Changes

It has been quite awhile since I have posted...It's crazy how time flies. Last year, I moved back to Michigan from Tennessee, started a new job teaching Kindergarten, moved in with a great friend from college, and met my amazing boyfriend. It was an exciting and busy year! This year while there aren't quite as many changes there are still a few. I will be switching from sharing an apartment to being on my own again and the new place is across the parking lot, so not bad. ;-) I will miss my roomie greatly, but she's only about 30 mins away. I will also be moving from Kindergarten to 1st grade. I cannot be more excited about this move! Not only will I get to work with some of the same kiddos again, but I get to work with an amazing teaching partner and move to a much bigger room!!

I choose to do summer school this summer instead of tutoring. It has allowed me to enjoy my summer more and ease back into school mode these past four weeks. We are on our last week of summer school and then next week starts staff professional developments. I've been slowly working on my classroom after summer school. Here are some before pictures...I'll have some after pictures in a week or so after I'm finished prepping for our Open House.

This is the back of the room with a sink and bathroom.

Back corner of my room, where I will be putting my library.

Love all the windows!

This area will be where my teacher work space and group will be set up.

Front of the classroom with projector, screen, and ipad stand.

Doorway and some great storage. (There was a lot of moving around in our district...hence the boxes)

More storage... :-)

 It has a ton of space and some great storage, which I am super excited about. We've had some big changes in our district for this upcoming year. We added a STEM academy, so we had to reorganize staffing and we went from three sections at each grade level to two. So...I currently have 30 students on my class list and we have students enrolling everyday. I am feeling very, very thankful for all this space. It's going to be a big change from last years 24 students. Thankfully, I have an amazing full time paraprofessional who will be moving to 1st grade with me. (We have full time parapros in each classroom K-5...it's pretty awesome!) Another change this year is that we will be having a new principal. Our previous principal moved to a different role in the county this summer. We just found out today who are new principal will be. I cannot imagine how big of a transition that will be for her since we have about two weeks until students start!

We will also be starting a new math curriculum, Go Math! from Houghton Mifflin. I'm very happy that we will now have a curriculum that meets our standards. There was data on our previous curriculum that showed it had a negative impact on student achievement...yikes! I'm a little nervous about the new curriculum, because we will just be getting it a week before school starts. It will be interesting to see how this year of changes goes. I'm hoping to keep up with this blog more this year and to start a teachers pay teachers store with some of the many worksheets, activities, and organizational tools I've been working on over the summer.

Thanks for checking in. I'd love to hear from you. Especially, if you have any experience with Go Math!

Content Area Literacies:Text Set

Our schedules have become more and more packed each year. According to the schedule, given to me at the beginning of the year, I have only three twenty minute blocks that are not already planned for me. We have 130 minutes of reading, 45 minutes of math, 20 minutes of science and social studies, and 20 minutes of writing. I teach kindergarteners they need breaks and time to stretch and get their wiggles out. The best way to make room is to integrate different content areas. Through my current graduate course I have learned that it is easy to integrate reading and writing into other content areas.

One way to do this is through a text set. Text sets are a collection of books that are subject specific and used to supplement traditional text books. According to Tovani (2004), “the secret to creating a text set is to have several texts about a topic that vary in length, format, and genre” (p.44). Text sets offer a variety of texts for students to choose from based on their interests and reading level. Text sets can be easily differentiated for a wide range of learners. I created a text set for a kindergarten unit called, “Where I Live.” I included examples of the following:

• Picture Book (Fiction)
• Picture Book (Non-Fiction)
• Counting Book/ABC Book
• Lists
• Atlas
• Website
• YouTube

Resources

Tovani, C. (2004). Text Sets: A Supplemental Alternative. In Do I really have to teach reading?: content comprehension, grades 6-12. Portland, Me.: Stenhouse.