Meet the Teacher Night

It was such a pleasure meeting all my new students tonight!  Thank you parents for taking the time to come in to meet me and see our classroom.  It is obvious that I'm going to have a classroom full of some very special and wonderful kiddos!  It was great to see their personalities start peeking through already this evening.  I have no doubt that we are going to learn a lot together this year and have lots of fun in the process!  Parents, thank you again for taking the time to fill out all those forms and most importantly, for trusting me with your child.  I promise that you will be amazed at how much they've grown and learned this year!  Because it's unfair that I should get to know more about your family and your child than you may know about me, I thought I'd share a little more about myself and answer some of the same questions I had you answer about your child. :)

Get To Know Your Teacher

My favorite subject in school was: Reading/English.  My wonderful English teachers inspired me to become a teacher myself!

I have 2 children. 1 boy (Andrew) and 1 girl (Sophia)

I have 5 pets. Their names are: Bohdi (Pomeranian), Lizzy ( Andrew's gecko), Lacy (Fancy Rat), Winter and Shelly (Sophia's Hermit Crabs).

During my free time I like to read, draw, travel and spend time with my family.

Something you probably don't know about me is: I have no will power when it comes to sweets!  Chocolate, candy, cake, cookies, I LOVE them all!

Things I'm afraid of: Clowns and Spiders

Places I have lived and traveled to: Illinois, Hawaii, and most of the US States.  I have also traveled to the Bahamas, France, England, Jamaica, the Cayman Islands, and Mexico. 

I am so excited to see everyone Monday morning and begin our journey through 2nd grade together!  Enjoy your last weekend of summer break!

T'was the Night Before School

T'was the night before school starts and all through the town,

The teachers were working, not playing around.

The bulletin boards were all designed and completed,

The parents were cheering,

summer finally depleted.

By eight the kids are washed

and tucked into bed,

where memories of homework

fill them with dread.

New pencils, new folders, new notebooks too,

new teachers, new friends, the anxiety grew.

The parents just giggled when they heard of this fright

and shouted upstairs-GO TO BED-IT'S A SCHOOL NIGHT!

All that needed to happen was one little thing —

The children should come,

and those bells, they should ring.

Unsure smiles were seen 

as they ran through the door.

Ready to learn this year, so much more!

Their bags were all stuffed

with school supplies anew.

And rules and pencils,

with erasers to chew.

The teachers, they celebrate with cheer in their eyes.

How we welcome that first day, our students a surprise.

No more time to prepare, no more time to consider,

Had we done enough, or would their enthusiasm pitter?

That if only we had another week to prepare,

such lessons we'd have, oh how the parents would stare!

But their eyes how they twinkle, their smiles so merry.

Their little cheeks became rosy like a cherry.

Into the room they rush, to their seats they bound,

I had better find a way to compose myself somehow.

When all of a sudden I hear,

A child in the back with an excited smile and voice so clear

"Teacher, 

what are we going to learn this year?"

Classroom Layout

When you become a teacher, the most exciting thing you think about is how you are going to decorate and layout your classroom.  Yes, we're excited to meet our student's but there's just something about getting a space that's "yours" to put a stamp on.  It's taken me a few years and a few classrooms to get it   just right.  Now, what works for me may not work for your space or your plans but there are some things that have been proven to be tried and true when it comes to creating a safe and rich learning environment.  I always try to keep those things in mind while planning my classroom layout.  This year I decided to go with an outer space theme because my students last year were so interested and engaged in our Science space unit!

Group seating facilitates small group teaching and collaborative learning.

This seating arrangement also allows students access to resources readily available in their groups.

One of the most common mistakes teacher's make is covering their classroom walls with decorations, charts, posters, etc...before student's arrive.  Although those types of things are "cute" students have no connection to them.  Studies have shown that charts and posters created WITH and BY students anchor their learning and give them ownership of the concepts.  There are some really great resources out there for anchor charts!  Google or Pinterest are awesome starts for examples, ideas and more info!

Bulletin boards and walls are left bare until students help create meaningful posters and charts to anchor their learning as the concepts are taught.  

My favorite part of any classroom is the library.  The classroom library is so much more than a collection of books for students to read.  While research shows that having a wide variety of books for students to read contributes to reading success,  students specifically need access to meaningful and personally interesting books.  Reading success is directly related to the frequency, amount and diversity of reading.  Creating and maintaining a rich, inviting and comfortable classroom library promotes greater amounts of reading, thus helping students gain greater levels of reading achievement.

The classroom library should be organized yet inviting.  Books should be sorted by genres instead of reading levels, in 2nd grade.

Classroom management also directly ties into your classroom layout.  You know your student's the best.  What works for my students, may not be ideal for your students.  Just like what works for one years class may not work with next years class.  The key is to reflect often and to remain flexible!

I'll update as the year gets underway to let you know how this layout is working out for us.  

But, you get summer's off!

If you're a teacher the chances are that you've heard this statement many times.  If you're not a teacher, the chances that you've said this to a teacher are even higher.  Non teacher friends, let me warn you that this statement has been known to elicit anger, steam coming from the nostrils, death stares, and an earful  when directed to us.  I'm not sure where the misconception that teacher's sit around lounging by pools, eating bon bons and vacationing for three months came from but I assure you this is not true.  For starters, we can't afford to go to both the pool AND buy bon bons.  It's one or the other.  Secondly, teacher's spend so much money preparing and stocking their classrooms during the summer that we couldn't afford to go on vacation if we even had the time.  That said, we LOVE what we do so much and are so passionate about teaching that most teachers spend their summers attending professional development workshops, reading up on new practices, reflecting on their last year teaching, hunting garage sales for good finds (books, furniture, manipulatives, games, etc...) and writing lesson plans for the upcoming year.  If we're lucky we might sneak in a day or two at the pool on dollar day.

After hearing the dreaded "but, you get summer's off!" statement yet again this week, I realized that if many of my friends had this misconception then it was likely that many of student's parents thought this as well, so I started asking myself; "How I can share my teaching and classroom experiences with parent's, friends, family, future teacher's, etc...?" Well, like all tech crazy teachers I figured I'd take it to "the net".  That ominous mythical but thriving entity that drives our current social media.

In this blog I hope to share with you my experiences as a 2nd grade teacher.  I also hope to find ways to incorporate my student's work into this blog as well.  It's already a huge part of their lives, they're already using it, so why not use it as a teaching tool, right?!  Killeen ISD is a unique district in the fact that the majority of our students are from military families.  I'm hoping that this classroom blog helps students connect with their deployed loved ones and their extended families, so they too can be part of their child's learning experience.  Whether you're a fellow teacher, a parent, a student or just find my bemusings entertaining there will be a little of something for everyone here.  Classroom and lesson plan ideas, experiences, meanderings, student work samples, and hopefully actual student publications.  Whatever the reason you're here, Welcome!  I look forward to this journey of "blogging" with you!