Classroom Walk Throughs

Now that I am an Instructional Specialist, my focus on classrooms has taken on another meaning.  As a part of my position, I am responsible for conducting Classroom Walk Through's each week.  They are snapshots of what we currently see happening in classrooms during a five to ten minute time frame.  Last year our district conducted CWT's through PD360.  However this year we no longer had the option to use PD360 for CWT's.  I began searching the internet for something to use other than the paper and pencil version, as that seemed like a step backwards.  I found this great tutorial for creating a CWT using Google Docs (now Drive) that you can find {here}.  

Here is what I came up with.  You start off by making a spreadsheet in Google Drive.  From there you can go to the live form and input each CWT you conduct.  The spread sheet tracks the information collected.  Each week our admin. team discusses the data.  I copy and paste each teacher's information into a table in Word and distribute.  We then pass on the data to the entire staff in our Weekly Item Sheet.  If you are interested, you can click on the picture and see a sample spreadsheet.

P.S.  I also wanted to do a Shout out to Brenda from Just Ask!  She celebrated her birthday on Saturday.  Happy Birthday!!  I hope is was a great day!!!

The Leader in Me

This summer my school has been participating in a book study on the late Stephen R. Covey's book, The Leader in Me.  I was saddened to learn that he died at the age of 79 at the beginning of this week, due to complications from a bicycle accident that he was in back in April.

I highly recommend reading this book!  It is such a motivating book about teaching kids 21st Century Skills.  I am super excited to implement the 7 Habits into our school!  This last spring, our entire staff had the privilege of going on a field trip to another school in our city that uses the 7 Habits.  After leaving that school, our staff felt very enlightened and ready to take the 7 Habits back to our school.  We are in full gear, preparing to make this school year one in which we find leadership qualities in all of our students.    

Our school has also purchased copies of this book to share with the students.

In addition, some of us have begun to make our own 7 Habit Tree banners from Vistaprint such as this one:

If you are not familiar with the 7 Habits, here is a brief description:

Be Proactive I am a responsible person.  I take initiative. I choose my actions, attitudes, and moods.  I do not blame others for my wrong actions.  I do the right thing without being asked, even when no one is looking.
Begin With The End In Mind I plan ahead and set goals.  I do things that have meaning and make a difference.  I am an important part of my classroom and contribute to my school's mission and vision, and look for ways to be a good citizen. 
Put First Things First I spend my time on things that are most important.  This means I say no to things I know I should not do.  I set priorities, make a schedule, and follow my plan.  I am disciplined and organized.
Think Win-Win I balance courage for getting what i want with consideration for what others want.  I make deposits in others' Emotional Bank Accounts.  When conflicts arise, I look for third alternatives. 
Seek First To Understand, Then Be Understood I listen to other people's ideas and feelings.  i try to see things their points of view.  I listen to others without interrupting.  I am confident in voicing my ideas.  I look people in the eyes when talking.
Synergize I value other people's strengths and learn from them.  I get along well with others, even people who are different than me.  I work well in groups.  I seek out other people's ideas to solve problems because I know that by teaming with other's we can create better solutions that any one of us alone.  I am humble.
Sharpen The Saw I take care of my body by eating right a, exercising, and getting sleep.  I spend time with family and friends.  I learn in lots of ways and lots of places, not just at school.  I take time to find meaningful ways to help others.

I have also started my own Pinterest 7 Habits Board with more ideas {here}.

Our school district has had all administrators go through a 7 Habits training, and it looks very positive that my entire district will be moving towards becoming 7 Habits schools.  I am curious to know if your school uses the 7 Habits and would love to hear your experiences.  

Rest in peace Stephen Covey and may your legacy continue on.

Empowering Books

At the beginning of the school year I had requested several books from our school librarian to purchase for our school.  I am big on Bucket Fillers and wanted more books along this same topic.  If you don't know about Bucket Fillers, you can read more about it in my previous post {HERE}. 

As we approach the end of the year, I know we all find that no matter how much we have instilled good habits into our kids many just forget around spring break.   So I was really excited on Monday when our librarian brought all of these books to me.  We have been reading one each day this week and really focusing on filling a bucket for classmates.  If you are in need of books about tattling or bullying I recommend adding these to your list. 

 

These books couldn't have come at a better time!  They were perfect for reinforcing bullying and tattling.  Some other books that I already have and like to use on this topic are:

Let me know if you have a must read book that's good about reinforcing these issues.

Math Data

I've been thinking a lot about our Data Binders and how I want my kids to track how they are doing in math.  Today I created this multi-graphing page so that we can keep the majority of our math data on one page.  Here is what I came up with.

Click here to download

if you find it useful!

ClassDojo Rocks!

So last week I checked into ClassDojo after seeing Mrs. Brainbridge's post about it.  I am sooo glad that I did!  This is a great behavior management tool to use with your students.  Each student is given a cute monster avatar with their name underneath.  You can give out points to students for positive behaviors, or take points away for negative behaviors.

I quickly entered my students and chose which positive and negative behaviors I wanted to recognize, then it was up and running.  I introduced it to my students today and it was a hit!  Everyone was so excited to earn points.  I decided that for every 5 points that a student earns it was an automatic clip up with our clip chart.  


I used my laptop to award points, but tomorrow I am going to try using my iPod Touch as a remote.  ClassDojo has their own app that you can download onto an iPod or Smartphone.  They also have behavior reports that you can send home to parents!  You can sign up your class or take their short tour by clicking on the image below.

