Five for Friday!

Once again, I am linking up with Doodle Bugs Teaching for Five for Friday!

 This week is mostly focused on technology in the classroom, so take a peek and enjoy!

Feel free to link up, also! :)

I know that I have written about Go Noodle before, but I have to bring it up again. We may not be trying to thaw out from under 6 feet of snow, but here in Connecticut, it has been bitterly cold -- into single digits when you include the wind chill and very few of my students own winter coats! Many of my kiddos get their coats from local charities, but those are rarely delivered before Thanksgiving. All I know is that Go Noodle has been my saving grace! My kids love working to earn more Go Noodle time and it definitely helps to shake some of those wiggles out! Some of my kiddos' favorite activities are the yoga ones!

One of the greatest benefits that I have seen is that one of my students with fine and gross motor interventions written into her IEP has flourished! Her motor-planning and cross-body capabilities have improved ten-fold! Additionally, her confidence is through the roof and I honestly attribute it to her time on Go Noodle!

Pebble Go has been a God-send! Really! Anyone out that in bloglandia use it?! I was introduced to Pebble Go by a colleague during the summer while we worked in a program for English Language Learners in grades 4-8. For those who don't know, Pebble Go is a research database for the emergent reader. Students have the opportunity to research assigned topics (or topics of interest) at an emergent reader level! 
Unfortunately, there is a fee, but this summer I proposed it to my Principal and she agreed that Pebble Go is a must-have for any school!

This has been one unbelievably stressful week in first grade for everyone. Unfortunately, there have been some changes at our school -- some first grade students were shifted around to other classes, one of whom landed with me. This young girl is lovely. She is one of the most intelligent students I have met. She is also very needy. And loud. And she is not handling the class change very well. Additionally, one of my loopers moved this week and boy oh boy do his friends miss him already!!
In school, we haven't had either administrator present for the past 3 days for various reasons and... there's a long weekend coming up, so I'm sure you know how that goes!! As a class, we have been working diligently to keep things in order, to stay focused, but my kiddos are a little shell-shocked. So many changes, so much inconsistency. In their own special ways, my students are begging for things to change.
Today, we took a walk. We are truly blessed to live but a block away from the beach. Even in the New England cold, it was such a calming experience. We all engaged in a Visual Thinking Activity and took some time to discuss how things change. It helped me to feel rejuvenated and I feel ready for that last push to the holiday weekend. 
How do you get your class centered after crazy times? How do you help them to stay focused when everything around them is pulling their attention?

Two years ago, our school received a grant for 30 Chromebooks and a Chromebook cart.
Last year, our district received a grant and placed an additional 30 Chromebooks in each school.
This year, our school has purchased an additional cart and 30 more Chromebooks allowing 30 Chromebooks to "live" on each floor of the building!
Beginning this week, I was asked to house the Chromebooks for grades PK-1. I have been spending some time working with my kiddos on how to log into them, how to make sure that the wifi is working, and how to choose and activity to work on. They make me very proud! Having the cart has enabled me to add 2 more "Tech Buddies" to our Job Chart, totaling 4 students deemed our Computer Experts! These kids are so intuitive, even for a group that of 24, I am personally aware of 11 that do not have internet in their home at all. These kids blow my mind every day. I am so glad that the district and our Principal see the importance of providing us with the necessary tools to teach our kids at their level.
Additionally, it allows me to provide my Tier 2 and Tier 3 students with the resources they need to get in their minutes on Lexia! <3 Lexia... but that's a post for another day ;)

