the question aloud, and allows 5-7 seconds of think time.

3. Student #3 then answers the question.

4. Student #4 responds to the answer by doing one or more of the following:

• checking the answer for true/false, right/wrong type answers
• giving the correct answer if wrong, praising Student #3 if answer is correct
• rephrases the answer in his/her own words, or giving an example of where the information in the text is

5.  Students rotate roles, one person clockwise for each new round.

Simple, huh?  My students really liked this game this past year.  I liked it for observation purposes, not only when the brass came in and saw everyone engaged (bonus!) but for MY observation - speaking and listening is a standard! Some of the answers the students gave were really thought provoking and showed their understanding of the story in question.

Wait...you said you were giving one away.  Where's the proof, Harris?  

Well, hold your horses, it's right here! Just click on the link and you'll be taken to a google docs folder where you can download your very own copy of the first story in the book:  The Mixed Up Chameleon!  If you like what you see and want more, (well, who wouldn't) you can click on the link below each picture to take you directly to the TeachersPayTeachers page where you can get the first  5 stories for ONLY $7.00!  

Each set consists of the elements you see above.  Click here for the link for your free copy today!

Trophies Just for You: Being Me Bundled Set

Trophies Just for You: Helping Hands Bundled Set

Okay...self-promotion spiel over.  For now.  Check out the links if you're interested.  I hope you like them and your students as well.  It really is a fantastic strategy to use for comprehension and it works great not only in groups, but small groups and centers as well.  Once you teach the rules, each set of cards plays the EXCACT SAME WAY.  Other bundled sets for the rest of the stories will be available soon, so keep checking back.  

As for my first baby, Sir Bean is thriving in his backyard pool.  He is in and out AT LEAST 10 times a day.  I'm tired of wasting swim diapers, so he's skinny-dipping it from now on.  I'll save the swim diapers for when we go to the real pool at the YMCA.  

Love the skivvies! Nananana Batman!

Little fish! 

I.m trying to beat the heat by staying in from of a fan, with the AC on, and the ceiling fans on high.  OtterPops, sweet iced tea, and watermelon straight from the fridge help too!  

Next time I get a minute or two of free time, I will introduce to you to something called "Power Writing."  It's awesome.  I haven't forgotten about my summer reading list either - don't worry!  It'll happen, I promise.

Until next time (hopefully tomorrow),

Shauna