Whoohoo! First day went great!

I was struggling with the decision on whether or not to start CAFE and Daily Five today. I decided to give it a go and I didn't make it to CAFE, but we did start Daily Five Read to Self and my kiddos LOVED it! and they did awesome!!! I am so excited to start CAFE tomorrow and continue with Daily Five!

School starts Monday!

It has been a long two weeks! One week of orientation all day for five days then this week it has been a full week of trying to work on my room! I have been without a/c all week in my classroom, I almost got moved from 2nd to Pre-k the day I started on my room because I was the only early childhood certified teacher and they couldn't fill the spot and many other little thorns through the week that have finally all been worked out. Finally my room is mostly ready for school to start on Monday. It has been exhausting! I still have some walls to fill, bulletin boards to complete BUT my prize CAFE and Daily 5 wall are done! My reading areas with pillows, chairs, books, lamps and ample floor space are done! I am ready and excited to be launching CAFE and Daily 5. My 2nd grade team is peering over my shoulder to see how it goes and I am a bit nervous! The launch may be delayed one week because of the delay in kids registering for school, but we will see. Here is my room for now!

Finally I got to see my room!

My room is quite a mess! My school is undergoing construction, the hallways are obstacle courses and my room apparently has become a collect-all. This week I have been in new teacher orientation but starting Monday I am going to dig in and begin reallocating items that do not belong in my room. They are also still putting up cabinets in my room. I am not to happy about having no windows at all in my room, so I am looking for ideas to make the room feel like it as windows. Here are the first pictures....

New school year is getting ready to start in a few weeks!

I have been hard at work planning lessons for the first week of school. I believe I mentioned before that I came across a teaching methodology called CAFE and The Daily Five. It is GREAT! I LOVE it! I don't think anyone in our area is using it, but I have been very hard at work reading and rereading and gearing up for the start of school. We report on July 31 and the students start August 5th here in Oklahoma City. Next week I will be attending orientation for the district and getting familiar with the curriculum tools and finally I will get to see my room and start planning the layout and hopefully putting my room together!!! I will have pics!! For those of you who are still enjoying summer, rock on!

Summer is here!

It's been a crazy few weeks in Oklahoma. Tornadoes etc. which have my a bit nervous because the school I will be teaching at barely escaped being wiped out and is in tornado alley so to speak. It was close again last night, although school is out. I have been thinking a lot about how I am going to deal with a situation where I have these sweet children to protect from such a monsterous thing. Two elementary schools close by were leveled completely from the tornadoes a few weeks ago. Gives us lots to ponder when it comes to safety. I have been reading The Daily Five and I have also been recommending those books to other teachers. I don't know why Oklahoma teachers are using this approach. I did go shopping a few weeks ago to look for some more stuff on sale and picked up a few things but I am still looking for game pieces. My laminator decided to take a vacation against my demands, but it is working with extra help. It is still trying to eat things so I am having to guide things individually as they come out, as to avoid getting munched up by the laminator, so it's taking longer to laminate.

One owl addition for the room!

Also, I went to Dollar Tree hoping for something interesting and summery, but I didn't find much at our  Dollar Tree. I did find one thing I was very happy about....white boards for literacy centers or games! They were only $1 each!

I also finally got my contract and paperwork completed with the district and I am attending an onboarding session on Tuesday. I am hoping that I will soon be able to see my room, meet the other second grade teachers and get my hands on the teacher books so I can start planning! So much to do! Oklahoma City has year round school, which means Monday is their first day of summer and I report to work July 31 and classes begin August 5th. I do think I am going to like the new schedule because the holiday breaks are longer and you also have opportunities to tutor for the district for $28 an hour! Not bad for making some extra money during the breaks!

Activities

I have been diving into learning CAFE, and now I realize I needed to buy the first book, The Daily Five, so tomorrow I plan on making a trip to Barnes and Noble to pick it up. I am really excited about the whole CAFE and Daily Five. The district I work in is an inner city district with a LOT of struggling readers. The school I will be teaching at has a large ELL population and I think CAFE is going to be very helpful. I would love to hear comments and suggestions from anyone regarding any of these subjects! Prior to diving in to these books I did take some time to print and laminate more activity stuff. I also found out that instead of buying my laminating sheets at office depot for $30 a box (50 count) I can get it on Amazon for $13 per box of 100. I felt stupid and had buyers remorse like never before. I order 200 and so I can't do anymore laminating until it gets here. In the meantime I am working on learning CAFE. I have also been sharing it with some extended family and friends that are also teachers. I have not seen anyone in Oklahoma using this (at least I don't personally know anyone). I did buy the book "I need my monster" and found a few activities but I really wanted more. I have been not only inspired but the help I have gotten from all these teacher blogs has been motivating. I created a few activities/games for the monster book that I wanted to share. I have to say that my ideas spun off of others. I haven't figured out yet how to post a doc but when I do I will post them as freebies. I would love to know what anyone thinks. I am new at this.

 

Simple Book Map. I saw this format on another one similar for a different book and I liked the simplicity of it. 

Above are the contraction cut out cards they can use to match up and then write on the sheet provided.

Sequence cards/flip book. I got the idea from a pack I bought and changed the theme basically.

Simple for inference. Read the book without letting students see pictures and draw a picture of what they think Gabe looks like and recall what features Gabe has that Tom was requiring of a substitute monster.

I have a few more but I don't have them completed yet. 

Remembering What It's All About

I wanted to share this because it moved me. There were reasons why I chose teaching as a profession. When I moved to Oklahoma I taught my first year unbeknownst to me, at the worst school in the city. My first year was so bad that I decided to go get my masters degree in something else. What I gained while studying criminals was an even deeper understanding into the serious social issues that impact kids in school. I learned a lot about poverty via Ruby Payne and through my education in Texas, but when I taught my first year in an inner city school I was unprepared for what I would face. I didn't quit because of the kids, I quit because of the lack of leadership and support that ultimately was causing the school to fail. I left because the mentality of the teachers at the school was to yell and scream and threaten kids into submission, which never worked. I left for a lot of reasons. I assumed that all the schools would be the same and for a few other reasons I opted to go back to school. During my studies in criminal justice I began to understand something that I couldn't understand before. The criminal justice system is the back end, it is what happens after these kids have been failed by schools, teachers, churches, communities, parents and peers. Once these kids wind up in the system it's mostly downhill. Most become repeat offenders. A large number don't finish school making it even harder for them to turn their lives around. Most do not have the relationships that would have or could have put them on a different track. My education has continued to teach me how important teachers are. The are very undervalued, overworked and underpaid and it is true that if you teach you teach because you love what you do and not for the money. (although most would appreciate better pay)  My 15 year old son came home and urged me to watch this video. I didn't want to, I was busy trying to learn about CAFE, I kept saying not now, later, I don't feel like it, but my son persisted and finally I gave in and I was so glad I did. I needed to watch this and stoke the fire in my belly. This video really just says it all and anyone who is a teacher understands. Teaching elementary is challenging and teaching inner city school kids is even more challenging and the things we see test us. I am just glad that I am back because I know I have all of my heart to give.