Last Friday, I entered our classroom to find that Master Splinter's cage had been moved to another part of the room. Naturally, I thought it to be very odd and immediately checked on our little fella. As I approached the cage, it was clear that something was wrong. Normally, our guy is curled up sleeping under a pile of bedding with his face peeking out. I didn't see him! I opened the cage and dug through all of the nastiness that is a hamster cage and he was nowhere to be found! Upon further inspection of the cage, it was clear that someone had removed a piece. Now, we had conferences the night before so I was at the school until 8:00pm. But, I did leave the classroom unlocked for the last half hour while I met with parents in our school library. When my kiddos came up to our room later that morning, I was worried about their reactions. I didn't want to tell them what had happened and scare them unnecessarily, but at the same time... I hoped that they wouldn't notice. You see, Master Splinter is nocturnal and he sleeps almost all day. Unfortunately, they noticed pretty quickly that he was missing and it broke my heart to tell them what happened. We. Looked. EVERYWHERE! But we just could not find him. We placed treats along the baseboards and turned out the lights in case he was still in the room. 
He didn't come out.  On Monday, the treats were still there. On Tuesday, the treats were still there . On Wednesday, we cleaned up the stale treats and put out new ones. My kids were distraught. On Thursday morning, we were sitting on our magic meeting carpet when one of my students began to yell, "Master Splinter! He's back! HE CAME BACK!" I honestly didn't want to look. I was SO nervous that he would be sick, injured, or worse... When I did check, however, I found Master Splinter, our lovely little class pet, walking around at the bottom of a tote bin that I store my morning meeting manipulatives in. It was clear that he had been there for days... I think he got in and didn't know how to get out. The whole class was cheering and I may or may not have teared up a little. They were ecstatic, I was relieved, and I didn't have to report a missing rodent to the custodial staff. Everybody won!
When we got him back into his cage, we found that he was STARVING -- he ate SO MUCH food, SO QUICKLY! I called the vet and they told us to monitor intake and output of both food and water.
My kids are ecstatic to have him back! Just look at that little face! Love<3
Definitely something to be thankful for!

7

Apple!

This summer, my Principal approached me about ways in which I currently utilize technology in the classroom and limitations that I have. She began to ask me a number of questions about strategies for teaching and making connections between school and home. After receiving probably 4-5 days' worth of questioning via email, phone calls, and texts, I finally asked her what was going on and she explained that she was pulling together information for a grant application.
Soon, she pulled together a small committee, myself included, to review and enhance her application based on teacher need. In early October, representatives from Apple came out to our building to speak with administrators, teachers, and students as well as to make notes of our technological infrastructure and last week, it was finally announced..

Roosevelt School in Bridgeport, CT is the proud recipient of the Apple ConnectED Grant for the 2014-2015 school year!!



With the grant comes iPads for every student in the building, iPads and Macbooks for every teacher, AppleTV for every classroom, added access points for wireless internet throughout the building, updated technological infrastructure to improve speed and connectivity, and my favorite part... Professional Development! Every teacher will be given support in integrating all new technologies!
I am so excited and honored to have been a part of the process and cannot WAIT to share so many new and exciting technological opportunities with my students!! Upon notification of our school's selection, we were asked to make wish-lists of iPad apps for the classroom.
So, I ask you... what are your go-to apps? How do you Apple products (iPads, iPods, Apple TV) in the classroom? Don't hold back!! If you do not currently have the technology you would like, what would you put on your wish list?

0

Summer School Review

Ayyyyoooo!! I am sad to say that we have returned from our cruise. While there are oodles of exciting things coming up in the next few weeks, it was just so lovely to be away... just the hubster and myself. One of my favorite things about cruising is that there is no technological temptation. It takes me a few hours to get used to not checking my phone every 4.5 seconds, but it ends up being such a blessing to just cut ourselves off from the rest of the world and be totally immersed in paradise. Now that I am over a week removed from the end of Summer School Programs 1 & 2, and set to start Summer School Program 3, I thought it would be a good time to debrief the first two programs. You can CLICK HERE to check out how each program was set up in terms of student demographics, etc... but here is where I divulge the process... the ups and downs... the ins and outs... and give my ultimate evaluation of each program. Program #1 District Summer School
Training: 2 hour session in mid-June. Supplies were handed out and a packet including a list of Dolch and Fry words was given. This packet also included recommendations for activities to teach sight words.
Supplies given: 

