Progress Monitoring and Data Collection

School is now well underway and let's just say it has been a hectic start.   So hectic that I have not posted anything since July!!! With that said, it seems like I am getting into the swing of things being back in the world of special education! First, I wanted to share a really fantastic tool that can be used to progress monitor students in reading.  Though grades K-3 have MClass to progress monitoring students, what I love about this tool is that you do not have to be with the student to complete the progress monitoring.  The program is called Reading Recs and is completely free for teachers and students through SAS Curriculum Pathways.  Teachers are able to create an account for each of their students and then assign them passages on their level.  The program records their voice reading so that the teacher can go back later and score for accuracy.  It also includes retell, open ended, and multiple choice to check for comprehension! Click on the picture below to check it out!

The other program I am using this year to help with data collection is Evernote.  When I collected student data in the past, each of my students would have a notebook or I would have a large notebook where I would keep work samples and other information.  Not only do I have a limit on copies this year but I also wanted to save paper and have one easy, central location to access data on my students.  I love Evernote to store data for several reasons. First, you are able to create "notebooks" for each student to store all of their information.  I am able to scan in assessments that have been given and to store work samples I either take a picture with my ipad or scan them in with my school copier and save them into their notebook.  I also love Evernote because you are able to send emails that you receive from teachers, parents, and other support personnel right to the students "notebook" in Evernote.  Click on the picture below and check it out!

New and Exciting Changes....

Ok.....I have been a terrible blogger recently.  I really wanted to update my blog at least once every two weeks and I kind of dropped off the face of the earth around February. Let's just say I was trying to survive my year of teaching 5th grade!!! Here is the great news....I made it!!! I ended up the year on a high note and I had the most stressful as well as one of the best teaching years I have had since I began teaching. I learned so much about classroom management and curriculum and I am so glad that I had the experience of teaching a regular education classroom. However, I am sure you have noticed that the name of my blog has changed. That is right ladies and gentlemen, I am returning to the wonderful world of special education.  To make a long story short, due to budget cuts and teacher transfers I was asked to return as an EC teacher being that we had an opening in our school. Though I was extremely heart broken to leave my wonderful team of 5th grade teachers, I am very excited to teach EC once again and what is even more exciting is that I will be teaching with my mom!! So, I am in the process of adding and making changes to the blog so be on the look out for some new resources and great things. I PROMISE I am going to do better about being consistent with blogging!!!
SO................What have I been up to since school let out?
I have been teaching summer school for the third graders in my school. If you are not familiar with the Read to Achieve Law in North Carolina then click below to find out more!

I had a break in teaching Summer School the first week of July and was given the opportunity to attend the ISTE conference in Atlanta ,GA.  This was the best conference I have ever attended and I learned more about implementing technology in the classroom than I can even keep up with. I got to attend some excellent sessions and meet some very incredible educators. I will be adding a technology in the classroom page very soon so be on the lookout on the blog! Check out my pictures below of some things I did while in Atlanta!!

GO BRAVES

Best onion ring I ever ate!

 I promise I did some other things besides go to baseball games and eat greasy food.  The next set of pictures are from where I went to a presentation on Class Flow.  First of all, this program is FREE!! Yes, FREE and extremely interactive.  Please click the Class Flow picture below to check it out. But....the best part of the presentation was talking with Ron Clark and sitting with his students to learn how to use Class Flow!

I did many more things but the last thing I would like to share was meeting Greg Tang! Let me tell you, I have never sat through a more interesting 90 minute session and all the guy used was a lumens camera, a piece of paper, a sharpie marker, and his website.  He was hilarious and gave me some awesome resources. Check out his website below by clicking on the picture. There are so many things to do on his site but the best part is that any online game can be printed and made into a math center so please take some time to explore the site.  Also, he took a picture with the teachers from our county and even tweeted us!!!

Check out Greg Tang Math!!!

Bethany Bulldog Step Team

My wonderful 5th grade teammate Dawn Schmucker and I decided to take on a new adventure this year----- A STEP TEAM!!!  Yes that is right, a step team! The step team from a local high school came and performed for our elementary students and we became incredibly inspired. I was actually on the same step team when I was in high school (for a very short amount of time) and Dawn was very involved with color guard in high school and college.  So, we decided to put our talents and knowledge together and create the very first elementary step team in the county.  We performed at our February PTA meeting and the kids did awesome!!! Check out the video below!

