Goodbye First Grade!!

I love, love, love 2nd grade. Those 2nd graders are still cute and little enough to satisfy my need for adorableness, but they are old enough to tackle some real deep content. They start reading chapter books but still like to color. They're starting to figure out who they really are, but still like to read to a stuffed animal. For me, this age is the perfect mix of big kid/little kid qualities and I love it because that's how I feel like when I watch Frozen (a kids movie) while drinking a beer (a grown-up drink) The best of both worlds.


I student taught in 2nd grade and my DREAM was to teach 2nd grade in public school, helping kids who really need it. Well, I graduated college in 2008 and around here in Washington, as I'm sure it was in other parts of the country, teaching gigs were hard to come by. Funding was cut. Teachers who had been teaching for 5 or 6 years were getting laid off so a newbie teacher like me really didn't have a chance. I took the next best thing, a job at a private school.

I taught a 2nd/3rd split there for 5 years and enjoyed it. We did fun projects and the kids were really great. It was not where my heart was though. We had small class sizes, like too small. 7 or 8 kids small. It took on the feeling of a home-school group which was what the families of the school wanted, but I didn't feel fulfilled there or that I was where I was supposed to be.

About 6 months ago the DREAM ball started rolling and I took a job as a 1st grade intervention teacher in public school. I felt like I was at the right place. Our school is 80% free and reduced lunch, lots of ELL kids, and exactly where I felt like I was needed and could make a difference. The place was right. The position? Not so much. Intervention and Special Education teachers have a special place in my heart because classroom teachers really rely on them for support and it takes a certain sort of teacher to be a stellar special education teacher, however I am not that sort teacher for a myriad of reasons I will not go into here. But I did my best, made academic gains with the kids (yay!) and then took a job in the same school as a 1st grade teacher for next year.

I was stoked!! While 1st grade wasn't my favorite, I finally was a public school, classroom teacher, yay!! I moved all my stuff into the 1st grade room and started getting ready. There were rumors of 2nd grade teacher planning to retire the next year so I had a master plan. I would teach my little heart out to these firsties this year and then gain enough admiration from administration to move up to 2nd next year when she retired. Well, the universe had other things in store for me!!

I was the lone teacher working one day. Our fabulous principal let me in the front door (teachers in my district don't get keys to the building which I find frustrating, but I digress). She mentioned that the 2nd grade teacher decided to retire THIS year and that maybe she should send out an email to everyone seeing if anyone wanted to move grades before she posted the job opening. Oh man!! My little heart jumped. I told her I'd LOVE to take it. It's my favorite grade, blah, blah, blah. She said okay. Yay!!

I also got the choice of staying the room I had already moved into or moving into the 2nd grade room. I really loved the other room better than the one I currently have so I accepted moving too!! My custodian thought I was crazy because, well, I just moved into this room and perhaps I am a bit crazy, but I also am a bit of perfectionist and would much rather spend extra energy making my space feel right than accepting a less than perfect situation.

So. . . now I'm working on 2nd grade math games (my favorite!) and waiting to get the okay from our principal that the retiring teacher is moved out and I can move it. Yay for 2nd grade, finally!!

Now I'm trying to find the best 2nd grade teachers out there so I can follow their blog and keep growing. My absolute favorite so far is Amy Lemons!! I love all her teaching ideas AND I love hearing about her adorable little girl. I'd love anymore suggestions for amazing second grade teacher bloggers!

I'll end with a hilarious post from BuzzFeed: First Grade Problems. Hilarious!!

First Grade Problems

ABC Quilt

Look at this adorable project I saw when I went to work in my classroom, an ABC quilt our summer school students made!! It is a quick, easy, effective instructional strategy. Students search through magazines and cut out pictures to glue onto construction paper; one piece of paper per letter. After the pages are full, glue onto a big piece of butcher paper and make a quilt (don't forget to talk about how quilt starts with Q, duh!)