• 25 pencils
• 15 boxes of crayons (8 crayons per box)
• 1 package of sentence strips
• 1 box of chalk

Sight Word Activities:

• Sight Word BINGO
• See and Spell word
• Cheer and Chant
• Blast Off

Week 1: 5 students attended. I assessed all students using my own sight word assessment -- available in my TpT Store HERE. I found that of my 5 students, only 1 students knew more than 10 of the 50 words. I knew that I had to jump right on the sight word wagon , ESPECIALLY considering the students with whom I was working were in grades 2 and 3. Based on their DRA2 scores, even though my students were in 2nd and 3rd grade, the highest student was barely at an end-of-Kindergarten reading level as our district requires students to be on a level 4 entering 1st grade. Sight Words for the Week:

• the
• like
• got
• of
• from

Read-Alouds for the Week:

• Huck Runs Amuck (Monday-Tuesday)
• The Relatives Came (Wednesday-Thursday-Friday)

Poem of the Week: Down By the Bay Skills for the Week:

• CVC words
• Word families

Week 2: 11 students attended. We continued with our schedule and the kids got right into the swing of things!
Sight Words for the Week: Read-Alouds for the Week: Poem of the Week:  Skills for the Week:
Week 3: 15 students attended.
Week 4: DRA testing ALL. WEEK. LONG. By this point, I had 17 students. Sadly, 2 of them began attending this week so it made it a little difficult. I tested them last, but they demonstrated no growth. Each morning we followed the same schedule...

• 8:30 am: Arrival/Breakfast/Attendance
• 9:00 am: Morning Meeting
• Greeting
• Question of the Day
• Poem of the Week
• Skills practice (i.e. short vowels, blends, magic e, etc...)
• 9:30 am: Read-aloud
• 10:00 am: Literacy Centers
• Roll-Write-Stamp-Build
• Computers -- Lexia
• Fluency Practice
• Teacher Group
• Sight Word games with my Paraprofessional
• 11:00 am: Writing Activity
• Usually a quick-write followed by skills practice
• 11:30 am: Share-Out
• 11:45 am: Sight Word Song or Game
• 12:00 pm: Lunch
• 12:30 pm: Dismissal

Being that only 15 students attended on our busiest day, no group was larger than 3 students at any time and on many days, students were able to work independently. On these days, I was at first concerned that the kiddos would get distracted wanting to work with a friend, but each student really took ownership of their work and ended up being incredibly focused! I was so surprised! This also allowed me plenty of time to get through assessing each student when the program began to wrap up.

When all was said and done, of the students who consistently attended the program, 4 students improved their DRA2 score of at least 1 level.

Program #2 Principal-Funded Cusp Program   Training: None -- My Principal handpicked members of our staff based on our various skills.
Weekly breakdown: Each week ran in the same manner. All students were present from Day 1. We followed a Balanced Literacy approach -- Short, targeted mini-lessons in the areas of phonics, vocabulary, fluency, and reading comprehension followed by workstations and small group teacher stations to better enhance skills taught. Student to teacher ratio was 4:1 which was phenomenal and I had the opportunity to co-teach with one of my closest friends!
Assessment: We used the DRA2 as well as the assessment from my Sight Word Assessment Pack (find it HERE) to monitor student progress. At the end of the month-long program, the students averaged a growth of 11 sight words and a DRA2 growth of 1 level.
Final Determinations
Of the two programs, which would I be the most likely to participate in again? Honestly, each had it's Pros and Cons. The first is a tried and true program that runs every year and therefore, a number of elements have been in place and the department running the program is incredibly organized.
The 2nd program was a pilot through a grant that my Principal acquired. She relied heavily on our Assistant Principal who is transitioning to Principal of her own school (Yay! Congrats, Ms. M! You totally deserve it!) and there were times when we all felt uneasy with the organizational level. But honestly, any pilot is shaky.... and when it comes down to it, our kids really showed growth. It was wonderful to spend so much time with our Tier 2 students and really work to push them over that hump.
I am incredibly proud of the work that I did this summer. Hopefully, I will have the opportunity to do something similar next year.
But, for now... let's get back into that classroom of mine and get it set up! I've got 24 little faces to prepare for!

