3-2-1 Sunday Summary 8/17/14

3 Things to I Need to Do:

• Finish my room-I covered my boards with black paper since we didn't have much in stock and I thought it would make the colors pop, but I'm not loving it.  I hope that when I go in tomorrow it feels better.    
• Work on my reflections for the Math is Personal smooc I am participating in.
• Work on lessons-would love to get the first unit for 5th and 6th done.  This includes finding good juicy problems to work on each day and creating the centers!

2 Things I Am Looking Forward to:

• Lunch with my college buddy!
• Finishing my room!

1 Thing I  Am Struggling With:

• Not knowing my schedule or even how many minutes I have for each class.  It is so hard to plan without knowing this!  We probably won't have anything solidified until the following week.

Do you have a Sunday Summary to share?  Please head over to Sherri's blog and link up your blog post since I don't have a clue about how to put the link in my blog!!!  Don't forget to also share your post on twitter using #MTBoSChallenge.

1st 5 Days 2014-215

Must once again send a big thanks and shout out to the wonderful teachers of the #MTBoS who decided to continue our blogging challenge and especially for this prompt! If you would like to join in on the fun take a look here for all of the details!

I have been pinning and saving all kinds of activities and ideas to Evernote , but I think its time to really pull it all together and make a plan.  I've got the first day pretty much nailed down but the rest is going to be more like an outline.

Day 1
I usually start the year really knowing all of my students except for the few kids that transfer in over the summer.  This year is a whole new group of students that I will probably recognize and know a handful, but for the most part they are going to be very new to me and of course won't know me as well as the 7/8s would.  So my goals for the first day are:

• Get to know my students.
• Let them get to know me.
• Teach them how to enter my room. (I am VERY particular about this!)

Basically when students enter my room I am very strict about them entering quietly and quickly and showing me they are ready for business.  No matter what is going on that day, games, parties, career day, I don't care, every single time they come in it has to be like that.  We don't have a bell schedule, students line up outside the door and come in all at once.  Also since we don't have bells, every minute is precious.  So we will probably practice it a bunch of times.  

I plan on letting students pick their own seats for the first three days.  This is where I start learning about them.  Who are friends, who are talkers, who work well together, etc.

Next up I am going to give them a quiz!  I made a fun Kahoot! quiz about me and each of my 5 groups will have an iPad.  I like this activity because we can practice group norms for teamwork and using the iPads. Plus they probably haven't used Kahoot! before so it should be a fun way for them to get to know a little bit about me.  

After the quiz I will have them fill out an "All about Me" form like Dan Meyer's Who I Am activity.

Day 2

This day we will talk more about the norms of the class and I'll start off by doing similar post it activities as Sherri at Middle School Math Rules!

Day 3

Introducing the Interactive Notebooks!  So excited to be going back to these this year!!!  I skipped last year and completely regret it.  I am also excited that Office Depot has a sale starting tomorrow on composition notebooks. 10 cents each!  They have a 3 notebook limit, but I hear Walmart does price matching with no limit!!!  So hopefully I can get a bunch  (ideally 72) so if students didn't get one I can supply it.

Day 4 and 5

Here's where it gets a little tricky.  We don't have our schedules yet so I'm not sure how long my classes will be or when each class will have their double period (they will each get one a week.) 

My plan is to use the workshop model again as well and since each of my classes will have a double block each week we will use the extra class for centers.  So there are a lot of routines and norms that will have to be learned and practiced.  I am toying with the idea of showing the same video Sherri is showing, but like she said the teacher does have a thick Irish accent.  Will have to search the rest of the weekend for another as well, if not, it is a pretty good video.  Really shows how the math workshop should be run.  During these days or on the other days when the class has the extra period we will do The Marshmallow Challenge! 

Also during these two days we will take care of handing out textbooks and setting our goals!

Ok! I think I have a good outline for my start of the year!   Remember if you want to join in on the challenge visit Sherri's blog and join the Linky!

Mission and Vision Statements

Mission

The mission of The Queen City Academy Charter School is to provide a nurturing and cooperative learning community where each student can achieve his/her maximum academic, creative and physical potential; develop a lifelong love of learning; develop respect for self and others in a multicultural world; develop self confidence and self esteem; function with high ethical standards; and accept responsibility.

I love my school.  We congregate every morning in our auditorium before homeroom and say the Pledge of Allegiance and our school mission statement.  Our Director (principal) or Asst. Director (vice principal) reads the daily announcements and then we are dismissed.  

I think our morning routine really makes us feel like a family, we are a small K-8 school and even though the 8th graders tend to think its a little corny, it is nice to be all together as one school body in the morning.

We started last year by really focusing on our mission, but it kind of faded out.  We say it every morning, so it does get to be a little automatic.  I would like to focus on keeping that mission front and center all year long.  The biggest challenge in our whole statement though is "develop a lifelong love of learning."  I think the staff and students do a great job with every other line in our mission except this one.  

