Classroom Decorating Day 3

I am exhausted, y'all! It's almost 9 o'clock and I really just want to take a bath and go to bed, but I wanted to share my progress today since it's finally starting to take shape. Plus, tomorrow's post will be chapter 3 in my Word Nerds book study. Be sure and read about chapter 1 and chapter 2 before tomorrow's post and if you don't have the book, go order it now! You will love it!!! :)

So, I arrived at my classroom this morning and starting putting up this board to kick off my black and white theme.

And then I realized I had no border. I haven't been to a school supply store ONCE this summer! Can y'all believe that?! I sure can't! I'm pretty sure the owners of my local school supply store couldn't either. :) 

Anyways, I went with the intention of purchasing ONLY border, but then I saw this:

Did y'all know they made patterned bulletin board paper?!?! I just had to get some. I mean, right? I could not pass this up! :) 

I was also shocked to discover pocket charts in other colors besides blue. I guess when you don't visit a school supply store in a year, they get new inventory! :) I needed a pocket chart for my word nerds board that I'm creating and really wanted a pretty green or purple, but I ended up with black since it was going on that pretty pink polka dot paper. 

So, after coming in for border ONLY, I left with this! I'm kinda over the chevron craze, but I did really like that pink chart paper! And I thought the black polka dot would work well with my black and white theme. The sentence strips are for my Word nerds board. 

The closest school supply store is about an hour away from me, so once I got back, I started to just call it a day and not return to the classroom, but I decided to go ahead and get a little bit done. I ended up getting 2 and 1/2 boards finished! This one is by far the biggest. It will display our comprehension skills and strategies anchor charts that we are working on during that grading period. Want to see what I'm teaching first? Check out this post. 

I found this lamp on clearance at Hancock's Fabric at the beginning of summer. Isn't it pretty? And that desk calender is from the Day Designer line by Blue Sky for Target. They have the prettiest calendars and agendas right now at Target. Love!

I haven't finished bordering this green board (future evidence board), but I wanted to show y'all how good it looks without any border at all. I'm seriously in love with this paper!

It's coming together! I can't wait to start decorating boards! :) I'll be back tomorrow with a Word Nerds post! :) Happy weekend! 

Be sure and check out my newest obsession, Agenda Planning, on my Life+Style blog Southern Belle Inspired :)

Word Nerds: Chapter 2

Hi friends! It's time to talk about chapter 2 of Word Nerds. If you missed my thoughts on the intro and chapter 1, you can read them here. Be sure and check out Heather's blog to see her thoughts and ideas! :)

Chapter 2 is titled "Classrooms That Foster Word Confidence and to be honest y'all, I don't have a whole lot to share...yet! I would love to fill this post with pictures of how I'm implementing this into my own classroom, but my classroom currently looks like this:

I know, I know. My classroom totally makes you excited about increasing your vocabulary, right? ;) ;)

I have ideas on what I want to do, but have I tackled them yet? That would be no. :( So instead of sharing pictures, I'm going to share my thoughts and I *promise* my next post will be picture heavy! :) 

Here's 3 things I took away from Chapter 2:

{1}

In order to create a fun environment where students feel safe to learn, you must establish rules and a process for having fun. 

I know my class can get loud sometimes, and that's okay! My kids and I have discussed ways to act appropriately in class and what NOT to do! So if we are presenting vocabulary skits where students get in groups and act out a word, it might seem like they are just goofing off, but they are actually learning! I'll never forget when a group of students demonstrated a word by acting like they were riding down the road in a car, singing a popular song. I remember thinking, I hope no one comes in right now because it looks like we are just playing! Later that week after the test, a student raised their hand and told the class that he knew he got that word right on the test because he remembered how that group acted it out in their skit. Would he have connected that word on the test to a definition he had simply copied from a book? Probably not! 

My point is this. It is crucial for students to interact with words in a fun, creative way, but there has to be a process set in place. We are able to do skits and other interactive activities with vocabulary because we have discussed what to do and what not to do. I set a timer and constantly remind the kids how much time they have. If they are working hard and need more time, I give them more time. But if they are goofing off, they are sent back to their desk. They know this and you'd be surprised how many groups keep that in mind. If at any point in the activity the entire class  get too loud, we stop the activity and move onto a different activity that isn't as "fun".  They quickly learn how to behave. :)

{2}

Classroom should be student convenient, not teacher convenient. 

I'm an only child, so I blame this on my need for control. That makes sense, right? ;) I have to work really hard on letting my classroom be more for the students than for me. For example, I always cringe when the students say, your first class really left your bookshelf in a mess. I don't want them to think of it as my bookshelf or my reading area. I want them to think of it as our classroom, not mine. 