Homeworkopoly for the Mimio

I am pretty excited to try out Homeworkopoly on the Mimio!  I downloaded the file from here.  Then I changed it a little to meet my needs.  Now I have it all ready to try out this Friday!  I can't wait until my class sees this!  I know they will love Homeworkopoly even more!

Here's the game board!

Here's the page that they can spin and choose a card from Chance or Community Lunchbox.

I am loving the idea of having so many great things and not taking up a lot of space!

Positive Posters

So the other day I was reading a post by The Vintage Teacher about another blogger called Technology Rocks.  Seriously.  I decided to head on over to her blog and was very  inspired to see all of the positive quote posters she has made.  I printed out a few and got frames for them at the Dollar Store.  I really played up the messages with my class!  I have hung them in my room for everyone when we need a little reminder.  

THANKS FOR INSPIRING US SHANNON!

Love and Logic

Well I made it today!  All 22 of my sweet 2nd graders came in ready for an awesome school year!!  After I dropped my class off at PE, I thought it would be a good time to swing by and pick up some audio books to listen to on my commute to and from work.  I decided on this one.

Last year our school did a book study on Love and Logic for Teachers.  It was a great book and I highly recommend it. Towards the end of the year our school also purchased many more of the Love and Logic audio books.  I began listening to Calming the Chaos on my way to get my daughter today.  I'm really glad that I did!  So far it is great too!  The beginning of the school year can be so hectic, and my driving time gives me a little time to reflect.  Plus listening to this audio book also gives me a great refresher on the book I read last year. 

Clip Chart

Wow I can't believe it's back to work for me today!  I have registration first thing in the morning and then staff meetings in the afternoon.  For a portion of those  meetings, I along with some other colleagues will be presenting a school wide implementation of the clip chart to our entire staff.  Many of us in our building implemented the clip chart last year with great success.  This year charts have been purchased and everyone in our building will be using the clip chart.  To help our staff, I wanted to give them a few resources that I will pass along.

The first resource I wanted to share was an awesome Clip Chart Check List from Mrs. Bainbridge's Blog.  If you download this monthly tracker it will allow you to type in your students names.  The teacher or a student can mark the color each child earned at the end of each day.

Click here to see my daily record that students use in their KNIGHT Folders!
Clip Chart eBook[1] Here is the eBook on implementing the clip chart. If you have no idea of what this is about read this! It will take about 20 minutes to read and you will be glad you did it!

  Clip Chart Parent Letter Here is a Parent Letter that I send out right away, so that parents are also aware of our classroom management.

  EP Expectations Our school is also implementing school wide expectations, formerly known as rules.  These are the expectations we will enforce at our school.  MMOB stands for Mind My Own Business.

Snitch to the Sneetch

So I was recently looking at all of the great ideas on Pinterest, when I came across a variation of a Tattle Box called Snitch to the Sneetch by Miss Hunt's Teacher Resources.  I loved this idea and decided to make my own Sneetch Box.  I used one of my daughter's shoe boxes, then covered it with scrap book paper, glued on the words and pictures, and my dear hubby cut a slot in the top!  I think it looks really cute and I can't wait to introduce this box to my class.

Homeworkopoly

I have used Homworkopoly in my room for several years now and continue to love it more and more each year!  If you are not aware of homeworkopoly click here.  I use homeworkopoly for our Nightly Reading.  For each week that my students have their Reading Logs completed, they each get to roll the dice every Friday and take a turn on the game board.  If you do a simple search you will also find variations of the game board.  Many teachers are now making game boards to match their theme.  I've also seen some teachers making theirs to use with a Smartboard, Mimio, etc.  If you haven't ever used Homeworkopoly I highly recommend it!  It's an excellent way to motivate students to complete their Nightly Reading or other homework.

Classroom Voice Levels

I recently got this banner from Vistaprint that Whole Brain Teaching created for Voice Levels and Risa from ProTeacher made into a chart for the classroom  One of my teamies wanted a copy, so I thought it would be easier to share with everyone.  I plan on getting velcro dots and placing a laminated star to show my class the expected noise level for certain activities.

Credit goes to Risa a member from proteacher.net and Whole Brain Teaching.  I changed the wording for 0.  It originally said Quiet of the Tomb.  Zero Noise Level works better for my 2nd graders.

Click here to get the poster!

Bucket Fillers

This is the third year that I plan on implementing Bucket Fillers into my classroom.  This is a positive reinforcement that really brings out the good deeds that individuals do on a daily basis.  I had been using hanging cubbies like these that go on a pocket chart stand.  This year I have decided to make a poster in hopes of it taking up less space.

I will laminate the poster and put it on a bulletin board.  Once I have my class list, I will write their names with a dry erase marker below each pocket.  To make the poster, I got library pockets from our school and stuck those on.  Then I reduced the buckets so that 4 would fit on one page.  I glued those on and there you have it!

I also made business cards from Vistprint for the kids to fill out for each time someone wants to fill another's bucket.  I plan on putting the cards in a small bucket near the poster. They can also write on the back of the card if need be.

If you want more information on Bucket Fillers, this website has great information.  Amazon also has a list of many books that are great for both kids and adults in understanding the concept of being a Bucket Filler verses a Bucket Dipper.  Click here for Bucket Filler books.

Click here if you want a copy of the buckets that I reduced.

Incentives for your students

Last year I remember coming across a list of free or nearly free incentives for your students compiled by Risa on Proteacher.  I thought it had so many great ideas and wanted to pass it along.


Rewards List at No Cost