Another Year in the Books

Wow! Another year in the books! It was wonderful not to have to pack up a classroom, now that I'm in the library! Finished up the 19,000+ book inventory, re-labeled over 125 books that were coming up incorrectly barcoded, inventoried and reorganized the teacher resources closet (Actual space to add more materials!),

and reorganized the reference shelves to, hopefully, make them more usable next year.

I did already see several projects that will need my attention in the fall, such as relabeling our 39 Clues books as a "series" to make them easier to find. Will also need to re-label some reference book spines, and to try to help categorize the teacher resources mentor texts into usable topics for mini-lessons. While we did just adopt Lucy Calkins writing materials, and I'm sure we'll be looking at ordering her mentor text suggestions, we can also still utilize the many books we have previously purchased. I also found some great math and science texts in there too! I love a good book project! :)

In addition to some much needed summer vacationing, including a visit to New York's Public Library, and to Florida's Panama City Beach, I am also going to take part in a Google Educator professional development course this summer. Looking forward to sharing what I learn!

Comments

Quarter 1 Common Core ELA & Math

Forsyth County, GA posted a link to the pacing guide they have created for next school year. I printed it out and took it home to look it over and start planning for next August. I know, I know. I'm working on the first day of summer vacation, but I need to wrap my brain around the new standards and how they will mesh together with science and social studies. Here is what I created for quarter 1 English/Language Arts. (Hopefully, the following quarters won't be so time consuming!) Everything in black type was provided by the county or the Common Core Standards website. Everything in blue type is something of my own that I added. Here is what I created for quarter 1 math common core content.

Smile

Look at that shelf. Such disarray. That's kind of how I felt around mid-August. Pulled in too many directions. On overload. In need of a bookend to hold me up and set me straight. (or, in need of more time in my day) One week, I tried staying no later than 4 PM, and leaving undone what I couldn't accomplish, but that was stressful, too! I currently spend around 30 minutes everyday, either during classes, during planning, or after, afternoon car duty, to keep all of the books shelved. I'm doing a better job of preventing the shelves from looking like the one pictured above. (We've had 3 different moms come a collective six times to volunteer to help with shelving. Yay for Mrs. Stratton, who has come back multiple times!) I implemented a new change this year, to allow 4th and 5th graders to re-shelve their own fiction or everybody/picture books. That has helped! I also started a 5th grade program called "Castle Apprentice" (since our library

Khan Academy

Good Morning! Enjoying a relaxing morning at my parents' house for a family visit. We were watching CBS This Morning and saw an interview with Salmon Kahn about his Khan Academy . It offers online videos of a grand variety of topics so that all students can have a "world class education". However, it ALSO has benefits for teachers, other than being FREE, it offers detailed profiles on individual students with an at-a-glance tool for seeing every video that that child has viewed and a class summary graph to show progress or need for remediation. The site also offers a vertical continuum of skills so that you can go straight to the topic you need and/or go back to more foundational skills to tackle more difficult skills. Lastly, the site awards "badges" for student mastery of skills. Students must create their own account and then add the teacher as a "coach". There are several safety features to keep students from posting private informa

Blessed to Teach and Read

Search This Blog