Sunday, October 4, 2015

October

To quote one of my students. " Where did August go?" and to that I add where did September go????
Our school is on the push for students making a goal and charting their data. I frequently gather data and adjust instruction to meet the findings so this is nothing new to me. I have not really charted it in the classroom for everyone to see mainly because I have limited wall space and a classroom full of students who are non-readers or emergent readers. I had two students meet their goal this week of knowing their math facts 0-3. Congratulations to these awesome guys.
H. making his goal and earning a trophy. You mustache him about his data if you see him.

J. with Dr. S. -look at the proud smile he worked really hard on this goal.

I keep hearing about "DATA DIG"  and wonder is this what they mean.  LOL!!!!
 
 
Upcoming Events both in class and at school
10/19- field trip to the pumpkin farm
10/19- pumpkin decoration contest
 
We are using Twitter in the classroom check it out
 
 



Sunday, August 23, 2015

New School Year

I am so far behind with my classroom blog and again I must apologize. We have been very busy learning our new routine and meeting our new classmates.  I did a complete redo in the room and it is much brighter and much more organized than it has ever been , YEAH!!!!!!!! Of course much like everything else I do with teaching it is a work in progress. It has been a struggle just getting a schedule together, but I finally have that in place.  We are changing things up a little this year, with recess in the morning when it is cooler, scheduled time for TEACCH task/IEP goal instruction. As far as the room I will include a few pictures, I love color and of course purple is the best color.
Parent conferences- I will begin scheduling those with parents this week just to have face time and to catch up with the parents on what has changed with their student over the summer.

Star Testing- We completed that last week thanks to Mr. Lent for taking students to the content mastery lab while I gave direct instruction in the classroom.

This year we are planning a very positive year and this includes no behavior chart in my classroom. WE have rules and if one is broken then we decide together what would have been a better choice using the good choice/bad choice anchor chart. I am very proud of how well this has worked so far and I believe it will continue to be a positive part of the day for the kiddos.

 
Reading Area/Ground Zero for Ms. Grady

Writing Area/ Breakfast in the room area

Class rules/voice level

The school theme is super heroes, we used the photo booth for a quick photo session.

Some heroes prefer to show their faces, LOL. 


         My favorite wall in the entire room.  This wall took Kelly ( my wonderful son and I two trips to the school to finish). This is the anchor wall for math. I love the colors and how it gives my classroom a visible break in areas. I am teaching from centers for the first time in a very long time and loving it.


The great divide between reading and math. Green is the main color on the math side and purple is the main color on the reading side. I love purple and Mrs. Williams, my paraprofessional loves green we had to have both colors. I love it and the kids all seem to love he bright colors, it was the first thing they noticed this year.

Wednesday, June 17, 2015

Yeah! it's summer

I do hope my students are enjoying their summer break. I have working of course on my doctorate, but also on task boxes and other tools for use in the classroom. I am redecorating the classroom. Each year it feels more like my classroom. Those of you who are familiar, I took over midyear three years after moving from another school in the district. I have always heard that your third year is the hard year and I will agree. Looking forward, I am excited about the changes in the classroom I am implementing for fall for everyone staff and students. My goal is to teach each one of my children on their ability level and continue to grant access to the common core curriculum.

I will keep this a short post, since its HOT outside.  Have a great summer and continue to follow my Pinterest Boards for classroom and TEACCH tasks, these are ideas I am implementing in the fall.

Monday, April 13, 2015

Outdoor Classroom

WOW! We are taking on the outdoor classroom at school, which needs some TLC. The classroom is a small greenhouse built in memory of a former teacher at the school. I hate to see it in shambles and this will work with the plant life study we are completing. Of course the outdoor classroom will be an ongoing project just like the recycling program we already are in charge of at school. Tomorrow will be the first day the students will visit the outdoor classroom (weather permitting). Unfortunately the weather is not cooperating this week. Other GREAT news!!!!! We are on the way to having our second Donors Choose project funded. This has been a blessing for the classroom. Wednesday has become our collaboration day with Mrs. Busby's class and SWAT team is blooming. Mrs. Busby's class helped with egg dyeing and the egg hunt the week before break. It was too muddy outside, but we used the hallway for the hunt and had a blast. We have a field trip planned for the SWAT team next month and hopefully our t-shirts will be ready. This week we are studying plant life cycle, learning new vocabulary words, and of course expanding our knowledge of Touch Math.

Wednesday, March 11, 2015

Teacher's Wish List

I am continuing to learn how to add detail to the blog. I am posting a link to Teacher's Wish List, which has several class wish lists for my classroom.

Monday, March 9, 2015

Visual Schedules

With the help of the paraprofessionals and a wonderful donation of colored ink from Donors Chose, I am creating new visual schedules for the classroom. Often we think of visual schedules as simply telling us what we are doing next, but they are and can be so much more than that. Anyone who has visited my classroom knows we are the recycling crew for Frank Long. I am in the process of implementing a visual schedule for each step of the recycling process. We have a center set up with color coded containers and signs outside of the classroom. To this we owe huge thank-you to Keith our custodian, he ordered us the new cans complete with lids and wheel bases. This enables the students to sort paper, plastic, ink cartridges and cardboard, sorting is a job skill for my classroom. Other great and wonderful news includes approval of fundraisers for the class which include; Funding Factory, My Coke Rewards, and Labels for Education. The goal of these in class fundraisers are to purchase needed supplies within the classroom such as textured paper for beginning writers, expo markers, laminate sheets, and the continuing supply of colored ink for making PECS cards and cues for visual schedules. The class finished their collaborative media festival project with Mrs. Busby's class, it is amazing. I would like to thank Mrs. Busby for going above and beyond with this project. I am just a little biased, but I hope our project wins. I think this would be the ultimate if the SWAT team won on their initial year. We are planning to order t-shirts at no cost to parents for the students to wear in class on Wednesday. GAA is finished for this year for the children. I know they are as relieved as I am about this. They have each worked so hard and not complained when given assessments to complete or asked to leave their comfort zone to work in another classroom or with another teacher. I will post pictures of the recycling center at a later time on the blog for everyone to see and hopefully give comments about on the blog.

Monday, February 2, 2015

February 2015

As the students are working so hard on their goals, I feel as if I am not setting a good example with my goal of updating the blog more often. We have had a very busy year and are learning so much from each other. Every child in the classroom has shown progress this year and it is amazing to watch. I am so thankful for the new 3-D Touch Math numerals we have now in the classroom. I am keeping my fingers crossed that more of my projects on donors chose.org will be funded. Today is Groundhog Day and we watched a wonderful online book about groundhogs and also watched Phil make his prediction for the spring. I try to incorporate as much current events into our curriculum as possible, often using News 2 You. The students are learning map skills, writing sentences, labeling pictures and key vocabulary from our weekly newspapers. We are continuing to focus on GAA which will wrap up the first of March. This morning we used a 3-D coordinate plane to identify points on a graph with the assistance of a fifth grade teacher and her students. I love how everyone helps me when I need assistance with generalizing the assessment. Thank-you so much to all of the wonderful staff and students at Frank Long Elementary who help us with our projects. If you are in the building speaking of projects please come see the recycling sorting center that Mrs. Cowley made for us in the hall. Mrs. Cowley is the newest member of our team and truly goes above and beyond to help the students. I will not make this a lengthy update and will stick with my goal of adding an entry a week to the class blog. Happy Learning!!