When I taught pre-k I kicked this idea up a notch and assigned a little homework assignment to the kiddo's. They would be assigned a letter and then be asked to bring a picture of something that started with that letter. A magazine cutout, sticker, really anything that could be glued to a piece of paper. This increased learning because they needed parental support for this activity and anytime you hooked parents, you increase achievement. Happy Day!

CAFE and Daily 5 Workshop!

I was soooooo lucky to get to attend the Daily 5 and CAFE training in Tacoma, Washington this year with the Two Sisters. My frugal self did not spend the money for the tickets, but my super kind principal had bought tickets and then couldn't attend so she gave little ole' ME her tickets!! I was so excited to attend this training. I had heard of Daily 5/Cafe/Two Sisters before, had seen a bit of their work in some of my colleagues rooms, but I had NO idea how popular this model had become. I live in Tacoma (the city of the convention), but was so surprised when I learned that people had flew in from all over the country, no, make that the world, to attend this conference. We had people from Hawaii, Nebraska, Maine, Colorado, Georgia, Canada, even New Zealand! Knowing that all these great teachers had flown in just to attend this conference let me know that what I was about to experience was special. 

Ten minutes in, I was hooked! The Sisters were not only experienced teachers filled with really sound advice on how to improve literacy instruction in the classroom, but they were funny! I love funny. Especially in teaching, when things can sometimes just get so darn hard and complicated, the only way to survive is to laugh at the crazy. They shared stories from their classrooms, spoke so fondly of their students and teachers they had worked with. I left the training with an understanding of the model and an excitement to get started learning more about it and implementing elements into my classroom. 

The basic premise of Daily 5/CAFE is that to make students become better readers, they need to spend the majority of their literacy block ACTUALLY reading real books. I am so on board with this. I taught at a small, private school for a number of years and we had no reading curriculum. We taught many kids how to read by teaching them the phonics and comprehension strategies they needed, but allowed them to read what they wanted. No boring basal readers. No colored reading groups. And it worked! However, we had ten kids to a class. As I was listening I was on board with the idea, but skeptical that it could be implemented in a class of 25+. It seemed though that as soon as this popped into my  head, they had the answer. They knew that to really get kids reading, teachers needed to spend the first part of the year focusing on teaching them how to read independently and build their stamina. Once you spend the first month and a half building their independence and stamina, then you can start meeting with students in small groups or one-on-one and giving them individualized reading instruction that they need to become better readers. 

The books give much greater detail on HOW to do this and what EXACTLY it looks like in a classroom. I've read the CAFE book and really enjoyed it. It explains how to implement the model in your room and, my favorite part, has sample lessons in the back for all the comprehension, accuracy, fluency, and vocabulary standards. I've ordered the new Daily 5 book and plan on reading that before school starts too. Their website also has TONS of videos and articles to support the model. 

So I learned a lot from the workshop and book; more than a typical professional development workshop. I felt a community between literacy teachers. I had a plan and was ready to implement, but I just can't share about this conference without sharing what I think made it stand out above every professional development workshop I've attended, and Lord knows I and every other teacher out there has attended hundreds if not thousands of professional development workshops. It all started in the first 10 minutes when the Sisters explained they weren't providing lunch because they do lunch. . . differently. I thought, "Weird, what could that possible mean?!" Well, about 30 minutes later we all found out. 

The sisters were talking about this great book, Dex: Heart of a Hero. It focuses on this little dog who wants to a superhero, but everyone tells him he can't because he's too small. Well, he buckles down and trains hard and then ends up becoming a famous and very helpful hero. The Sisters encouraged us to read it aloud to our students when talking about stamina. Just as I went to write down the title and author, they announced that everyone was getting a FREE copy of the book!! What?! My colleagues and I were so excited! They had volunteers pass out books to each of the probably 1000+ teachers in the room.

"How cool!" we all thought. Little did we know how cool it actually was. Over the next two days we got so much swag! Great books and tools that actually will help in the classroom. Many workshops give you a pen or, yes, ANOTHER tote bag, but this workshop gave us a ton of really useful things. We seriously felt like we were on the Oprah show by the end of it all. Look at all this stuff!

