The Big Picture- Writing Long Range Plans

I don't know how on earth I didn't mention this in yesterday's post...

I'm going to first grade!!

After three years in 3rd grade, I am SO ready. I picked up my curriculum books and, woah, this is going to be a bit of an adjustment. But certainly a welcome one.

My first year teaching at my current school was quite a whirlwind. I was hired about 5 days before school started and had A LOT to do to prep. I touched on this in my first blog post you can read here. 

Needless to say I didn't do any long range lesson planning. Then, two summers ago as I was preparing to enter my second year I sat down and mapped out what my year would look like. 

I started by looking back over my old lesson plans so I could have somewhat of a "realistic" idea as to how the year might go. Then I started plugging away.

I kept my planning pretty simple. I only included months down the side and subjects across the top. The only info I plugged into each box was a chapter number and title or topic. This was put into a plastic sleeve and kept in my teacher binder that you can see more about here.  

As the year progressed I tried to refer back to this sheet and make myself little notes. As you can see in the pic below, anything I checked in blue was finished before Christmas break. 

I circled things in green that I wanted to remember to rethink. For some reason those items didn't work as planned. As I began my long range planning for this upcoming year I was able to look back at these plans and make changes accordingly.

The most difficult thing for me to plug in is history and science. We don't overlap so I try to do my best to split each 9 weeks evenly between the two, but it's hard to show on this particular type of planning sheet. But for the purpose I use it for---to give me a "big picture" idea of the year it words great! 

Now that I'm moving to first grade, I'll have to go through this process again with my new curriculum. I've got some work ahead of me! 

What's your best planning tool/idea/system for looking towards this new school year? 

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3 B's for Healthy Blogging

Longest. Blog. Hiatus. Ever.

Don't ask. You really don't want to know. Well maybe you do, but then I'd be here typing my little fingers off until the wee hours of the night. Oooops. Too late. It already is the wee hours of the night. Guess I can fill you in.

In the words of my very wise and witty Mister...well what happened was...

I started a teaching blog. I loved my teaching blog. No, I adored my teaching blog. I had so much fun posting, creating, sharing, collaborating, and learning. I would eat, breathe, and sleep my lovely little teaching blog. Every brain cell focused on teaching and blogging.

I started to forget that I had other responsibilities outside of my classroom and away from my computer screen. I started to forget that there were two little hearts and one quite bigger heart that needed me too...and needed me more!  Like my pal Scooby would say, "ruh roh!"

So being the crazy "all-in or nothin'" girl that I am...I walked away from my little space on the web and threw in the towel. But that made me sad. I missed posting, creating, sharing, collaborating, and learning. I felt like a better teacher when I was doing those things.

And here's what I learned over those 10 (yah, that was painful to type) blogless months.

Boundaries. Gotta have them and actually respect them. I cannot spend a gazillion hours a week on the computer blogging which means I have to learn to say no. This means I can't join every linky party on earth or participate in every last giveaway. Ugh. That's a hard one.

Balance. I cannot be in teacher mode 100% of the time. After all, I'm not just a teacher. I'm a Christ follower, a wife, a mother, a friend, and yes I am a teacher, but it's all of those things together that contribute to who I am.

>>Side note: This lesson is where my new blog name comes from: Little In Betweens. It's actually the same as a personal blog I had briefly many years ago. I came up with the name from the idea that in the midst of doing all the BIG stuff in life, we have all these amazing little moments in between and it's usually in those small moments where we find the most joy.

I hope to continue posting about all the fun teaching stuff I'm doing, but I also hope to include a lot more about my journey finding joy in those little moments. Right now I'm totally finding buckets full of joy in watching nail, hair, and makeup tutorials on YouTube. It's currently a sick obsession and it's a pricy one too! I mean, come one, who can watch a beautiful 20 year old do this fab makeup and then not go buy all of it. I'm ridiculous, I know. Let's just set up a no judging zone and we'll all be fine...ha!

Be me. Whew, that took me a really long time to come up with something that started with a B. Did y'all catch that...boundaries, balance, be me. Oh yah, so clever.

Okay, so, be me. There are a lot of fancy blogs out there, a lot of amazing folks on TpT, and it piles on the pressure. Well, for me it does. Remember the crazy "all-in or nothin'" girl. I have a hard time keeping things reigned in. I can be a (excuse the expression) balls to the walls kind of person...I start something and it rapidly takes over my life, I jump in to the nth degree. Hence the whole purpose of this- I'm just now realizing- extremely long post.

If I can remember to just be me: no pressure, no ridiculous expectations, no beating myself up over the little things. If I can just  have fun and find joy in the journey then I think I'll be just fine.