Summarizing, Summarizing, Summarizing

We have been working really hard in 5th grade on Summarizing both fiction and non fiction text.  I use the strategy of SWBST (Somebody, Wanted, But, So, Then) to help students create a fiction summary. On Pinterest and Teachers Pay Teachers there are lots of great bookmarks and organizers that go along with this strategy. However, as we switched our focus to non fiction text, I had a hard time finding resources to help students create a good summary of informational text.  I wanted the acronym SWBST to remain the same since the students did so well with this strategy when working with fiction. So....I decided to make my own resources. For non fiction text, the SWBST stands for Somethings, Purpose, But, So,Then.  I created a graphic organizer for students to use as well as non fiction summary bookmarks that the students can use as an aid when writing non fiction summaries. The only other difference is that in the acronym for non fiction the "then" comes before the "so".

Non-Fiction Summary Bookmarks

CLICK HERE to get you free copy of the bookmarks!

Non-Fiction Summary Organizer Sheet

CLICK HERE to get your free copy of the Non Fiction Summary Organizer

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The NEW YEAR is HERE!

Well, I noticed that my last blog post was on December 7th which was almost a month ago!!! I feel like the last few weeks of school flew by and Christmas Break was upon us.  Then, the break went by even faster!! With that said, my New Year's Resolution is to at least post new things every two weeks. In the mean time, I want to play catch up on some things that were happening before school was let out for our Holiday Break.  First, on the last day of school we had a guest reader come in (a former Bethany Teacher) read all of the fifth grade students "The Cajun Night Before Christmas".  If you have never read the story, below is a picture of the book and a summary from Amazon.  It is fantastic and hilarious!

"Set in a Louisiana bayou and told in Cajun dialect-de chirren been nezzle/Good snug on de flo'--the poem has lively illustrations that perfectly suit the unique text." -Horn Book "Rice is especially good with facial expressions, whether they are on a Texas jack rabbit, a longhorn steer, a dusty cowboy, or the green and long-nosed alligator named Gaston." -Library Journal It's the night before Christmas in a tiny shack on the Louisiana bayou, and Santa Claus, with his eight friendly alligators and toy-laden skiff, is on his way. Written in lively Cajun accents, the best-selling Cajun Night Before Christmas is a beloved holiday classic."

Below is a picture of our fifth graders listening to the story as well as a brief video of our guest reader Beth Fitzgerald!

Last but not least, I also made a few Christmas presents for my wonderful fifth grade team and my awesome school psychologist!!!! See the pictures of their Christmas presents!

Dawn's Steelers Chair

Katie's United States Chair

Charity's filing cabinet

Prefix/Suffix Turkeys

I am SO FAR behind on my blog and have not posted in about a month. School has been incredibly busy and it takes all of my energy just to keep my head above water in the classroom. However, we are almost half way through the year and it is hard to believe how much my students have already learned and the progress they are making.  So, right before thanksgiving, I wanted to do something fun with prefixes and suffixes. Therefore,  we made turkeys! The students picked a prefix or suffix of their choice and wrote it on the body of the turkey. They then had to think of four words that included that specific prefix or suffix.Tthe students then turned the turkey over and put the definition of each word on the feathers and the definition of their prefix or suffix on the body. This way the turkey not only was fun and decorative but also a great flash card for the students to study with! Below are some pictures of the turkeys. The students did a great job and even got a little creative!

                                       

Weekly Reading Logs

I really wanted my students to do a weekly reading log each night in which they were required to read 20 minutes every night at home. However, being that I teach fifth grade, I really wanted to make sure that my students were really thinking about their reading and wanted them to respond nightly about what they have read. So, I created a reading log in which the responses can be changed each week to fit with what we are learning in class.  Please feel free to use and share!

Click Here to get your copy!

Rainy Day Recess

Here is what we do on Rainy Days!

Out of My Mind!

I have not posted in like 3 weeks and I feel so behind!! I promised myself I would post weekly but unfortunately 5th grade is keeping me extremely busy!!!  However, I am having a lot of fun and we are learning a lot of great things!! About two weeks ago, we started reading the book "Out of My Mind" by Sharon Draper. Though we do not get a lot of time to read, this book has seriously opened my students eyes and taught them fabulous life lessons. Below is a synopsis of the book from Barnes and Noble and if you are looking for a good read aloud for upper grades students, this book rocks!!!

Eleven-year-old Melody has a photographic memory. Her head is like a video camera that is always recording. Always. And there's no delete button. She's the smartest kid in her whole school, but no one knows it. Most people—her teachers and doctors included—don't think she's capable of learning, and up until recently her school days consisted of listening to the same preschool-level alphabet lessons again and again and again. If only she could speak up, if only she could tell people what she thinks and knows…but she can't, because Melody can't talk. She can't walk. She can't write.

