Five for Friday - Trackout, Classroom Photos, QR Codes for Teachers, A Podcast and 12 New Hello Fonts
I'm excited to link up this week with Kacey over at Doodle Bugs Teaching Blog...in an effort to post more. For those of you that blog, sometimes life just gets in the way of blogging, even though I love blogging, I realized that I just need to start blogging about all those things in my literacy life. The idea behind Five for Friday is to A)to post (at least) every Friday; and B) to post about five random things from that week. So, here goes, starting with number one.
TRACK OUT!
Today marks the end of the first quarter...that's right. In a year round school system, that means TRACK-OUT, and that is a glorious day. It also means the next three weeks off....sort of. Here's a look at our crazy year-round calendar. I'm on Track 4.
{Click on the image to get your own up-close and personal copy}
Next week is dedicated to wrapping up my 3-6 Common Core Reading Packs, and various doctor's appointments before Hello Literacy hits the road for a week of PD back in the Fulton County School district outside Atlanta, GA. You may remember I was at Barnwell Elementary last spring...well, they have asked me back to do a day on Vocabulary Instruction, the middle Wednesday. On Monday and Tuesday, I'll be doing 50 Shades of the Common Core for Dolvin Elementary and again on Thursday and Friday for Metlock Bridge Elementary...looking forward to some PD fun! The third week "off" will actually be spent back at school for our week long Leader in Me training...(days we get to trade out later).
Here's the idea...after you leave a teacher's classroom, say from doing a peer observation, a walkthrough (used for instructional practices data collection), a peer coaching lesson, whatever...and you see something AWE.SOME that you want to tell or ask her or her students...instead of leaving a note on her desk, you would scan the QR Code on your way out the door and leave her a virtual note to fill up her teacher love bucket! What teacher doesn't love positive, explicit, personal (to just them) words of affirmation? Paired with Google Docs? Creating these to mount outside each teacher's classroom is one of my school projects.
CLASSROOM PHOTOS
With all the mCLASS, TRC and Digging Deeper Assessments conducted in the first quarter, I barely had time to start my reading groups...I think I had them for a whole two weeks (and now we track out tomorrow)...but I am excited about a few new classroom things that I wanted to share with you...
My Text Types Venn Diagram Bulletin Board inspired by the Reading Genre Posters I purchased from Rachel Lamb of The Tattooed Teacher Blog (and a fellow NC teacher). We have actually started adding the posters to the board, but not until after we've had some good conversations about the criteria for adding it to the fiction side, the nonfiction side or the middle....lots of good justifying going on there.
The circles are made out of bulletin board paper. If you look closely, the blue and yellow circles are made of two half circles...you'll see the folds I made to get the circles "circular." If you want the title letters I created and cut out (beware, cutting out your own letters for this requires a good pair of scissors and a Redbox) you can have them HERE. Oh, and if you don't have a lot of wall space like I do, you can make the circles smaller and just print Rachel's poster "multiple pages per sheet" at the Print menu so two posters fit on one piece of paper instead of one full poster.
My Bloom's Posters were getting a little faded so I made myself a new set of my Bloom's Posters...I think they look pretty good. If you own this product, or even if you don't, if you heard me present...you'll know that these posters don't just get put up on the wall without some sort of anchor to the learning...preferably a mini-lesson explaining levels of thinking and how to do it, referring explicitly to the "bars of signal strength" as an anology they can all relate to. Posters, task cards and thinkmarks are included in this best-seller...and it really is my best-seller, I've sold more of these than anything else since I opened my TpT store...and if you're really curious, scroll down and read some of the comments from teachers whose principals have been so impressed by them on their classroom walls. Seriously though, if any has "increasing higher level thinking" in any shape or form as a goal on your Professional Development Plan (PDP) this year...this download alone will without a doubt help you accomplish this goal with success AND gets all students (and teachers) in your room...speaking and writing at the highest levels of thinking...it is truly amazing!!
I also had the pleasure of introducing my Shades of Meaning Center to my new batch of 3rd graders...here's what the center looks like when they get to it. It's a cooperative, higher order, vocabulary, standing-up center. The first week, instead of pulling students for small reading groups, I stayed at this center to facilitate "how-to do" this center. Now, they are good to go and do it without me. If you've already purchased it, I'll be adding the Center Sign to the packet, if you don't have it, you can grab the center HERE . I would say this center is appropriate for 2nd - 6th grade and fits into the Common Core Language standards for each of these grade levels.
Among the many cozy "just right" spots I have for students to read around the room, I have a big blue plushy chair that sits right inside my classroom door. I made this sign to go above the chair. Do you like it? If you want it, click on the image of it.
CLASSROOM AUDIO FILE
This isn't really part of the classroom photo, but it is a snapshot of a class discussion we were having about "opinions" when introducing my new 3rd graders to the describing and inferring activity, Picture of the Day. Click below to listen to our short podcast captured during our discussion...it's about 3 minutes.
The addition of these 12 fonts, brings the grand total Hello fonts to 155. If you already own my font license, you will want to re-download the product from your "My Purchases" tab at TeachersPayTeachers. If you don't own my font license, you can grab it HERE for the one-time, low price of $20...for use of all fonts. All of my fonts are free for personal and non-commercial use if you just give credit to me, and a link back to my blog.
Happy Friday!
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