Does your school have a mission statement and how do you carry it out?  

Do you have a mission or vision statement for your classroom?  I tried that last year as a suggestion by Principal Kafele who we had the honor of hearing speak at our school during our PD week.  My vision looked like this:

We will persevere in problem solving.
We will not fear mistakes but embrace them as opportunities for learning. We shall achieve the goal of becoming mathematical thinkers.

I still like my vision statement, but again it fizzled out after the first week or so.  

Currently August

I am linking up with Farley for her August Currently!

Listening:  My sister has been telling me about Outlander for awhile now.  I really wanted to read the book, but she let another friend borrow hers and never got it back.  I have to admit the show is a little slow.  I like the idea and the story, but it didn't really capture me that much.  I read some reviews and they say the same thing.  I am going to give it a chance though.  I heard the 6th episode is really good!

Loving:  I have only one more week left before I can get into my classroom for set-up and I feel that this will be the end for me.  I have so much work to do getting ready for this new school year, so I figure I will enjoy my last week :)

Thinking:  I was invited to one of my former student's Quinceanera.(oops totally botched the spelling up there because I was too lazy to go look at the invite!)   I am excited to see what exactly happens at these since I have a lot of students that talk about them all the time.  Her mom was a former coworker who I stayed friends with and another teacher I work with will be there too so it should be fun!  I'm just not sure what I'm wearing yet!

Wanting:  So I got a text last night from the Special Ed teacher asking if I got my scores yet and she heard that they were back and the 1st grade teacher's class scored 100% proficient!  I emailed my principal and this is exactly what she said: " Yes they are and 7th / 8th grade keep making strides. They both were in the high 60 percentile. So way to go. Keep pushing!!!! :)"
Last year they were 56 and 57% so I am happy as well that my students are improving, however I want them higher!  I also can't wait to see the breakdown, since I had a high percentage of advanced proficient last year.

Needing:  Well, with my grade change to 5/6 there is a ton of stuff I need and it mostly has to do with the things I need to do.  Too much to list!

1st day:  We go back for a week of PD starting on the 25th.  We get the Friday and following Monday off though!  Kids (students and my own two) Go back September 4th!

Number of the Day - 731

July Blogging Challenge Day 31

The best thing about July is it is a nice long month.  Perfect for the middle of summer break :)  Today is my last post for the July challenge and I am eager to keep on blogging!  Counting this one I had 20 posts which is a record for me in one month!  I am really proud of myself and excited to continue.

I am only slightly panicking about the quickly approaching school year.  I have a very confident and positive outlook, but sometimes I can't help but do a little freak out when I think about how much work I am going to have to do switching to new grade levels!  My plan is to take baby steps and try to accomplish at least one small thing each day.  Maybe this will turn into an August Challenge that I can blog about!

So today I created my daily warm up sheets.  I really want to do something like calendar math/number of the day with 5th grade and I'm thinking it might not be a bad idea for 6th as well.  Here is what I came up with so far.  I would REALLY appreciate feedback on this.  Are they too plain, how would you jazz them up?  Should I use the same questions for both 5th and 6th grade?  Stuff like that.  I plan on  copying them front/back and each student would keep it in their classroom folders.
Oh and my number of the day will be the month and day  (903, 904 and 905 etc.)

July Blogging Challenge Day 30

Its late.  I have already failed miserably at the July Blogging Challenge.  However, I would call this challenge a huge success!  I have blogged more this month than I would have normally.  I am so thankful for it!  It is my intention to blog continuously through August and then September, October, November, etc...
Right now I am thinking about how excited I am that as of 8/12 I can start setting up my classroom, expect a  lot more posts here.  Plus tomorrow I am going in to work on our new playground!  I love working at a K-8 school!!

Made It Monday

July Blogging Challenge -Day 28

I am easing my way into back to school mode!  Here is a little something I made with my new washi tape.  I am not really a crafty person and I've never made a truly themed classroom, but I really like the "comic book/superhero" theme and I am going to try and do it a little bit in my room.  So here are two of my first little touches. 

I LOVE my pencil sharpener and my kids do too.  The point it makes on pencils have my kids spoiled so much that when theirs gets the tiniest bit dull they want to resharpen.  This year I am going to make sharpening pencils a reward.  Each day the can will start off filled with sharp pencils.  Whenever a student wants/needs to sharpen, they are going to take a sharp pencil out and put their dull pencil in.  At the end of class, I will draw a name of a student who has followed the rules and participated all class to sharpen all of the dulls from that class period.  Not sure exactly how I will do the drawing part, maybe give kids tickets when they are caught doing good, or maybe I will make laminated cards with their names on them and if they break a rule or don't do homework or something I take the card away.  Actually I'd rather reward good behavior than punish bad behavior so I think I'll go with the ticket idea.  Maybe combine the both and if they are caught being good I put their laminated card in the jar!  Okay, yeah that works!