Being stuck inside her head is making Melody go out of her mind—that is, until she discovers something that will allow her to speak for the first time ever. At last Melody has a voice…but not everyone around her is ready to hear it.

From multiple Coretta Scott King Award winner Sharon M. Draper comes a story full of heartache and hope. Get ready to meet a girl whose voice you'll never, ever forget.

Early Civilizatons

What a week!!! Well, I almost logged another 60 hour week and on top of that got a fabulous little cold from one of my students!!!  However, I made it to Friday! The past two weeks, we have been learning about Early Civilizations.  In all honesty, I was terrified to teach Social Studies because I have never liked history and I know very little about it. But, I actually really enjoyed teaching about the first people who ever came to North America and my students seemed to be into it as well. The other reading teacher and I really try to integrate our reading and social studies so we read a story entitle "Sees Behind Trees". The story is about a boy who is nearly blind but is expected to shoot a bow and arrow in order to receive his new name to become a man. However, he uses his other senses such as hearing and smell and is able to do things that the other Native American boys are not able to do.  At the end of the story, he is blindfolded and is asked "what do you see?". Though he can not physically see, he uses his senses to accurately describe a man approaching from a great distance away. Therefore he earns the name "Sees Behind Trees".  Today, we made Native American necklaces and came up with our own names based on something we are good at. My name was "teaches while exhausted".  Below are some pictures of us with our necklaces!!! And yes, my students are normally this wild and crazy!

Author Study Centers

Chris Van Allsburg

This week, my students have been working on an author study with some of the best books by Chris Van Allsburg. My fellow teacher Mrs. Coleman gave me the activities that she received from another fellow teacher in the county.  My students have completed two stations and have two more to finish next week before we wrap things up with a culminating activity and a quiz on what they have learned.  We started the author study by reading "The Garden of Abdul Gasazi" which immediately got them excited about reading more of Chris Van Allsburg's books.  They have done a great job with the centers and I wanted to share the activities that they have been doing in small groups. Each day the students are expected to read a book by Chris Van Allsburg and then complete an activity that goes along with the book. (Another teacher created these awesome activities!) I have created a rubric so the students know what is expected of them as well as a quiz to make sure they really paid close attention to the books. Below are some pictures of the students working as well as the activities, rubric, and quiz I created.

Reading "Two Bad Ants"

Listening to "The Wretched Stone"

Click Here to access the Chris Van Allsburg Activities
Click Here to access the Rubric
Click Here to access the Chris Van Allsburg Quiz

The Top Ten Things That Teachers Fail to Remember About School over Summer Break!

1. Teachers increase the number of words they say in an hour from about 500 to 5,000! I for one am tired of hearing my own voice and that is saying a lot because I love to talk!

2. Teachers forget what it truly means when they say "my feet hurt!"

3. An hour of reading class only feels like 10 minutes but the entire school day feels like a week!

4. Teachers forget what a privilege it is to go to the bathroom when "nature calls" instead of holding it all in until 2:45.

5. Nap time now occurs at 7:30 pm and usually turns into a full nights sleep.

6. Pinterest posts go from 35 a day to about 3.

7. Mealtime is a ten minute ordeal instead of a 30 minute casual lunch.

8. "Morning Work" is no longer laying in the bed at 10am looking at teachers pay teachers.

9. Busta Brown on wxii 12 is not as comical as remembered when reporting about the traffic at 5:45 am

10. "Play dates" now revolve around  teachers yelling at kids to stop running backwards up the slide!

Open House

So Excited......

We started teacher workdays this week and I have never worked so hard in my entire life. I always thought life was busy when I was an EC teacher. I had no idea how busy I would be getting ready for a fifth grade classroom!!! I put in 12 hour days almost every day and a couple of days were 13 and 14 hours.  I have been exhausted but it was all worth it when I got to meet my wonderful students at open house. I had such a wonderful turn out and all of my kids visited except for one.  My students and their parents were so nice and welcoming and I am so excited for the first day of school on Monday!!! 

My sign in table with the beautiful flowers my husband brought me!

Morning Work!

I decided that I wanted to have my students participate in centers for morning work this year. I have somewhat grouped them by ability level so I can differentiate what they work on each morning.  I created a bulletin board called "The Breakfast Bunch" and each student is either an egg, bacon, waffle, or sausage. These are their groups and each day I will change the heading over the plate so they will be able to rotate each day. On Mondays, they will do whole group morning work so that I have a morning to explain all of the centers for the week!!!