Quick Tips for Back to School

All teachers are looking for ways to save time, especially when they head back-to-school! I just started my 8th year of teaching (already?!) and there are a few things I do every year that make the following weeks so much smoother.

One of the first things I do is to set up email shortcuts. We use Outlook for our school email, and I like to have a shortcut for emailing my 4th grade team, another for sending out plans, one for a committee, and one for emailing parents (if it’s not part of the gradebook or other software).

By choosing “Add Quick Step” at the top of the Outlook menu, you can set yourself up to send any of those emails in one click! Saves me SO much time.

Another favorite way to use this is to create automatic filters when emails are coming in. For example, I use Sign Up Genius for my parent-teacher conferences- so I set up a QuickStep to auto-forward those emails to a Conferences folder. I still have them, they're organized, and they don't clutter my inbox.



Look for ways to share the workload. Now is a great time to recruit volunteers and students to pitch in around the classroom! My students help me brainstorm jobs, and fill out job applications convincing me to “hire” them.

When our team is lucky enough to have a parent volunteer, we keep a bin of papers to copy or laminate. I love these free forms from Firstie Kidoodles to let the volunteer know how they can help! Getting a system set up early really pays off in a few weeks! I try to get my first few needed papers copied early, and I also use student or parent volunteers to help put up student work for open house.



One of the most important things to do is picking out a few really fabulous back-to-school books.  In my classroom, powerful books like One and The Junkyard Wonders really help to build our classroom community, while Your Fantastic Elastic Brain and Seymour Simon’s The Brain teach us about learning with a growth mindset, so we can set the stage for “making our brains stronger” every day! (Note: Book links are affiliate links.)



Help your students develop a homework plan. We read the book Frog Medicine and make a plan together. This little book has students answer questions like "How will you know if you have homework?" or "When will you do your homework?"

Taking the time to discuss this now really helps once our weekly homework starts- so students don't let it all pile up until Thursday night! We also share our homework plans with the students' parents at Curriculum Night.



Especially when I was self-contained and my schedule was a little different every day, a traditional plan book of squares just didn’t make sense for me. Instead, I was inspired by a colleague of mine who made a custom lesson plan template! Including weekly routines on the template sped up my planning and helped me remember important things.

You can pick up your own copy of my FREE customizable lesson plan page in my Luckeyfrog TpT store, and read more about personalizing lesson plans here.



Of course, once students arrive, it’s so important to get to know your students. One of my favorite ways is to read the book Exclamation Mark because I love the message- those things that make us feel “weird” are sometimes the things that let us do something completely unique and amazing! My students write about how they’re unique and create an exclamation mark all about themselves. Such a great back to school bulletin board!

You can check out this Exclamation Mark Mini-Unit in my TpT store.



All in all, remember that the first few days are always crazy- but anything you can do now that will save you time later is WORTH it!

As the year goes on, you can sneak a peek at what’s happening in my 4th grade science classroom by following me here on my blog, on Facebook, or on Instagram.



Another way I save time is by finding great resources created and tested by other teachers in their own classrooms. Could you use $25 in TeachersPayTeachers resources? Enter to win below- but hurry! The giveaway ends Sunday 8/21 at 11:59 EST.

Even better? TOMORROW, Monday 8/22/16, is a one-day sale where you can save 28% in my TpT store! Don't miss it :)

a Rafflecopter giveaway


For more quick back to school tips (and more chances to win!), check out the blogs below. Happy back-to-school season!

An InLinkz Link-up

The Perfect Book to Teach Asking Questions!

Okay, I have a new favorite reading lesson-- my asking questions lesson!

When I got a chance to work with Scholastic last spring, they gave us a bag of swag that any teacher would love, and it included the book This Is Not My Hat by Jon Klassen, which is perfect for teaching a reading lesson about asking questions! (I’ve linked it to Amazon here, but I also highly recommend finding it through Scholastic Reading Club :)

On my CRAFT board, we list "Ask questions before, during, and after reading" as a reading comprehension skill (although some of my kids think it belongs under Response to Text, so we concluded that it could go as either!). This is a really important skill for some of my struggling readers, because some of them never question what they read. They are just reading to get it over with! (oops- took this picture before we added it!)

• Asking questions before reading gives them a purpose for reading and gets them engaged. When they are looking for the answer, students read more intently.
• Asking questions during reading makes sure they are thinking about what they read.
• Asking questions after reading causes them to be reflective about the author's choices and sometimes helps them draw a personal opinion about the text.
• Asking questions is a great place to start students’ thinking while reading!

I love teaching questioning towards the beginning of the year, because this is a gateway skill to deeper comprehension. Asking questions about the text isn't too hard to do (especially with a well-chosen text!), so it helps to build the habit of thinking as they read. It's also a great way to get students started in their reading response journals because it's a pretty clear-cut type of response that most of my students feel confident trying.

