Reflection Question #2

What is something you tried in your classroom this year for the first time? How did it go?

I been reflecting on last year's class and answering questions to help improve myself and to help better my students' learning.  One thing I tried last year was the year long theme "Around the world with Pre-K". It was a bit of a challenge for me.  Why you ask?  One thing that was a challenge for me was to continue the theme throughout the year.  I wanted learning to connect to countries but not over whelm my students.  Another thing was finding material that was appropriate for my group.  As I have been reflecting about this theme, one question pops up in my mind "Should I do this theme again?"  I have been tossing that one back and forth.  I found some great ideas from Pinterest with this theme.  Some ideas running through my head: learning the countries letters and numbers, reading books and then mapping where the book took place on our map.  Much more things but save that for later.

 The whole class holding the chain that they measured the room with.

 Students using connecting cubes to measure the height of the plants and the length of our garden bed.

Another new thing I tried was gardening and connecting it with learning.  This was a big success with this group.  Two things I love gardening and teaching.  One concept that the students picked up on was measuring and for my age group they measure with objects not rulers.  But I introduce rulers to my students cause I saw that they were ready for it.  They ran away with it.  They took measuring the plants and garden bed from outside and brought it into the classroom with measuring the room, the chairs, the tables and so much more.  I got to see their minds grow.  It was a great feeling to see the learning they got from a ruler and a garden.

I am going to take this question a step further and ask myself what new things do I want to do this coming school year?  Here is my list:

1. getting to work with a Promethean board  (YEAH!!!)

2. using a new lesson plan format

3. laying out my classroom differently (have to since I have a Promethean board now. Have to arrange room to best utilize it)

4. re-vamp my learning centers both for literacy and math.

5. bringing writing into the gardens (having them labeling and journal more)

6. blogging in a PLC group. (saw this from another blogger and thought this is a great idea) so I am going to try it. here is the info:

                                    #4 Blogger for a PLC!

Have teachers create and contribute to a blog - together! Don't think of this as necessarily the type of blog with others outside of your PLC read (although they can and this can be great support/feedback), but more of a virtual meeting space to discuss practice and learn together. They can upload video, pictures and text to share ideas, challenges and solutions. This helps alleviate the, "When can everyone meet?" or lack of common planning time. Another great outcome is that all of your "meetings" are automatically archived. So all learning and brainstorming can be referenced throughout the year - and years - to come. Here is an example of a virtual PLC we did this year around our technology integration. In our first year, we set it to private - just for us to learn and collaborate - but are now considering opening it to learn with the world.

We will see how the new changes will affect me as a teacher and the students' learning.

Starting to Brainstorm

I woke this morning from a dream...the dream was about the up coming changes to my school.  We are losing several  great teachers through either forced trims or new adventures in teaching, we are also losing our principal, she is retiring.

The dream was putting me in a totally new school but with no control on my class.  I was more like a teacher aid than a teacher.  I even tried to call my BFF in my dream to talk about it but that was no good.

I received an email from our new principal last week.  She was introducing herself giving some of her stats in the profession.  She is coming from a High School down to Elementary.  That scares the hell out of me.  I worry about will she be early childhood friendly (know the importance of early childhood in education).  So I am saying my prayers that this coming school year will be a smooth transition into new leadership.

As summer is slowly coming to a close and the new school year is just a few weeks away, I am starting to think about new ideas for my classroom.  I want to do new things instead of the same things I have done in the past.  I also am not sure if I should keep the theme "Around the world with Pre-k" or choose another theme.  If I do keep the theme I want to make it better than last year.

end of the year reflections

1. What are some things you accomplished this year that you are proud of?

Some things I accomplished this year that I was proud of was the school gardens, tutoring the 1st grade students, working with other teachers on  improving writing skills, finally getting to see the new playground built from a grant I helped with two other ladies, and helping my BFF and teacher implement a literacy night at our school.

It was the second year for our 25 garden beds and it was a major growing success as well as improving my student's learning.  I have been helping with after school tutoring in the past but this year I felt it was more successful in student growth.  I assessed each of the students to see where they were at and then worked with them on the skills they were lacking in.  I created fun ways for them to learn but not thinking they were learning.  I worked a group of teachers and creating an assessment tool in writing to assess our students with.  I created the pre-k's writing assessment to help me and my fellow peer see and track our students progress in writing.  It was a really learning experience for me and looking at writing at a different way.  Our school received $34,000 from the Jimmie Johnson Foundation to help our school get a new playground. And Lastly my BFF was creating a large evening literacy night for our parents plus ribbon cutting ceremony for our playground and our school community.

20 Questions to ask myself at the End of the Year

1.  What are some things you accomplished this year that you are proud of?


2. What is something you tried in your classroom this year for the first time? How did it go?


3. What is something you found particularly frustrating this year?


4. Which student in your class do you think showed the most improvement? Why do you think this student did so well?


5. What is something you would change about this year if you could?


6. What is one way that you grew professionally this year?


7. Who amongst your colleagues was the most helpful to you?


8. What has caused you the most stress this year?


9. When was a time this year when you felt joyful and/or inspired about the work that you do?


10. What do you hope your students remember most about you as a teacher?


11. In what ways were you helpful to your colleagues this year?


12. What was the most valuable thing you learned this year?


13. What was the biggest mistake you made this year? How can you avoid making the same mistake in the future?


14. What is something you did this year that went better than you thought it would?


15. What part of the school day is your favorite? Why?


16. What were your biggest organizational challenges this year?


17. Who was your most challenging student? Why?


18. In what ways did you change the lives of your students this year?


19. Pretend that you get to set your own salary for this past year based on the job that you did. How much do you feel that you earned (the number you come up with should be in no way based on your current salary - rather, come up with a number that truly reflects how you should be compensated for your work this year)?


20. Knowing what you know now, would you still choose to be a teacher if you could go back in time and make the choice again? If the answer is "no,"  is there a way for you to choose a different path now?

preparing for the 2012-2013 school year

I have been pinning from Pinterest and came across some really good ideas and spent the afternoon working on a few anchor charts.  I have used charts in my classroom but not like these.  As the end of a school ends and the new one gets ready to begin, I reflect on the school year as to ways to improve myself, my teaching and student learning.  So some of these charts I think will help my ELL students have a visual as well as the non-ELL students.

 This anchor chart I hopes illustrates a good listener.  It lets them know the points of a good listener: eyes watching, ears listening, mouth waits to talk, hands in lap, raise hand to talk, face forward, and sit criss cross apple sauce.

This anchor chart I plan to use with our 3rd grade reading buddies.  It will help our reading buddies see how to sit and what they can do with their little buddy.  They can choose a book together, echo read, ask questions about a certain page, and practice sitting EEKK (elbow-elbow knee knee) with the book in the middle of their laps.

 My students are using unifex cubes to measure our plants in our garden bed as well as the bed itself.

Green Thumb Garden Gals

My BFF and I will be presenting next week at the ELL Summer Summit in Tulsa.  We are going to be sharing our start with our school gardens and how we use them in our classroom.  I am excited this will be my second presentation to my peers (my first was on how to get resources for your classroom through Donors choose).

The First year of our school gardens was mainly the set up phase.  This year we actually got to use it in the classroom to teach our students through a variety of methods from science, math, to writing.