If you're still reading this...wow, you have some amazing endurance. Thanks for sticking in with me. Just one last quick thing then I'm outta here:

My URL for my blog will change tomorrow night...well technically tonight (Thursday) I guess. I think that means if you've been a follower of teachonalimb.blogspot.com you will need to RE-FOLLOW me once the URL changes (should be something along the lines of littleinbetweens.blogspot.com...crossing my fingers it will be available just like that). Pretty sure this is like blog suicide for most people, but I'm just looking at it as a fresh start.

I hope you'll continue to join me in the journey.

Five for Fraturday

I was SO excited to link up for my first ever Five for Friday and then....I had too much fun Friday night at a Lia Sophia jewelry party that I didn't make it home until it had turned into Saturday. Oops. I needed that though. Yesterday marked the end of the 1st quarter and it was time to woooosah!

So I'm joining in with Doodle Bugs Teaching even if it's a day late. 

 

{One}

This week we were learning about plants. We used clay, chenille sticks, and tissue paper to make models of flowers.

{Two}

We also did an activity where we made some observations of different flowers and recorded similarities and differences. We also noted what characteristics would make a pollinator more or less attracted to a particular flower. 

  

{Three}

We used Thinking Maps (a brace and flow map) to work on problem solving in math. The brace map helped us separate our word problem into the important parts. The flow map helped us think about the steps we'd have to go through to solve. 

 

 

{Four}

We used flow maps again, but this time for writing. We wrote paragraphs on how to settle a colony. Kiddos needed to reflect on the experiences of the colonists at Jamestown and Plymouth to decide what steps would be helpful in settling a successful colony. 

{Five}

Guess who had a ridiculous amount of fun at the Lia Sophia party and decided to become a Lia Sophia Advisor? Yep! It was me!! Can't wait to get my starter kit and all the jewelry. So fun.

Here are the pieces I'm most excited to get. I love them!

 

 

Enjoy the rest of your weekend everyone!

Mega Management: Bathroom Policy

Pre school starting I left my Mega Management series lingering with a promise of a bathroom policy post. Here it is folks...it's potty time.

I don't know about you, but our day is jam packed with all kinds of fabulous learning {wink!}...when kiddos walk out the door to use the restroom they can be assured that they are missing something important. Our school has a buddy policy which means now two students are missing something important. Ugh!

So here's how I help minimize bathroom class:

First, each student is given 4 bathroom passes. They're little slips of paper with their class numbers on them. These must be surrendered each time a student leaves the class to use the restroom. 

Students are not allowed to use the restroom for 20 minutes after a recess/break. This is not up for discussion unless I see that glimmer of panic in their eye. You teachers know what I'm talking about. It's the "I REALLY gotta go" face. 

When students leave, they log themselves out in a little notebook by the door and put one of these cuties on their desk.

If students use all of their passes they can still go to the restroom, but they owe me time on the bench at recess. This usually deters their "need" to go. 

At the end of the week students are given a Jag Buck (our K-3 school wide economy system) for each pass that is not used. They even get a bonus buck if they still have all 4! 

And that's a wrap. 

Its' a simple system, but it has worked well for me.

If you've missed any posts you can check them out here:

Post 1: Series Kickoff. Why Classroom Management

Post 2: Entering the Classroom

 Post 3: Turning in Homework

Post 4: Transitions 

Post 5: Lining Up 

Newsela...Bringing current events to your classroom!

At the beginning of October we had a professional development day where our technology teacher (who did a fab post for me that you can read here) shared some great resources for teachers. One of my favorites that he shared was Newsela. It's a website that is currently in the beta phase, but it looks like it will be amazing. 

So what is it? It's a website where you can create a class for your students to login to. You can assign newspaper articles that have been rewritten for various Lexiles, some as low as 3rd grade. You have the ability to bring current events to your class at an appropriate reading level. Many articles also have quizzes that students can take to monitor comprehension. It's a great way to easily incorporate differentiation. Your students can all read the same article, but at their own reading level. 

Newsela is excited about bringing articles down to the 2nd grade level in the near future. I'm thrilled about that, because the 4th grade level (which I find is most often the lowest lexile band) is just a tad out of reach for several of my students. I'm excited to use it as a whole group reading activity until the Lexiles are lower. 

When you sign up during the beta phase you're able to place 10 votes on suggestions that you'd want to make to the site. Of course, the one getting the most votes is "Keep it free!" It looks as though this site plans to be fee-based in the future, which might keep this amazing resource out of many classrooms. Go sign up, check it out, and vote to keep it free.