I used this book with my 2nd grade group and all the way up to my 5th grade group. It's great for teaching this skill because the title and cover instantly intrigue them. Kids wonder, "Whose hat is it?" and "Why is a fish wearing a hat?" I tell them we are going to look for the answers to our questions as we read, and we start the read-aloud.

As we read, I stop every few pages and ask the students to whisper to their partner something they are wondering about the story. Then, I choose a few students to tell their questions out loud. (I get 100% participation this way, and more confident kids who are willing to share!)

We keep track of our questions on a chart like this- both adding new questions, and putting check marks next to our questions that get answered. (My markers are dying—ugh!)

Of course, the chart I made for my partner turned out even better. (Isn't that always how it works?) She actually laminated it so she can use it again sometime (which is such a great idea, especially for us as reading specialists who might teach a version of this lesson to each grade level!).

This book also makes a great review for "the three ways to read a book," or using the pictures as readers to help us understand. (Actually, you could use this book to teach that lesson, too, but I just used it as a review.) The book is being told from the little fish's point of view, and so the text only tells us so much. If students don't read the pictures, they won't know the entire plot- and they won't enjoy the book nearly as much!

(Here, the text tells us that little fish doesn't think the crab will tell anyone where he went... but the illustration tells us that the crab does tell!) The younger kids, especially, love "catching" the discrepancies between the text and the pictures.

At the end of the book, the text stops and we just see illustrations. Some kids are always shocked by this! And, immediately, they all have opinions about what happened to the little fish. Some think he was eaten, some think he just gave the hat back, and some think he ran away. The ending of the book is left open and never actually tells us what happens, and so my students are always left with questions about the book after we finish it! (See why I think This Is Not My Hat is such a perfect picture book to teach questioning?)

With the older students, we went a little deeper and discussed the author's choice to leave the story open-ended, and debated whether or not we liked it as readers. (Reviews were very polar in my group-- most kids either loved it or hated it!)

The next day during another mini-lesson, I read aloud a different book (usually tailored more towards the group's grade level) and let students practice asking their own questions along the way in their reader's response journals. Eve Bunting's books tend to work really well for Asking Questions lessons (like The Wednesday Surprise), but I also love The Lotus Seed and Chicken Sunday for teaching asking questions. And don't forget to throw in a non-fiction book-- sometimes these are the most important ones in which students need to use the comprehension strategy of "ask questions!"

Once we've practiced as a whole group and shared with our reading partners, I'm able to look through their notebooks and make sure they seem like they're getting it.  (Glancing through their reading notebooks- even if you don't take a grade yet- is so important, because this is the perfect time to lead a strategy group for those students who need some extra support).

From here, I like to let students use Post-It notes to practice this strategy in whatever they're reading independently.

I also try to fit in a little time at the computer lab (or at a computer center) using the amazing site Into The Book. If you haven't used this free site, you are missing out!

For each reading comprehension skill, there are videos, a song, and an in practice activity. Usually, there are at least two, so you can do one together (especially if you have a SmartBoard or something similar) and have students complete the other independently. Their questioning lesson is a great way to guide student practice of using this strategy to actually help them comprehend.

• A good list of mentor text suggestions:
  http://www.mauryk12.org/literacy/reading%20mentor%20texts.htm 
• A great list of resources, including some sample lesson plans for teachers: http://www.busyteacherscafe.com/literacy/comprehension_strategies.html#questioning 

Share your tips in the comments below or on my Facebook page here! I would love to know your favorite books for teaching kids to ask questions and what other strategies you use.

 

Five for Birthday!

I’m a day late linking up to Five for Friday, but I have a good reason.

(You can link up here at Doodle Bugs Teaching!)

#1- It’s my birthday! :) I’m still young enough to be excited about it.

My kids all sang happy birthday to me spontaneously yesterday, and a couple of them even got or made me gifts and cards. So sweet! (Plus, in FOUR DAYS, I get to see Phantom of the Opera on Broadway for my birthday. SO thrilled!!!)

#2 The leprechaun visited yesterday morning, too! (Yes, it was a little late, but we had Spring Break in there.) I made my traps optional for kids this year, but we still had some amazing ones come in.

I wasn’t sure if 3rd graders would still believe that a leprechaun visited, but I gave myself a great alibi, which helped!

#3- We have been focusing on non-fiction informational text this past week, and my kids are devouring it.

Next week we start researching animals to write our own non-fiction books!

#4- Another reason yesterday was awesome?