0

Five for Friday!

It's that time again!! Make sure you check out Doodle Bugs Teaching and link up to join in on the fun! :)

I have been super lazy since returning from the cruise. It is so hard to get back into the groove of things since our week of relaxation filled with pool decks, casino games, beaches, and SO MUCH more! We returned on August 3rd and both jumped back into work on August 4th. The third round of summer school began on Monday and I am really excited to share out about it, but.... I just had to post this view we had as we left Port Canaveral!

As I mentioned, I started my third and final round of summer school. This program is designed for World and English Language Learners -- we call it WELL. It is designed to support ELLs while including regular ed students through teaching Spanish and Chinese. The above photo is of a quilt we made on our first day of class. We asked each child to incorporate their heritage and a culture of their choice into a quilt square. I think that it came out just BEAUTIFULLY!

While Dave and I were in Port Canaveral, we took some time to visit Kennedy Space Center. Before this trip, I had never been and Dave hadn't visited since he was...maybe 8 years old. We had a BLAST! (Ha! No pun intended, I SWEAR!!) They had tons of exhibits... we took a bus tour to check out the launch pads and Vehicle Assembly Building, got to get up close and personal the last NASA shuttle to ever launch, Atlantis, met two different astronauts, and took plenty of goofy photos.

HOWEVER, our favorite part was...

THE LAUNCH!! We lucked out! The Delta V rocket had attempted to launch on 4 different days and was scrapped each time, but WE got to see it! Unfortunately it kept getting delayed so by the time it took off, we were already at the ship terminal, but even 12 miles away we were able to SEE, HEAR, and FEEL it!! It was truly incredible. Something neither of us have ever seen, or ever THOUGHT we would see. Dave took upwards of 43897595904 pictures while I recorded it. I cannot wait to get back to school and show my kiddos! 

One of my favorite parts of working through the summer is that I get to learn about new resources and try them out before I get to my classroom in the fall. Through the World and English Language Learning (WELL) program, I am currently co-teaching with 3 (yes, THREE) other teachers. Due to the fact that we are working with ELLs in our group, we are working to develop Tier 3 vocabulary to develop academic English. We have been engaging our students in research projects throughout the week and they. are. loving. it!

One of my co-teachers introduced the rest of us to Pebble Go this week. I am OBSESSED with it! Pebble Go is an emergent reader research search engine. It has hundreds of articles across their Animals, Earth & Space, Biographies, and Social Studies databases. Articles can be read aloud with headphones and incorporate various non-fiction text features. Additionally, it can be blown up onto the SMARTboard so students can be guided through research processes. Articles can also be printed and used with small groups. Granted, I have only had a couple of days' experience with it, but I am loving it and cannot wait to use it with my Firsties this year!

Have you heard of PebbleGo? Do you use it in your classroom? Comment on how you use this program! I would LOVE to hear your thoughts/opinions/ideas.

My absolute FAVORITE part of the our vacation was when my husband took me to Blue Lagoon Island in the Bahamas to swim and play with my all-time FAVORITE animal, the SEA LION!!!! We had an INCREDIBLE time! We met three sea lions, fed them, trained them, checked their mouths, etc... as part of their daily check-up, played games with them, and even hugged and kissed them! It was so much fun! Definitely one of the most enjoyable experiences that I have had in my entire life. I am truly lucky to have such an amazing man in my life who will put up with my goofiness, but I surely suspect that he had a great time, too! :)

0

Let's Talk About Books and a FREEBIE!

And now for one of my favorite linky parties of the summer... Thanks to Mrs. Jump for hosting!!