In order for this to happen, classrooms need to be designed with the students in mind, not the teacher. I realized that I mostly sit at my small group table and my teacher desk was taking up a large corner of the room that could be used by the students! I sometimes let my students work around the room with a clipboard and by removing my teacher desk, it will allow more space for the kids. Isn't that the whole point of a classroom anyways? Now, I'm not saying everyone of you should remove your desk, but think of ways you can make your classroom more student centered than teacher centered! It will create a sense of family and make students feel more comfortable to learn. One of my students even brought this up on their end of the year reading reflection. Reading this made my heart happy :)

Is that not precious?! 

{3}

Model, Model, Model

I sometimes reflect on how I taught a certain lesson and think, okay, you didn't show them enough examples of how to do it! You just told them how to do it, showed one example, and gave them the assignment. Please tell me that I'm not the only one that sometimes thinks this? I forget how important modeling is because of time! There's so much to get in and I sometimes disregard that crucial step. I think this is especially important in teaching vocabulary. You can show students a sentence with the vocabulary word in it, but that doesn't mean they are going to automatically understand how to use that word correctly. It's so important to create examples in front of the students and WITH the students in order for them to comprehend the meaning of the word. 

Let's talk! What are your thoughts on this? I'd love to hear them! Heather and I will be discussing chapter 3 Saturday. :) :)

Be sure and check out my review of body scrubs (seriously, these are making my skin so much softer!) on my Life+Style blog, Southern Belle Inspired. :)

Word Nerds Book Study: Intro and Chapter 1

Hi friends! I am so excited for today's post. Heather from The Elementary Journey and I are teaming up for a mini book study on Word Nerds: Teaching All Students to Learn and Love Vocabulary. I always try and read a few professional development books over the summer, and so far I haven't made it pass Word Nerds. There are SO many great ideas in this one that I really wanted to take my time and soak up all of the info it has to offer. 

As I was reading, I really thought about how I have been teaching vocabulary in my classroom and I realized something: I really wasn't teaching vocabulary like I should be.

Isn't that pen adorable?! It comes with two others that are even cuter! You can grab them here. 

When I read this part in the introduction, I thought "exactly!" I hate to admit it, but that's what I had been doing. I gave my kids the vocabulary words, we would have an activity to practice them, and then we would test Friday. And guess what, after Friday's test, we never talked about 90% of those words. Sure, I left them posted in the room after the test, but we never actually used them in context or practiced them. Did my kids retain those words? Nope.

I blamed this failure on time. There simply isn't enough time to spend on vocabulary and effectively teach it. Or that's what I thought until I read this book. I was wrong. You can (and should!) spend a good amount of time increasing your students' vocabulary! I was so focused on getting everything in by Friday in time to test on it, that I was missing the point of the content. I found myself teaching the best when I slowed down and provided students with enough time to practice with content. 

 The book follows two teachers- Leslie H. Montgomery and Margot Holmes Smith, a 3rd and 5th grade teacher. It shows ways the two teachers teach and practice effective vocabulary strategies in their classrooms.  The one thing I wish the book had done differently is put the Vocabulary Cycle Plan (found in Ch. 8, p. 124-125) in the beginning of the book. I found myself thinking a lot throughout the book "Okay, that's a great idea, but when am I going to fit that in?? There isn't time to fit in that much vocabulary instruction!" They include both a 5 day Vocabulary Cycle Plan and a 10 day Vocabulary Cycle Plan and after thinking and planning, I've found that a 10 day cycle will work better for me. At first I was worried that my kids wouldn't be exposed to enough words if I did 10 days (2 weeks) at a time, but when you read the book, you realize that while there are only 5 or 6 vocabulary words at a time in the cycle, you are also learning and practicing synonyms and antonyms for each word. I sometimes need to see the end result or what something will look like on a bigger scale before I work or understand the smaller parts, so having that in mind at the beginning of the book would have prevented me from wondering what the plan would actually look like on a day to day (or week to week) basis in my classroom. 

Chapter One is titled What's the Big Deal About Vocabulary Instruction?

This sentence from chapter 1 really stuck out to me. WE are responsible for exposing kids to new words in order to provide them with a chance at a bright future. This is important, people! 

Chapter 1 also discusses the level of words. My wonderful instruction coach first taught me about this, so I was glad to see it mentioned in this book. Levels of words was created by Isabel Beck, Margaret McKeown, and Kinda Kucan in a book called Bringing Words to Life. 

Another huge moment that stuck with me from chapter 1 was this sentence:

I think I've always known this, but still. Knowing and taking action are two different things and I blamed time again. Sure, I did a few activities like Quick Draws and Vocabulary Review, but I wasn't providing daily practice in order for kids to retain new words. 

So what was the big point I took away from the Introduction and Chapter 1 of Word Nerds? 

