Teacherof20

Back to school is almost here and I've been looking at other blogs and pintrest to get ideas on how to set up my classroom. The ideas I've liked so far are labeling your classroom materials with these labels . What I like about them are they have the pictures of each item right next to the label. I'm thinking of using these to label my back to school baskets for when parents come to drop off materials. I've found that if I don't clearly label where materials go, my classroom end up with materials everywhere at the end of "Meet the teacher"night! I also like this idea for meet the teacher night. Again, this gives parents a simple guide to follow as they are visiting with each other and with me. I think this step by step guide allows me to facilitate and visit and also give them a clear expectation of what they need to do before they leave that night. This teacher puts all her meet the teacher handouts in gift bags for parents at each student desk. This ...

As I mentioned, I am very familiar with the book The Daily Five, and have been implementing it in my kinder classroom for several years now. This year my goal is to expand on that by using the Café Book as a guide on data collection for each student as well as to teach the metacognitive strategies in the book for readers to monitor their reading. I have already set up my binder, or Pensieve (as the book refers to it) the way it is described in the book so it is ready to go for August!  At the beginning of the binder is a class list. In it the teacher marks what date she will meet with that student again. This is a quick visual of how often I am meeting with each student. It will help me keep track of students that I need to meet with everyday, as well as those that may get forgotten about. It will give me information when the last time I met with a high reader was, and if I should meet with that student again. Instead of names, I put numbers on the forms because it helps me mainta...

Hi bloggers! I have been busy preparing for next year. I got a job in a different district, teaching kindergarten again. However, unlike my current class, who is generally homogeneously grouped, next year I will have all different ability levels in my classroom. My goal will be to differentiate instruction so that all learners are challenged. I have a few ideas of how I hope to accomplish this. For math, I plan to have a whole group lesson at the beginning of class. This may involve either a pre-assessment to determine ability grouping, or just an informal assessment with white boards at the carpet area. From there, I will have choice time. There will be 10 tubs available to students for choice time while I meet with groups. Inside the tubs are activities/games of concepts we’ve already learned, or things tied to this unit’s objective. This is determined by how much of the class needs to review concepts previously taught. The tubs are labeled 1-10. In the 1-3 tubs will be activiti...

It is the beginnning of school, and we have a week to get our classrooms ready. I am doing this, while commpleting my masters in Education, and getting ready for maternity leave in November! I want to be extra organized this year so that my LTS can pick up right where I leave off. I don't want my maternity leave to be a disservice to my students. All the bloggers I've seen have been an inspiration to me. In this blog entry, I will explain some of the plans I have for this year, as well as include pictures of my classroom. I spent a good 11 hours in my classroom on Thursday. The large part of that time was spent cleaning out closets and organizing things. This year, I plan on really focusing on my reading groups. I have allocated a spot behind my guided reading table where I put the activities I'm doing with each group. These will be in the blue, yellow, and red tubs behind my kidney table seen below: Next to the tubs you can see my guided reading shelf. Above it, ...

In Kinder, we teach one sight word a week at the beginning of the year, and two sight words a week towards the end of the year. In all, we learn 40 sight words throughout the whole school year. An effective technique I've found for teaching these is making flashcards for each of my students at the beginning of the year. I run off a template on card stock, and cut out the flashcards. The week that I teach them, I hand them out to the students. They write their name on the back of the card, and have a sight word bag (zip lock bag) in which they collect their sight words. The template looks like this:

Hi bloggers! I am a kindergarten teacher looking to get and share ideas. This summer, I will be organizing my math and literacy station games and activities. I am hoping that this blog will help me accomplish this, as well as share some of these with readers like you! Stay tuned...