This week, I am highlighting a book that I have JUST discovered by one of my favorite Children's Book authors, Chris Raschka! First, let's talk about Mr. Raschka for a moment! He is the author who brought some serious favorites including Yo! Yes?, A Blushful Hippopotamus, and many others. Chris' books are special because they do a spectacular job at conveying particular feelings using vivid illustrations and simple, kid-friendly text. This year, I was extraordinarily lucky to receive a $100 grant for a local library book sale. While purging their Children's Book section, I came across...

Charlie Parker Played be bop!

I had never heard of this book before, but I LOVED John Coltrane's Giant Steps so I snatched it up. As many of you know, our school is currently under a MAJOR arts grant and anything that we can do to more fully integrate the arts is a thumbs up! I tossed the book in the stack with all of the others and just this weekend got around to looking through it.

What I found exceeded my expectations!

Each page offered engaging illustrations. Full of color, line, and expression, they hit on many different points. I cannot wait to use this book as a mentor text with my firsties!

Throughout the year in Kindergarten, we worked diligently on developing stamina for writing and strategies for editing and revising. This year, we will be delving into Author's Craft! This book will be a great kick-off to onomatopoeia as it will allow the kiddos to put an image to each sound.  

I have created a small set of graphic organizers that the kids can use before or after reading the book. Before Reading: Use the pages to imagine what each word could mean and stand for. See if their representation in the book matches your own! After Reading: Create alternative meanings or representations for each sound word -- OR -- use the images given to There is also a space where students are able to create their own word to use in their writing. Feel free to let me know other ways you would use this book/activity! And check out the activity in my TPT Store HERE! (FREEBIE! FREEBIE! FREEBIE!) Also, check out my Sight Word Assessment Pack -- Currently one sale for... 100% OFF! This is a FLASH FREEBIE and will be free for 24 HOURS ONLY. PLEASE, I only ask that if you download the pack, you leave a quick review. Thank you so much!! You can read about the pack HERE!

2

Summer School Overview and Highlights

As I have mentioned, in previous posts, I have been working summer school this year. It is such an interesting and truly different experience than teaching throughout the school year. In typical Tiffany fashion, I have stretched myself a little thin, taking on 3 different summer programs. Currently, I am working in 2 separate programs both set to end July 25th, the 3rd program will begin immediately following our return from our cruise. Program Overview and Highlights Program #1: District Summer School

• Required for all students considered "Substantially Deficient" as determined by the DRA2, alone. No other assessments considered.
• Lasts 18 instructional days, 4 hours each day (includes 30 minutes for breakfast and 30 minutes for lunch).
• No pre-test (May DRA2 administration considered to be Pre).
• All students must take the DRA2 the final week of the program.
• Participating students in grades K-3
• Students grouped by DRA level
• Curriculum provided, but not enforced.
• Class Breakdown:
• 13 students
• 5 girls, 8 boys
• 3 Kindergarteners
• 3 1st graders
• 3 2nd graders
• 4 3rd graders
• DRA2 Scores
• Not Tested: 1
• BA: 1
• A: 1 student
• 2: 1 student
• 3: 3 students
• 4: 7 students

Program #2: Principal-Funded Cusp Program

• 100% voluntary -- students referred by teachers at end of school year.
• Designed for students not qualified for summer school (scores above "substantially deficient" range), but also not yet on level.
• Lasts 18 instructional days, 2 hours each day (immediately following regular summer school).
• No curriculum provided.
• Minimal student data available.

Program #3: WELL (World & English Language Learners) -- Regional Program

• 100% voluntary -- all students in the region invited with emphasis on ELLs.
• Designed for students in grades 4-8 to gain instruction in Chinese and/or Spanish language/culture as well as support for regional ELLs.
• Began in April. Ran every other Saturday for a total of 5 classes, to be concluded in August with 10 classes running Monday-Friday from 9-2:30.
• Pilot program, all curriculum and materials created/designed/acquired by staff.
• Follows a co-teaching model
• No pre-requisites, no student data available.

There is a clear difference between the three programs. Two are voluntary, 1 is not. 

0