BULLYING

It's a big topic in the news, and rightfully so. I always start the school year with "team building" exercises and planting the importance of feeling and being safe at school. Some lucky tykes get off the bus to a warm, loving family ready to talk about the day and assist with homework. Others, are not so lucky. I fear I've taken the approach of "how not to be a bully" more head on then "what to do if you are bullied". I also fear that these lessons are not frequent enough. Sigh...
It's never too late. My amazing second grade students started opening wounds of bullying today that was just the beginning of an ongoing lesson. Possibly a daily lesson. As I watch the news at night, or hear myself say during the day, "that's not very friendly, please say you're sorry", I recognize the importance to time devoted to a topic that will follow them throughout their lives. Pictures and updates to come.
For now, an incredible resource for elementary educators to access when planning lessons dealing with a topic that's tough...but necessary!!!

Word Sorting

Word sorting with patterns /oi/ and /oy/. They love it!

Sharing Art with the Community

Children's Art Walk
We signed up! I'm proud to announce that my brilliant second grade students will be involved with the Allied Arts children art event this year! I'm so excited to get started on their projects and perfect them before the big opening day. Art, what a great way to start May...

Happy St. Patricks Day

I should have done my homework! And by homework, I mean eat lucky charms and distinguish each marshmallow for it's name and design. My school participated in a Nationwide Lucky Charms math lesson with counting, graphing and sorting the eight different marshmallow shapes that are mixed in the cereal box. However, this teacher didn't do her homework and the data was actually inaccurate up until lunch. I had my class graph the wrong marshmallows because I didn't have the ability to decipher which was which. It wasn't until eating lunch with a staff member that I found out the correct names of the marshmallows. Sigh... It only took a few minutes to fix the small error, but my students got it right, and we were able to enter our information on time! Our prediction was that the pots of gold marshmallow would have the greatest number, and rainbows would have the least.

It's time to Garden!

Happy Spring also means Happy Gardening! Our school is fortunate enough to have a school garden which I am lucky enough to be on the committee. My students love it! We just started measuring the bulbs we planted a few months back, and now it's getting to the time where we get to plant again:) Here are some pictures of our garden in progress...

Teacher Talk on the Street

David Matteson.  He's the latest teacher talk on the street and he just happened to come to my school to give a training. When my literacy coach told me that David would be giving a lesson in my classroom and all the teachers would watch, I was more than excited! There's nothing more that I enjoy than showing off how smart and wonderful my students are.

Training day. I put on my most adorable teaching outfit and mentally prepared myself for day. It all happened so fast. Coffee in the morning. Chit chatting before the meeting began. The teachers from other schools were pouring into our school library with clipboards ready to take notes. I was getting more and more nervous as the time was getting closer.

Before the big day, I of course cleaned and organized my room, but it's not easy for a large group of people to go into your classroom, look around, and judge.

David was the person presenting the lesson. He sat my students on the carpet, surrounding them were about 20 teachers, a camera crew, superintendent, principals, and me...their proud teacher.

I cross my fingers and the lesson begins. It doesn't come to any surprise to me...but they did awesome! Raising their hands with comments like...

"you need to take out the e if your going to add an ing"

"don't erase, that takes too much time"

"you need to put an e at the end because the vowels says it's own name"

"igh makes the i sound"

"my teacher tells us that we're smart cookies"

The list goes on, but it was great! It's going to on video on his website and I hope to have access and share it with others. It feels so good when my students shine in front of others and reminds me that my job is important and giving it 110% is worth it in the end.

My classroom survived David Matteson. Not all teachers can say that.

"That Teacher"

I admit it, I'm "that teacher" who brags about her students and their perfection. The teacher who raises her hand at staff meetings to share how awesome her students are. Yes, I'm that annoying teacher. Other teachers tend to roll their eyes and force a smile towards my comments. Today was different. Today was amazing! After my routine grading this morning, I realized my entire reading group with the exception of one passed their theme test with 80% or higher. The one child who didn't pass was only one quesiton off with a 78%. I was sooo proud of them today that I decided to have a little celebration. Not knowing that the grading would be superior, I had nothing planned (no cookies, treats, or games planned). So I improvised. After celebrating the scores, I told them that I wasn't going to teach a lesson today and they could have 30 minutes of free reading! The room burst into cheer! I spiced it up a bit letting them sit where they want, and even partner read! They were so excited and happy with their earned celebration. Wow. That's something to brag about. It was such an exciting teaching day for me today, and I bragged to everyone I saw! Here are some pictures I took during our little "passing reading celebration"

Other teachers thought I was crazy for using reading as a reward at the end of the day for those who earned the extra time. I've stuck with it, and now I have a room full of readers who love to read! That's something to celebrate:)

Professional Learning Community Summit

Solution Tree put on a Professional Learning Community (PLC) Summit in Phoenix, AZ this past week. It was because of the grant that I helped write that allows groups of teachers to be flown around the globe to attend these summits. I wasn't sure what to expect, but I thoroughly enjoyed it. Lummi Nation School is already implemented the PLC model, so I felt a bit ahead of the game which made me feel good. I still learned a lot and my questions regarding interventions were cleared up. I'm excited to get back to work and share the new knowledge from the past week.