happy

sometime this past march, i was talking with sean about being stressed out at my job, and sean suggested that i focus on the future and what i wanted do after the school year was over. my reply was that i couldn't—i could only face one day at a time: thinking about anything beyond that was overwhelming. my only comfort was knowing that every day i went to work, there was one less day left.

i didn't realize it until now, but i think i was depressed. i feel so much different now. i like music again. i laugh a lot. i feel like myself.

i am getting more exercise. i'm drinking less. and i'm loving my job. i sleep soundly and i get up without snoozing my alarm (earlier than last year, no less). i feel so awake and driven and excited. and happy.

Summer Reading

Summer is winding down: one more week before I start setting up my (brand new!) classroom. This summer really flew. I didn't get as much done as I'd hoped (build a dining room table? read hundreds of picture books? not so much!) but I did do a lot of professional reading that has been really helpful. I really wish I'd read Small Group Reading Instruction, by Beverly Tyner, last year: I definitely could've used some of that insight into beginning and struggling readers with my third graders. She identifies five distinct stages of reading development and outlines in detail what readers at each stage need. I also really appreciate her clear-cut advice for guided reading instruction: she offers a very specific lesson format and scope and sequence for each stage of early reading. I'm sure I'll adapt it and make changes as needed, but I find it helpful to start from a framework rather than making it up from scratch (like I more or less have been to this point).

Right now I'm reading Growing Readers, by Kathy Collins. It's gotten me really excited about this year! Kathy Collins is part of the Teacher's College Reading and Writing Project, and I have used Lucy Calkins' units of study for reading both years I've taught and loved it. Kathy Collins definitely uses Calkins' approach to teaching reading, but Growing Readers is geared toward primary grades, which is so helpful to me in terms of building my knowledge of this grade band. It also has a lot more detail for how to make reading workshop work and lots of anecdotes about trouble-shooting typical difficulties. Something that surprised me is that guided reading is not the focus of reading workshop for her: conferring is. I have read about the importance of conferring, and I definitely confer with my students (I actually did it more than guided reading in my first year due to management issues and a dearth of guided reading resources) but it's never been the priority and the focus of my reading instruction. But I think if you understand what readers need and where they're at, it makes a lot of sense to prioritize conferring. Even when you have a guided reading group of students at a similar level, they are going to progress at different speeds and need different supports. I am excited to implement a reading workshop like she describes this year. Co-teaching will be a great opportunity to do a lot of conferring to be able to really differentiate on an individual level.

Google Art Project

I was browsing the teacher blogs I read today and came across a post about Google Teacher Academy (sounds like an amazing PD opportunity!). Among the cool stuff this teacher shared was Google Art Project. This is an amazing resource of tens of thousands of gigapixel images. And what's even more awesome is that you can search by just about any parameter you can think of: not only by collection, artist, and medium, but also by event, place, time, and person (artist or subject). This would be awesome for social studies and who knows what else!

Figure Drawing

In my 8 Weeks of School Left post, I mentioned doing some figure drawing, and now, just a mere ten weeks later (ugh) I actually got around to going to a figure-drawing drop in session. And it made me realize I should have done it sooner! I have not felt that level of focus in a while. When you are doing something fun yet relaxing that also requires intense concentration, it sort of makes your brain buzz, and drawing totally does that for me. It was great. I will definitely be doing more figure drawing, especially when school starts back up. It's nice to have something that takes up so much brain power that you can't think about anything else: that's definitely the sort of hobby I need during the school year.

Reading!

I have embarked on a reading project this summer. I want to read as many great picture books as I can so that I have a working knowledge of books that would be good for read-alouds. In the past I've either used chapter books or been frantically looking for books that would fit a particular strategy as I lesson-planned. I think that having a go-to list of books will be enormously helpful in planning more efficiently this year.

I found this great list of books by reading comprehension strategy over here at The Reading Lady. I am going to try and read most of these by the end of summer. I don't know all the books on the list but the ones I do know are high-quality so I am assuming the rest are as well. There are also great book lists at The Reading and Writing Project, broken down into different categories such as genre, multicultural literature, and good mentor texts. If you know of other sources for good read-aloud books let me know!

I am also reading Guided Math, by Laney Simmons. I have no idea where I picked this up or who (if anyone) recommended it, but it's been really interesting. Basically the author is taking the principles of balanced literacy and reading workshop and showing how you can apply them to math. It's also helpful that the examples she gives mostly come from primary classrooms, which is nice for me since I'm making a move to first grade in the fall.

I can't believe I start PD in one week! (Still have a dining room table to build—yes, it will happen. I am determined! The lighting fixture I also planned to build: probably not so much.)

Summertime

This summer is off to a great start! Turns out the key to getting a lot done is staying off the freaking computer. Yesterday I read You Can't Say You Can't Play, by Chicago Lab School teacher Vivian Paley. It's a pretty good (and fast) read. Basically it explores how kids exclude certain kids from play, and it's usually the same kids, and she creates a rule saying you can't say no. She also notices that kids very quickly create "bosses" for themselves, (either one kid makes him/herself the boss, or the other kids appoint someone the boss), and this boss is "in charge" of the excluding. Her rule (the title of the book) was effective in getting kids to include everyone in play but I found myself still wondering about the "boss" concept. Is this wired into our DNA somehow? One of the kids she talked to about this suggested it was a way of absolving the group of responsibility for decisions: if the "boss" said someone couldn't play, then it was only one kid not liking you, not all the kids. So interesting. Maybe I should do my own action research on this concept.

Once I finished the book (it's a quick read), I embarked on a deep-clean of the kitchen, which I am continuing today. After that I'll be starting on some web design I'm going to be working on this summer with Sean. Hopefully there will also be time somewhere for building a dining room table. I bought some old-growth 2x8s at Rebuilding Exchange, and I want to hire the guy who did some welding for our kitchen to build a base that looks something like this. I think the reclaimed wood and the dark steel base would look pretty cool. And then at some point, Sean and I want to take off to go to Estes Park for a couple weeks: busy busy!

Happy summer everyone!

mobility

One of the biggest challenges for me this year was the (extremely!) high mobility rate at my school. A couple people asked me for specific numbers and at the time I hadn't sat down and counted. Having just finished assembling our third grade yearbook, I had the chance to actually see how many students have come and gone from my class. Here's what a 39.5% mobility rate looks like:

Roster prior to the start of school: 30
First day attendance: 24 from roster
4 students transferred in within the first two weeks of school.
2 students left by the end of September.
1 more left in October.
2 students arrived in December.
3 students arrived in January.
1 student ARRIVED AND LEFT in April.
1 student LEFT THEN REENROLLED in April.
1 additional student left in April.
1 student left in May.
2 students left in June.

4 students neither started nor ended the year with us. In general, the students who transferred in mid-year had much poorer attendance than the rest of the class. They were sometimes absent whole weeks, or even multiple weeks at a time.

Total number of students transferring in (after the first two weeks of school, and not counting the same student transferring in twice): 6
Total number of students transferring out: 10

Next year I'm at a charter school. While I feel strongly about public education, as a teacher, I have to say I am looking forward to some stability in my classroom again. (My first year at Hope I had just one student transfer out: no other mobility).

Update: according to this page regarding how to calculate mobility rate, the actual mobility rate in my classroom was 47% (higher if you count the 4 students transferring in the first two weeks, which I haven't.)