Monday, August 26, 2019

Beginning of year 13...reflections on Week 1

Whew!  Back in the classroom and ready to rock and roll.  I had a great but busy summer taking kids to France, celebrating my 40th in Puerto Rico with my rockstar colleague Profe Deida, her hubby and my hubby (I now know the joys of reggaeton), attending and emceeing NTPRS, presenting a workshop in Minneapolis, and trying to keep my own kids entertained.

With all that, I didn't have a ton of time to really reflect on my teaching.  Nonetheless, I did make some changes this year.  Here's my list:

  • Room set-up: Last year I had students grab a chair of their choice and move it to their assigned seat.  This set-up and tear-down took way too much time and there were kids who picked the comfortable seats every day so that they could veg out.  This year, I moved the comfy chairs to a reading nook that is only used during FVR time and my "normal" chairs are always in a horseshoe.  Every hour, I take the notebooks for that hour and set them on the chairs so that there is a new seating chart every day.  I can't remember who I stole that idea from, but I read it in a blog, I'm sure.
    • So far, I think this is working very well.  I don't have to take so much time at the end of class having them "clean up" and the kids seem more engaged sitting in a more traditional chair.  Plus, the comfortable chairs in the reading nooks seem to get kids more excited about FVR time!
  • Better use of notebooks: last year I started with composition notebooks for each student, thinking that they would be able to easily keep everything in one place.  With a disorganized teacher, that became absolute mayhem as there were papers shoved everywhere.  So this year, I decided to follow my dear friend Elicia's techniques to create a better organized notebook.
    • So far, so much better!  Kids' things are on a specific page and it should be easy for them to find and use in the future.  
  • Starting with special person: I decided to mix special person with "regular" stories and units so that I can get started more quickly.  Last year and the years before, special person was taking until October to get through and the kids were getting bored with it.
    • I think this is working well, but we are only one week in so far, so I'll have to re-evaluate in a month or so.
How about you guys?  What did you change this year and how is it going?

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