We got 4 really great books. We got chimes to use as a quiet signal, dry erase colored pencils (What?! I didn't even know they made those!) and a small white board, a timer, toys to help children focus and check for understanding, post-it notes, and tools to help kids track lines in their books. All this swag has got to be worth doing lunch on your own right?! They also gave use these really high-quality workbooks, notebooks, and STYLUS pens. Yep, that's right! Not just any ole' ink pen, but an ink pen that can also be used on tablets and phones. Super cool!

Long story short, (that was really long!), I really enjoyed the conference and walked away with useful things I am planning on implementing in my room this year. 

Of course, after the workshop I just HAD to start a project; making a cute CAFE board and Daily 5 signage. Here's a SNEAK PEEK! I'm hoping to get this project finished by next Friday

Bee Themed Classroom plus Bee themed Nametag FREEBIE!!

 After finally getting my classroom somewhat organized Moving into a Messy, Chaotic Classroom, uggh!), I decided to take a break and make some fun but useful items for my classroom. Besides my Happy Birthday Bulletin Board, my most favorite thing so far is my Good BEEhavior Chart. What I love about this chart is that is allows students to easily self-monitor their behavior with a visual reminder. I also love the bright yellow color and the fun, whimsical theme of bees which I've incorporated into my classroom decoration theme (post about classroom decoration/organization to come in late August when I can get back into my classroom, yay!).

How it works:
1) The first week of school I will have each student make a clip with a pom-pom bee on the end. I call them over to my teacher table during free choice time.
2) All students start each day on Ready to Learn.
3) When they show good behavior, they get to move their clip up. It is critical that students do the majority of their clip moving. If the teacher is always doing it, the student will not make the connection between their behavior and the chart.
4) If they are not showing good behavior, they are asked to move their clip-down. Again, it is crucial that the students move their own clips.
5) Clips can be moved up and down all day in my classroom. This allows students the incentive to correct behavior if they know they can clip back up.
6) I have a system of rewards and consequences that go with each level. I have a detailed description of this system in my Good BEEhavior Classroom Management Pack 

In this pack is all the printables you'll need to implement this system as well behavior tracking sheet for student folders, rules posters, name-tags, writing paper, 3 different calendar cover-ups, and good behavior certificates! If you are using a bee theme in your classroom or are looking for an updated management tool, I think this will make a cute and useful addition!! 

                             

As part of my excitement for this unit, I have uploaded my first FREEBIE! These adorable bee themed nametags for your student desks. Just click on the link below to download. Enjoy and Happy Day!

Bee Nametag FREEBIE

Birthdays in My Classroom and a Giveaway of Happy Birthday MEGA Pack!!

I love celebrating really anything with my students and it's no different on their birthdays!! I also like to sneak in some academic practice too. I've always done Happy Birthday letter writing with my students. My mentor teacher during my student teaching experience so long ago shared this idea with me and I've been doing it ever since! Students LOVE making the letters! They also get much needed writing practice in a fun way and I bind the letter together into a little book which is a fun keepsake. This summer, as I'm moving into a new classroom at a new school, I decided to spruce up my birthday activities with a capital/lowercase letter matching center and an addition/numeral identification math center. I'm thinking these are going to pretty much make me one of the coolest teachers around the second grade hallway! And because I also LOVE bright, colorful, meaningful displays I've included the templates I used to create my birthday bulletin board! I've made all my bags, but can't start hanging them up until August so I'll post my final pictures then. I've pulled all these resources into a Happy Birthday MEGA Pack! As everyone is setting up classrooms, birthday displays are often on that list!! I'd like to help out other teachers make their student's birthdays fun, fabulous, and academic so I'd like to do a GIVEAWAY!! Simply like my Facebook page, Mrs. Grisham's Little Lighthouse Learners  easy-peasy. I'll choose a winner on Friday!! Good luck!


Here's a link to the preview file in my store, check it out! Mrs. Grisham: Happy Birthday MEGA Pack