Reading Suggestions

Hi Everyone!

I was just wondering if anyone had any suggestions for useful education books to read (i.e. teacher books)? Either gen ed or special education? I have free time on my hands and want to put it to good use. I've already read The Book Whisperer and am working through The Daily 5 again.

Thanks for your help! Hope all is going well in your lives and classrooms!

Miss Smiling

Graduation

I've really been AWOL! I did not mean to be, but when one works, completes a practicum, and another class, one tends to get busy. All most all of that is coming to an end, so maybe I will be able to play catch-up!

Graduation is Saturday. This Saturday. WOW!! I only started grad school last fall. And now I'm going to be done! I just have one more paper to complete (due today, midnight..... yes, I'm procrastinating!) and then I have all my requirements completed (unless someone comes along and tells me otherwise, which I sincerely hope not!).

I really enjoyed my practicum in the resource room at my school! I learned so much from the teacher I was able to work with and from the kiddos in the program.

I'm truly enjoying my job as an instructional assistant, although at times I see and experience some of the kids not treating me with the same respect as a classroom teacher. I also feel much more ready to have my own classroom again. Maybe soon? Fingers crossed.

Ok, I guess I will stop procrastinating and get back to that paper. Hope all is well in everyone's classrooms and families, especially with the holidays!

MFC Part II (My First Classroom)

As promised, more of my first classroom pics! A few may be repeats, but I think we will be ok! :)

Here is the front of the room shot, without anything on the walls. This is about 2 weeks before school starts I think.

So come about January, I almost always get the urge to purge the classroom and rearrange a few things. Here is that process!!

Back of the room from the doorway. Can see our Saxon math meeting wall. Far left is library. Desks are smooshed up because I moved the kidney table to the back of the room (See next pic) and C L E A N E D all the junk out from under everything. Dust collects like nothing I've ever seen before!

Part of side wall from door. Cleaning cleaning cleaning! Yes, there is a small "oven" on a desk against the wall. This must have been near the time I did the lesson on making cookies.

Side wall with part of front wall. Job board is in purple under flag.

Front of room. Far right of pic is where my desk was. Still smooshed because of cleaning!

Trash PRE-major cleaning. Check out the recycle bin!

Clean groups, cleaner and organized teacher area! Sweet!

Check out my tidy rows!!!

Front of room CLEAN!!

Trash AFTER major cleaning! :) Ah, much better!

New School Year

Happy New School Year!

My new school started last week- we had a whole district meeting first thing last Monday, then broke off and met with our individual schools. Tuesday was a "day off" for everyone. And then Wednesday the kids came!

Let me just say, I LOVE my new school!! I know that I am not a teacher there, but as an instructional assistant I feel like I am just as involved, if not more, with everything. AND I love how kind and caring everyone is, including the students. Yes, there are a few stinkers, but overall, everyone is great!

I'm working primarily with the older kiddos- 4th, 5th, and 6th- and eventually will have a short time each day working with K/1 kiddos. All the kids I've worked with have been wonderful. All the teachers I get to work with are fantastic! They listen to ideas I have and really want to make me an asset in the classroom, not just give me busy work. :)

Tomorrow starts my *hopefully* last semester as a grad student! I am working on my practicum at New School and also taking a class on autism. I just got all the info on the autism class tonight- a bit nervous, but excited at the same time! Hopefully my book comes tomorrow so I can get started reading.

All for now. We have collaboration tomorrow morning at 7:30, so early to bed for moi!

Hope everyone is enjoying their new school year!

Guess What??

The missing pictures have been found! I'm transfering them over as I write this, so a MFC Part II is coming soon!

Also, I got a job! I didn't even apply for it, but went for the interview and the next day the principal called to offer me the job! I will be a part time instructional assistant for 3rd and 4th grade. In the afternoons I will also be able to complete my practicum for grad school which will allow me to be done in December, hopefully, as planned. :)

My First Classroom Part I

Michaele over at Kindergarten's 3 R's posted about her very 1st classroom, so I thought I'd share mine! Now, you have to remember, my first classroom wasn't all that long ago- 2007-2008, although it does feel like a great deal of time has passed.
My first teaching job was in a charter school and my first year of teaching was the first year it was opened. The building we were in was one of 6 buildings on a 20+ acre campus for K-6 (at the time; now K-8). The buildings were previously a YWCA and (a long time) before that the buildings were part of a Catholic orphanage.

Here is from when I first was able to see my classroom, pre-doing anything!




Ok this was the only picture I could find before I had done anything, even though I KNOW I had a few other pics! My classroom had NO windows! (Actually both of my classrooms didn't have windows, but that's a whole other story.)



Both of the above pics show all of my teaching stuff I moved into my classroom. Let the record show that the hallways and other classrooms were still being worked on and many of us did not have doors and no one had air conditioning, which is a pain without a window! You all know how it is! The right picture, including the yellow bin, are ALL of my children's library books at the time. I have MORE now. Yes, I have an addiction to children's books. I readily admit it!

So I then attempted to find the best set up for my classroom:



The left picture is a merging program I used (can't remember the name of it; it's been too many years!) to show a panoramic view of my classroom. I'm standing facing the class from that one and the one on the right I am standing in the back facing the front of the classroom.

I don't have a ton of pictures from this year for some reason. (I'm going to have to search! I know I have them somewhere!) In the right picture, where the easel is, is where I placed my teacher desk. Up from on the left where the kidney table is alternated 2x during the year. When I started the year, I left the table there so I could work with small groups.

In the picture with the yellow bin way above, I pushed the long table against the wall and made that a Writing Station and called it "Fishing for Writers" or something along those lines.



Looking at the two above pictures, I'm trying to remember the placement because these don't make sense to me. I must have switched sides of the room for my library after I first started setting up the room, I just don't remember doing that. This is not good to be forgetting so much at only 27!! **Update! I figured out WHY these don't make any sense- these are from classroom #2! So I'm not losing my mind! WHEW! :) **

Facing the kiddos, in the back left corner is where I placed my library. I know part way through the year I received a roll-y storage thing (storage on both sides) which I loved because I was able to store our Saxon math manipulatives on it.

Part way through the year I ended up moving the kidney table to the back and the long table to the front. I placed mailboxes on that and used my kidney table for small group lessons (as I could teach them). I also brought those wire storage cubes from college and put them behind the kidney table to store my reading program materials (SRA's Reading Mastery).

I'll keep my eyes peeled/search out my other pictures from my first year. I know I took LOTS of pictures that year because it was my first year and I wanted to remember everything!

So stay tuned for MFC Part II!

Summer Sick

Don't you hate it when you get everything done and the first week of freedom you have, you get sick? Yep, that's me this week. Nasty summer headcold :(

Am working on getting some pictures, etc, uploaded in the next week.

Hope everyone is enjoying their summer!