About 3 quarters of my class got a chance to be on Sparkling or the top of Sparkling yesterday. It’s mostly because I really really needed them to bring something back as soon as possible, and offered to let them clip up twice if they brought it back the next day- and, amazingly, 19/20 remembered it! Still, though, a couple of my kids earned their way to Sparkling for the first time ever, and they were so excited. What a great way to keep kids on their toes on a Friday!

And #5? We got over 90 new (and wonderful) books from Scholastic this week for our classroom, thanks to an amazing opportunity I have next week. My class went crazy over the new books.

Next week, I will be giving Scholastic some feedback about their Book Clubs. I would LOVE to hear your thoughts and any suggestions you have for me to take to them! :) If you have a couple of minutes, can you pretty pretty please answer these for me?

- Do you use Scholastic Book Clubs? If not, why not?

- What is your general feeling about Book Clubs this year? Has it changed since last year?

- What feedback have students/ parents given you about the program?

- What do you think of the online ordering system?

- What, if anything, do you do to encourage participation?

- How do you tie technology to literacy in your classroom?

- Do you use Scholastic’s app Storia? If so, what are your thoughts?

- What do you use teacher rewards, bonus points, coupons, etc. for?

- Do you have any other praise, complaints, suggestions, questions, or comments for Scholastic Book Clubs?

I’m going to have a giveaway later this week, and commenting with your thoughts about Book Clubs will help you get more entries- plus, I will be taking your feedback straight to the source to help make Book Clubs work better for you!

Plus… it’s my birthday! Thanks in advance for helping me out! :)

Currentlyyy

Already a month into the new year… and I’m still writing 2012.

Since making this a couple of days ago, we got Hulu Plus and totally caught up on Modern Family.

Funfetti and puppies are both hard to resist!

Seriously, people who use the wrong its/it’s, people who don’t use a turn signal, and people who are just plain RUDE drive me crazy. I have had a little too much of that last one this week!

On a happier note, my PTA is awesome about sending in our Box Tops, but actually divides the money earned by class. My class earned over $50, and my class and I picked out lots of new books with some of that money and my Scholastic points/ promos.

Today, the books arrived!

Pretty great, huh? I bought the “25 Books for $25” collection and lots of others. My kids were SO thrilled. 54 books for about $50 was fantastic!

We took a break from our normal afternoon routine to open the boxes, read our new books, and separate them by genre. I’m getting nervous about our testing (coming up in about a month), but it felt amazing to take a day off and let my kids just plain be excited about reading!

Owl Pellets!

Third grade at my school does owl pellet dissection. I hadn't done this since I was a student, sometime in middle school, but it was still every bit as cool in elementary.

One of my 3rd grade teammates ordered owl pellets online. When they arrived, I started teaching animal adaptations. (More on this some other time.)

After a few days, we started learning about owls. I didn't find a great book to introduce this, but I'm sure a classic like Owl Moon or Owl Babies could be tied in. Amazon tells me that Gail Gibbons has an owl book (so I'm sure it's fantastic), and there also appears to be one called Owl Puke: The Book. (If the kids in my class wouldn't gravitate toward that title, I don't know them at all.)

Next year I want to get my hands on a copy of this one, The Barn Owl: Animal Lives, because it sounds like a great book for vocabulary but also information specific to barn owls (the kind whose pellet we dissected). I have another book in the Animal Lives series, and it's great.

In the meantime, my kids got to explore the National Geographic for Kids' creature feature on Snowy Owls.  Surely every teacher knows about this site already, but if not, seriously, go to NG Kids. It's such a kid-friendly, interactive way to research animals.

Then, we worked through this Kidwings site together to learn more about owl pellets, specifically. This worked well on the SmartBoard, but this could also be a great site for kids to explore individually in the computer lab, especially with a notes guide.

The next day, we reviewed what we remembered and talked through some expectations (what they should expect to find in their pellet, but also what I should expect to see around the room). Then, we watched this Dirty Jobs owl pellet video:




I stopped it right as Mike Rowe held up a foil-wrapped owl pellet, and then I stood in front of them and pulled out a... you guessed it... foil-wrapped owl pellet! The transition was seamless.

And then we got started.

I gave my kids an Owl Pellet Dissection Data Sheet, which you can pick up for free on DropBox.

 

I also gave them this fantastic Bone Guide, which I found here: http://www.biologycorner.com/resources/Owl_Pellet_Bone_Chart_grid.pdf

My kids spent the first day exploring their owl pellets and separating bones from fur to start to identify them.

 
I gave them two small paper plates to separate the two things, but next year some kind of tray would work better.

At the end of the first day, we packed up the fur in one sandwich bag and the bones in another, and stored both in a paper lunch sack with our paper plates until the next day.

On the next day, we finished filling out our data sheets and then had a quick visit from our kindergarten buddies to explain what owl pellets are and show our findings.

Do you dissect owl pellets in your classroom? Any tips for me for next year?