We need to provide students with engaging, hands on activities in order for them to learn and retain new words. And we need to make time for this. It's that important! :)

Are you reading Word Nerds? Or have you already read this amazing book? We would love for you to share your thoughts with us as we post ours! Comment below and tell us what you are thinking about providing vocabulary practice and effective instruction in your classroom! 

Happy 4th of July!

Happy 4th of July, friends! I'll be back tomorrow with my thoughts on Chapter 1 of Word Nerds. If you haven't read this book, I highly suggest you invest in it now! It's completely changed the way I think of teaching vocabulary! #love :) 

Classroom Decorating: Day 2

Day 2 of classroom decorating is in the books and my classroom officially looks like a tornado came through. I was so confident that this was going to be the easiest decorating this summer after day one because I had forgotten about all the junk that had to be unpacked from the built in table. This is what it looked like at the end of day 1:

Look at how bare the floor looked! Silly me didn't realize what it would look like when all that stuff came down!

It looks like this! Getting everything down took forever! I didn't realize how much I had stuffed up there. And all by myself! Getting it down wasn't near as easy as putting it up there! 

Exhibit A: my favorite lamp bit the dust :(

RIP pretty pink lamp :(

On a more positive note, I placed my bookshelves. I really think I need black book shelves, don't y'all?? 

Above the bookshelves will be my evidence board. You can see last year's here and grab a free copy of the evidence term posters here. :) The VIP Area is moving, so the door will need to be recovered as well. I'm planning on creating my Word Nerd vocabulary board on that blank space between the window and the corner. I'll be posting more about Word Nerds soon! 

I began to unpack supplies for the small group area and realized I need to go through some things and throw away junk/donate! I found a nurse's slip from two years ago!!! I'm determined to be more organized this year. Once I decided this, things went a little slower and I accumulated more trash bags. I'm making progress, even if you can't yet see it :)

I've had several people ask when I go back because I'm already working in the classroom. We got out in mid May and go back early/mid August. This is actually the latest I've wait to get back in my classroom since they were waxing the floors. One of my favorite parts of my job is working on decorating my classroom, so I'm always anxious to get started :)

Are you able to work in your classroom during the summer? Let me know in the comments below! :)

Be sure and check out my coffee table mini makeover over on my Life+Style blog Southern Belle Inspired :)

Classroom Decorating Day 1

Happy Tuesday, y'all! I went back to my classroom for the first time yesterday and worked a little bit. I didn't get a lot accomplished. I placed most of the furniture, but that was pretty much it. I'm getting rid of my teacher desk and another big table this year in an attempt to declutter! Anyways, here are the pics. I know it isn't much to look at, but it's fun to see the progress! Gotta start somewhere, right? 

Here's the view when I walked in. Those desks weigh a ton! It took forever just to get them all down and placed.

It's so easy to find decor for my black and white theme! These two rugs are from Wal Mart and TJ Maxx. This will be the reading area. 

I'm thinking 4 groups of 6 desks...I'm liking the way it looks, but I may change to 6 groups of 4 if there's enough room. See all that stuff stacked on the table??? That's tomorrows project!

Future small group area. Fun fact: I've never used a kidney shaped table, y'all! 

Future VIP Area. Don't know what this is? Read all about it here!

This blue table needs to find a new home. Mission Declutter has officially begun!

The teacher desk will also leave the room. I usually sit at my small group table anyways and I'm trying to make more room for the kids to read and work around the room instead of sitting in their desks all class period. 

Hopefully boards will start going up later this week and I can share some "cute" pics with y'all! :) :)

Be sure and check out my June Favs over on my Life+Style blog Southern Belle Inspired! 

Life Lately

Hi peeps! Isn't summer wonderful! I thought I would stop by and share a few summer happenings with y'all. Normally, I'd already be back in my classroom, working away on a new design, but I just can't bring myself to! Plus, the floors are still being waxed, so technically I couldn't go back if I wanted to. I'm using that as my excuse! For now, I'm perfectly okay with staying home and enjoying life. Here's a little bit of what I've been up to.

In an attempt to not totally abandon all things school and teacher related I ordered these new PD reads. I'm already LOVING Word Nerds! What are your favorite professional development books? Comment below and let me know! I'm always on the lookout.

In addition to PD book, I'm also getting caught up on all the reading that I don't get to do during the school year.  Follow me on Good Reads!

I finally worked on the first TpT product in two months! You can check it out here :)

I also purchased this binding machine and I cannot get over how easy it is to use! I'll be sharing about this product soon! :)

I've gotten lazy on my skin care routine and in an effort to get better, I've decided to start posting more product reviews on my Life+Style blog Southern Belle Inspired. Check out all the products I used up last month and see which ones I loved and hated!

I also went on a little beauty run in Ulta and got these goodies!

And binge watching The Office on Netflix while waiting for the new season of Orange is the New Black! Anyone else love these two totally different shows?? 

That's my life lately! :)